Key findings

• 64% of members who have had something start on a work trip say the appeal is that the trip itself is verifiable — booked by an employer, in a shared calendar, with a badge to prove it.
• 56% say it happened on the second night rather than the first. Three quarters name the hotel bar after the organised dinner broke up.
• 42% say they arranged to meet somebody before they travelled, knowing the dates weeks in advance.
•  From a poll of 1,750 married members by IllicitEncounters.com, the UK’s leading extramarital dating site, and the site’s own location data.

The work trip is the only lie nobody has to tell. Somebody else books the hotel, the dates sit in a calendar a partner can see, and there is a badge with your name on it proving you were exactly where you said you would be. It is also the only one that can be planned around, because it is confirmed weeks before it happens.

Somewhere in the country tonight, several thousand people are two nights into a work trip. The trade shows, the sales kick-offs, the training weeks, the two nights in a Novotel that every industry books without anybody thinking twice about it. IllicitEncounters.com, the UK’s leading extramarital dating site, asked 1,750 married members what actually happens on those nights.

The site has known for a while that the work trip is the riskiest thing in a diary, but not which night of it, and 56% said whatever happened, happened on the second rather than the first. The first night is dinner with people you work with and an early start. The second is the one where the organised part finishes, the bar stays open, and nobody has anywhere to be.

Almost none of it happens at the event itself, which is a day of stands and lanyards and somebody else’s slides; it is the hotel afterwards that does the damage, and three quarters named the bar once the organised dinner had broken up. The largest group by some way had arranged it before they travelled at all: 42%, ahead of colleagues on 23% and anybody actually met at the event.

Suzanne*, 41, from Bristol, does four trade shows a year. “He can see it in the shared calendar, he knows the hotel, he could ring the front desk if he wanted,” she says. “That’s the whole point of it. I’ve never once had to make anything up.”

Daniel*, 46, from Glasgow, puts it more simply. “Nobody questions the second night. You’re already there.”

The site’s own figures follow the travel rather than the calendar. Activity in a city runs about 30% above its ordinary week whenever a large industry event is running there, and a good deal of it lands in the days before rather than during. People book the trip, then book the evening.

Jessica Leoni, sex and relationships expert for IllicitEncounters.com, said: “Every other affair needs a story, and the story’s the risky part. Where you were, who you were with, why your phone was off. A work trip needs none of it. Your employer’s already told your partner where you are, and they’ve paid for the room.”

She added: “The second night’s the one to watch, and every sales director in the country knows it even if they’ve never said it out loud. First night everyone’s on their best behaviour because the client’s there. By the second the formal bit’s done, the bar’s still open, and the people left in it are the ones who didn’t want to go to bed.”

Results

Who it was with (of those who say something started on a work trip; one answer only)

Who it was with	%
Somebody arranged before travelling	42%
A colleague from your own company	23%
Somebody met at the event — client, supplier or competitor	20%
Somebody staying in the same hotel, nothing to do with the event	9%
Somebody local, met away from the event	6%

*Names have been changed.

About Illicit Encounters

IllicitEncounters.com is the UK’s largest and longest-running extramarital dating site, established in 2004. The site has over one million UK members and publishes regular research on modern infidelity and relationships in Britain, with expert commentary from sex and relationships expert Jessica Leoni.

Press contact: [email protected]