UK the poor cousin of Europe's business travel

UK business people have firmer ties to their desks than their European counterparts, a new survey has found - but a little extra Wi-Fi would help get them out of the actual office.

According to research from Benchmark Reporting, conducted for HP, the Dutch are the keenest to go mobile, with 66 per cent of small businesses executives from the Netherlands saying they regularly travel for businesses.

Just 33 per cent of UK SMEs do the same, almost on a par with the French - Europe's worst stay-at-homes - where only 31 per cent of SME execs regularly travel for business.

When out of the office, small business workers prefer to set up camp in their hotel rooms, where internet access is easiest. Sixty-seven per cent of those SME execs surveyed said their hotel room becomes their second office, while restaurants were the remote working locations of choice for eight per cent and cafes were voted top for another six per cent.

Airport lounges - already costing the UK £600m per year through lost working hours - were deemed the least popular place for business travellers to set up their remote office.

Airports have done their very best to court the mobile worker, however, with Wi-Fi hotspots proliferating in departure lounges nationwide. There are now thought to be more than 70 in the UK alone.

Wi-Fi, the research found, is close to the heart of the business traveller. Of the SME executives polled, 86 per cent said Wi-Fi information services are important for getting the most out of leisure time, while around half of the SME execs said they'd take part in "local leisure activities" if they could find out about them on their PDAs or laptops.

Wireless location information services are already getting tech's biggest names slathering. Both Microsoft and Google have jumped into the local information market.