Garpet's Goodies
From Management Issues

What future for business travel?

"While it is far too early to predict the long-term effects of yesterday's events in Britain on the already fragile global airline industry, we must be approaching the point at which the stress and inconvenience we are prepared to undergo as part of the air travel experience starts to have a significant impact on our decision to fly at all.

As the travel editor of the Independent, Simon Calder, suggests today, a continuing ban on hand luggage will have a major impact on airlines even if they do manage to devise some means of enabling passengers to take valuable electronic gadgets with them without the risk of them being stolen or destroyed by baggage handlers.

Much of Britain's commercial aviation is kept afloat by the premium fares paid by business people. Judging by some of the scenes at check-ins yesterday, executives might more readily surrender their children than their laptops, Blackberries and mobile phones. But technology also provides plenty of alternatives to face-to-face meeting, should the stress of air travel - and the inability to work during the journey - prove too daunting."

It is interesting to read this article as it gives us a view into the future directions as far as the uptake of internet enabled communications are concerned.

With virtual conferencing being available virtually everywhere these days and with the quality of these communications being ever better because of the availability of faster and faster broadband connections it is likely that most executives will give up the joys of air travel and work from their offices anywhere around the world when conferencing.

Or will they?

For many people who attend meetings and conferences the most productive time that they have with the other people present is not actually at the face to face meetings. Generally these are 'set pieces' that have been preprogrammed by each of the participants. Each person comes with a particular point of view or a set piece of information for delivery to the other people who are in attendance. The reality is that it is in the times between the formal sessions that people interact over coffee in nooks and crannies of the meeting area or at meal times or simply during breaks in the formal agenda to really get to grips with issues out of sight of the media and other players. It is these back room deals and meetings that really enable people to work together as it is in these locations that most of the real business of conferences gets done.

Anyone who sees the news and watches people in front of the assembled media giving a virtuoso performance at a conference table and thinks that this represents what actually happens in getting deals made and business happening is, to be frank, naive in the extreme.

There is a place for video conferencing and for interactive discussions, but nothing will replace the face to face interactions that take place behind the scenes at these meetings.

What may change is that instead of computers, and other toys we will revert to an old fashioned travel accessory, the human secretary and he or she will have all of the toys of the trade available on site at the conference and the only thing that will be required is a small USB port enabled memory stick.