How international business travelers spend Thanksgiving on the road

International business travelers often have to eat alone. This can be especially annoying during the holiday season, when the boughs of holly in the lobby make it that much harder for you to try to look serious, and not just sad, when you’re sitting with a laptop going over an Excel spreadsheet. For Thanksgiving, many upscale hotels all over the world offer special Thanksgiving menus, including the Manhattan Grill at the Grand Hyatt Dubai. According to restaurant hostess Olga Pikina, they’re serving a five-course dinner: Artichoke with garlic croutons, pumpkin soup, pan-seared swordfish, spiced apple sorbet, and for the main course, a Butterball turkey imported from America. For dessert a pecan tart. Sounds comforting, authentic, and homey. But that kind of makes it even less tempting to show up alone, as evidenced by the reservation record. Of the 29 reservations the Grand Hyatt Dubai has booked for Thanksgiving, Pikina says: “None of them are for tables of one.”