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She's a member, too | JOYCE GIOIA

A life member since 2007, Joyce Gioia is a writer, traveller and CEO of The Herman Group, a management consultant firm. USA Today named Gioia its 2013 Road Warrior of the Year for her business traveling experience and acumen — she logged more than 114,000 miles and 70 hotel nights in 2013 alone. She's a Certified Speaking Professional and Certified Management Consultant and has authored or co-authored five business books, including her most recent, Impending Crisis: Too Many Jobs, Too Few People.

Interviewed in October 2014


Travel much lately? I was up to 42 hotel nights this year by May 1. I was in Asia for six weeks. When I came back I was home for just a day before dashing to San Francisco for a board meeting and speaking event.

Ever get to travel for pleasure? Quite a bit, actually. But I've learned to combine business travel and travel for pleasure. For example, I did some work in Beijing recently. I was rating some hotels and doing some speaking. And from there we did Viking's Roof of the World Cruise [16 days throughout China]. In November I'm traveling to Bangkok and scheduled to arrive two weeks early for some side trips.

How can you tolerate so much travel? I'm a big believer in kindness. I bring goodies to flight attendants. I pick up treats in the [airport] clubs or bring them from home. I believe flight attendants are folks who deserve our appreciation.… If you smile and give people positive energy, that's going to be reflected back to you in their smile and their service. That doesn't make just travel more tolerable but life easier. I also recommend laughing a lot.

How is travel changing? Because of climate change, there are more severe storms, more flooding and more droughts. We're seeing more weather in general that we'll need to cope with as travelers. I have consistently asked flight attendants over the past year if they've noticed more turbulence, and more than half have said yes. Eventually we as consumers and the industry will adjust to the new normal. We will have more weather to deal with and thus more delays, but there will be adjustments to make them easier to deal with. I'm not sure what they'll be. But this is the new reality to which we'll adapt.

Most recent book: Impending Crisis: Too Many Jobs, Too Few People… At this point, we're interestingly finding the workforce in the same position as it was 10 or 11 years ago. We are in a position where 69 percent of employers are saying they can't find people to fill their open positions. It has everything to with the fact that many companies stopped training people. And now they just want to hire people who already have the experience, who already have the expertise, and they can't find them because we just don't have enough of them. At the same time, we have this huge disconnect because we have millions of people who are perfectly trained and very capable of handling jobs that no longer exist. We have a huge retraining job to do in this country so that we have the right qualified people to take the job.

Road warrior's travel tips

  • If you want to avoid crowds of children, take early flights.
  • Leave early enough in the day to arrive by late-afternoon for a next-day engagement. It allows plenty of time for relaxing and rest.
  • When booking airfare or hotels, check the online services first, then call the airline or hotel to ask if agents can match or beat the price you found online. They'll almost always at least match the price and sometimes beat it. You'll also end up with more flexible accommodations that are easier to cancel or make schedule changes.
  • Be kind. It makes a huge difference in your travel experience!

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