Bill Gates has said that 50 per cent of business
travel would go following the pandemic, but he would say that, wouldn't he? His
company Microsoft has a very powerful alternative to business travel in teams,
after all.
Yet many companies have used the virtual standstill of business travel due to
Covid to take stock of what parts of business travel are essential. You could
argue that many businesses have survived well enough without travelling at all.
Companies are now having to focus more closely on
what types of business travel will be allowed to come back. Will training and
internal meetings be forced to go virtual and is that a good thing? Are the
days of day trips numbered?
The cost of a trip, whether that is in terms of
pounds, planet or people, is going to be increasingly under scrutiny in the
future and travel managers will need to educate bookers and travellers about
just how their business travel fits into the organisation's overall strategy.
In our new podcast episode, Join EY's Karen Hutchings, Nike's Daniel Tallos, Gray Dawes' David Bishop and
Festive Road's Paul Tilstone with regular host Mark Frary to hear what the
shape of future business travel will be.
Click on the player below to listen to or download the
episode, or to subscribe to the series via Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Alternatively, explore all previous BTN Europe podcasts
here.