The old adage of face-to-face meetings being sacrosanct is never truer than it is today, set against one of the worst economic outlooks globally since the last recession. It is more urgent than ever that deals are clinched, contracts are signed and business targets met. That means busy travel departments ensuring that company executives get the right airline seat and secure the right hotel room. The message is, essential business must continue.
That paints a relatively upbeat picture of the current business travel market and a recent ITM study of its membership – of which roughly 40% are SMEs - bears this out.
The survey of an admittedly small group (175) of UK buyers highlights the fact that three times the number of respondents feel optimistic about the business travel sector compared to the economy at large. It also suggests “business travel is divorced from the global economy to a certain extent as companies need to continue to travel in order to maintain and grow business.”
Moreover, nobody is talking up the idea of travel bans or travel freezes. Nearly 80% of respondents suggest they do not undertake such activity and, of the minority who do, half suggest that such a ban would happen sooner rather than later and only last three months at the most (say 67%).
Instead, controlling costs are best dealt with by requests for essential travel only (80%), pushing videoconferencing and other non-travel alternatives (76%) or encouraging meetings, conferences and events to be staged locally rather than in exotic locations (65%), says the survey.
So, what are we all worried about? Even the spectre of rising service costs from the increase in the cost of oil doesn’t appear to even raise an eyebrow. According to the ITM survey, a large minority of respondents (42%) advised that oil had only raised costs moderately and 37% reported that increased electricity and gas prices had not had any real impact as of yet. “Only a tiny minority had reduced travel as a direct effect,” says the survey.
What does stir the average travel manager, it seems, is getting travellers to play ball with travel policy. Some 64% of respondents advised that 75% or more of their company travellers adhered to company directives to reduce or stop travel or reduce class of travel.
It’s all encouraging stuff, although of course, cynics will recall during and post the Gulf War and after 9/11 and the July London bombings, no significant changes to traveller behaviour was detected. Hardly any of those face-to-face meetings were swapped for a sterile meeting room sitting in front of a video screen. Videoconferencing manufacturers have had commercial opportunities given to them on a plate over the last decade but still, the market refuses to grow.
Mind you, if a company has a choice between adopting videoconferencing or mandating travel policy, most corporates will opt for the former. According to the ITM survey, some 55% said their companies would encourage video, audio and web conference technology use and adoption would improve. This time round, the technology is more reliable and the cost less prohibitive so perhaps this time round there will be what ITM calls a paradigm shift and “changed business travel practices forever, with executives travelling far less than before.”
I know what my money is on, and it’s not the technology.
