Be honest. How many times have you chatted up, or been chatted up, in a five-star hotel or when travelling business class? How many times have you flopped into your upmarket room from a late flight, knackered, but still lively enough to spruce up and nip downstairs for a nightcap and to see who is at the hotel bar? Women readers may scoff and say they never do that, but they’d be lying. For sure they look around them when sitting in business class or first to check if there’re any wealthy single-looking chaps or celebrities, but the new cubicle layouts make this rather difficult.
The time to check them out is in the lounge, but then they are usually glued to their iPads. After that you have to wait till they don their pyjamas and trot down the aisle to the loo, but that’s neither a good look nor a good opportunity. And the guys at the pointy end are often off-duty pilots, not tycoons. So the chances of meeting Mr or Ms High Net Worth Individual on the plane are limited. Unless you are a member of the cabin crew.
Hot spots to meet
Not that every posh hotel bar is fun-filled and action-packed. Nine times out of ten you get down there to find the obligatory Filipino band called something like the Foxettes playing enthusiastically to an audience of three guys who are already being, well, entertained. Hotels in Asia offer pretty slim pickings for single ladies on the road. Men seem to have more opportunities. Women of any age have a far better chance of getting chatted up when drinking solo in a bar in Australia, Europe or America.
A new survey shows that one in four single travellers are indeed looking for love on the road, but relaxed holiday travel may offer more success than business trips.
As Rocky of “Bachelors at War” fame says: If you’re looking for ‘the one’, travel alone.
