The NBTA, US  Travel Assoc.  and others are pushing the value and advantages of face-to-face meetings, and starting to pushback against teleconferencing.

Cisco Telepresence

On Sept 15, 2009, the USTA is going to announce the results of an Oxford Economics study which highlights the return on investment of all kinds of business travel. The study is funded by the Destination & Travel Foundation.

Also, during the recently concluded National Business Travel Association (NBTA) International Convention in San Diego (Aug 23-26), British Airways launched the second Phase of  its “Face-to-Face” Campaign.

As part of this campaign, BA and its partners – Regus Office Services, Courtyard by Marriott, Canon USA, Inc., and British Airways World Cargo – will award 100 small-to-medium size U.S. businesses free travel to anywhere in the world where British Airways flies plus valuable products and services to help support their businesses and maximize their travel experiences. More details here – www.ba.com/facetoface.

To help reinforce the idea that in-person meetings do really drive business, British Airways also commissioned a survey of Harvard Business Review readers. Results from the survey show that 95% believe that face-to-face meetings are key to success in building long-term relationships, and 89% agree face-to-face meetings are essential for “sealing the deal.”

At the same NBTA conference, President Bill Clinton, in his keynote address on Aug 26, stressed on the importance of in-person meetings. He said that although he used all the latest communications technology to confer with others, he never thought it didn’t matter if he or his representatives went places in-person.

But just a few months back in June, everyone was going ga-ga over the new telepresence systems being installed in 25 hotels by Marriott and in 10 hotels by Starwood. The novelty apparently has worn off, and more importantly – the shocking cutbacks in business travel budgets due to successful acceptance of the teleconferencing culture is sending shivers down the spines of travel service providers.

Those selling teleconferencing technology are demonstrating vividly how succesful it is. Cisco Systems Inc. – which has over 300 Corporate clients including Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide for its Telepresence system – has slashed it’s annual travel budget from $750m to $240m.

 Hewlett-Packard Co – which hogs a big market share with Halo, with clients including AMD, Nokia and Marriott International - has reduced it’s own travel budget for 2007-08 by 30%, and expects to cutback even more in 2009 – mostly due to expanded use of video conferencing.

The recession forced businesses to cut back on travel and experiment with video conferencing. And the worst part is that once a company has instilled a virtual conference culture, it never will go back to spending as much as before on business travel. 

Face-to-face meetings may be essential as deal closers, but the wave of the future is teleconferencing. GM and Chrysler ended up in a ditch because they refused to acknowledge the green wave. If the travel industry refuses to do the same with  teleconferencing, then there’s going to be a day of reckoning soon.