By Jamie Freed
If your work phone has accompanied you on your latest holiday, you aren't alone.
Nearly three out of four Australian travellers admit remaining tethered to the office while they are supposed to be enjoying time off, according to the 2014 Global Mobile Index released by Expedia and Egencia on Thursday.
"Australians struggle a lot in comparison to our global counterparts when it comes to blocking out work on a holiday," Expedia Australia and New Zealand managing director Georg Ruebensal said, citing figures that 73 per cent of Australians with a work-paid device bring it along on holidays versus the 63 per cent global average.
The countries that are most likely to take their work-paid device on holiday, just ahead of Australia are Norway and India, while France, the UK, Germany and Japan are the least likely.
But one contributing factor to the inability of Australians to tune out is that only 26 per cent actually have a work-paid phone.
"The remainder are likely use one phone for both personal and work purposes, so it's hard to ignore work-related emails and calls when on leave," Mr Ruebensal said.
Not surprisingly, the survey found Australians have different behaviour when it comes to using devices when they travel for business versus for leisure.
Business travellers are far more likely to use laptops during their trip than leisure travellers and a little more likely to use a tablet. Business travellers are much more likely to use mobile devices for managing itineraries, shopping for flights and booking flights, while leisure travellers are likely to shop for hotels and use their mobile to receive flight alerts.
Relative to the global average, many Australian travellers try to limit their phone use while overseas. Only 26 per cent of Australians will purchase an international data or roaming plan, versus the global average of 35 per cent.
When it comes to offensive mobile behaviours, it turns out Australians have views that are relatively in line with global trends.
Listening to someone talk on the phone using a speakerphone in a public area is deemed offensive by more than half of Australians. Other offensive behaviours include playing music, games or videos without headphones, making calls when at a restaurant or cafe and taking photos or videos of people they don't know.
However, further down the list, there were some nuances. Nearly one-third of Australians are offended by someone using a device to send a text, email or message during a seated performance, which is well above the global average of 23 per cent.
"It's also interesting to see other cultural nuances where nearly a third of Germans, claim taking photographs of food during a meal is offensive behaviour and a third from Norway deem fellow travellers entertaining children with games, apps and videos unpleasant behaviour," Mr Ruebensal said.
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