UK Ferry Tickets

There has recently been a business travel show in London and that can only mean one thing – lots of press releases from companies which either directly or indirectly tell you how marvellous they are.

A couple of surveys have stood out for me. One predicted that business travel will diminish because of video conferencing and another claimed no-frills airlines are only used by a fraction of business travellers. I wouldn’t take either of them too seriously.

According to the 10th annual Barclaycard Business Travel Survey, individual days away for business will decline to 2.0 per week in 2015, from 2.4 in 2005-06, due to new technology.

I think the opposite. Of course, most business can be conducted via a video conference. Most of it can be done over the telephone. But travel is becoming easier and these survey writers forget that business people like to go abroad and will find a way to justify it.

Successful businesses have people who can build relationships and communicate. This tends to be done on the golf course, over dinner and during numerous hours in the bar. It’s what we in the travel industry call the grey area between networking and not-working.

Business people love getting away from their families, sometimes with interesting travel partners, and staying in top hotels on company expenses. The irony is that although travel is an important part of a business person’s work, that person is not actually working for most of the time they’re away.

Of course, they’ll moan about the long flights (where they sit in the big seats and slosh champagne, safe in the knowledge that no-one can contact them) and how hard they work while they were away, but how many choose to switch to a job where they are office based for the entire working year?

Meanwhile, a Carlson Wagonlit survey claims that fewer than one in ten European business travellers regularly use no-frills carriers, such as easyJet and Ryanair, for work trips, and almost 50 per cent have never stepped foot in them.

That study might have something to do with the fact that Carlson Wagonlit prefers its clients to use other airlines, from whom they can make a decent fee.

I’ve spoken to dozens of business people who say the no-frills carriers have been a godsend and they regularly use them for business and holidays.

What’s your view?

Guest Article by Jeremy Skidmore

Saturday, June 23rd, 2007