“What time is it?” “Should I have lunch or dinner? Breakfast, perhaps?A glass of wine? But, it’s only 8 a.m. — or is it?”

Does the above sound confusing? I bet it does! But those are the questions my brain has been asking of my body the past two days. I arrived in Singapore Sunday afternoon from New York, via Taipei with a stopover in Seattle to refuel. The trip itself was smooth and enjoyable on EVA Airways, but no matter how many times I cross the international dateline, the signals to eat and sleep get confused.

As I fight my jetlag and try to get my eating habits back on schedule, I am confident when in Singapore that I will not go hungry. With a restaurant or food stand nearly everywhere I turn, hunger is not the problem. Deciding which meal to eat, though, is the question, but one I do not mind having to decipher.

As I figure out what meal to go for next, it’s currently 6 p.m. Tuesday evening in Singapore (12 hours ahead of New York) and I just finished a second full day of meetings. I have learned from talking with people I meet on my travels that no matter how long the flights, schedules remain tight. Many people, even after 12-, 14- or even 18-hour flights, will head straight to the boardroom.

Luckily, the hotels and hospitality in Asia, especially Singapore, make life for the traveler a much more pleasant experience. In fact, I just received a call from the concierge at the Pan Pacific Club Desk arranging a car to the airport for me tomorrow, in-room check-out, and a butler if I require it. I’m sure many of you will agree that these pluses come in handy during your trips.

Well, I’ve decided to head off to The Oriental Hotel for dinner, so it’s time for me to sign off and say good night–and good day to those of you on the East Coast getting ready to start your mornings!

- Alex Young, Associate Publisher and Vice President

This week, I am on vacation with my family in the outer banks of North Carolina. Like many of our readers, it is my time to rest and relax, and for my clan, it’s the beach. Activities include playing golf at the Sea Scapes Golf Course in Kitty Hawk, hanging at the beach, and today we are off for our annual WaveRunner excursion.

 Until next week, enjoy your summer!

- Fran Gallagher, publisher and CEO

A new study from J.D. Powers & Associates surveyed almost 50,000 people about their most recent hotel stay. When asked for their single biggest complaint, the most common response had to do with noise. 

I was thinking about some of the questions that Lisa Matte raised in her recent blog. Number six was “What sound or noise do you hate?” While I can think of some sounds that bother me–nails on a blackboard, nearby jackhammers, people yelling at each other–I realized that what really bothers me about noise is how inconsiderate it seems; the more inconsiderate, the more it bothers me.

A lot of the noise we consider inconsiderate comes from people living in their own bubble.  Cell phone talkers are of course a prime example. Most of the time, they’re not actively thinking, “I’m going to invade your space and share my private conversation and the heck with you;” they’re in a bubble that only includes themselves and the people they’re talking to. When I’m backed up at a stop sign in a residential neighborhood behind a car that’s not moving for no apparent reason, I honk to wake the driver up; at the time, the street is my bubble, and I don’t think about whether I might wake a baby in a house nearby. If my neighbor decides to hang a picture at midnight, he’s probably in a bubble of inspiration–aha, THAT’s where to put it!–and not intentionally making the building vibrate.

For people who travel, a hotel room is one big bubble. It’s our retreat, our escape, our quiet place, and we don’t like having to acknowledge our neighbors. We don’t want to hear them; we don’t even want to give them another thought.  One of the biggest luxuries a hotel can offer is that sense of peace and quiet brought on by great construction, lots of soundproofing, and staff who speak in modulated tones. But that still can’t protect you against the middle-of-the-night room-to-room wrong number, or the early-morning departure having a  loud conversation right outside your door. “Show some consideration!” we want to shout.

Airplanes are, increasingly, providing premium-class passengers with noise-reduction headsets. But what we really need is noise-reduction mindsets among our fellow travelers.

-Mary Hunt, Editor, eFlyer

Business-travel romances really do happen. (And no, I don’t mean the “guess who I met in the bar?” variety.) In the July 31 eFlyer, we report on a study that shows that more than half of travelers who have a romance on the road turn it into a long-distance relationship, or more. Not too surprisingly, women outnumber men (but only by about 5:4) in believing a road relationship can have a future.

 I was actually a witness to one of those “does it really happen?” stories. I was in the Turks and Caicos, working on a guidebook, and I met a young woman about my own age who worked as an interpreter at the U.N. For a subsidized semi-vacation, she’d taken a job interpreting for an investor who was looking at some property in the islands. He was staying at a private villa, she at the same Front St. hotel (sadly no longer in existence) in Grand Turk as I, which had a cozy pub. As two single women travelers, we gravitated together over drinks. We played darts with some of the locals, and she got talking with one American who turned out to be staying in the hotel while his yacht was being repaired.

I was soon off to check out the other Turks (and various Caicos) for the guidebook, but she and I exchanged contact info, with a plan to meet for lunch when we both got back to New York. Instead, two weeks after I got home, I received a postcard. Jill had quit her job (also by postcard) and was touring the Caribbean with her new boyfriend on his yacht. Six months later, I got an invitation to the wedding.

As far as I know, they lived happily ever after.

-Mary Hunt, Editor, eFlyer

Earlier this week, GT invaded Boston to attend the annual NBTA conference. NBTA, the National Business Travel Association, holds its annual conference in a major domestic city every July.  This was my first time attending the convention, which was held at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, a brand new state-of-the-art facility located on the newly revamped South Side.

Touching down in Boston after a short 45-minute flight from Trenton, N.J., Fran Gallagher and I went into action, buying supplies and moving boxes to help get the Global Traveler booth in order. The rest of the GT family arrived late Saturday, Sunday and Monday. The convention kick-off party was held at the beautiful Boston library, which was overtaken by bands, food and the entire travel industry.

The crowning moment for GT, however, was our annual cocktail reception, held on Tuesday night at our hotel, the glamorous Taj Boston. With fantastic food and music by the band Swing Cafe, we hosted about 150 people from all over the travel spectrum. It was a smashing success and we are all wondering how we can top this event next year when the conference takes over Los Angeles.

It was a great time and it is always fun when we get everyone together. Since we work from various offices around the country, NBTA is one of the few times a year that we all have the chance to work together. In addition to myself and Fran, Dick Evans was in from PA, Alex Young took the train from the Big Apple, Kate Simpson flew in from the West Coast, our distribution specialists, John Wroblewski and Louis Atsaves, joined us from Chicago, our circulation manager, Anna Pudzianowski, was able to attend, and Lisa Matte, our editor-in-chief and a Boston-area native, was able to show us her city. And we all got the chance to hear the infamous Boston accent we never knew Lisa had - All in all, a great trip!

 - Kim Krol, Circulation and Public Relations Executive