Face-to-Face Versus Virtual Meetings
ACCORDING TO THE OCTOBER 2011 EDITION of The Wire from
AirPlus, 59 percent of corporate travel managers report their company’s
travel budget this year is the same as or greater than pre-recession levels. This despite the fact that respondents to an AirPlus survey in 2009
indicated they were taking several steps to decrease travel as technological advances were making travel alternatives more readily accessible and
decreased travel budgets were making them more desirable. In the 2009
survey, 81 percent had increased teleconferencing, 71 percent had implemented web conferencing technology, and 38 percent were using specialized virtual conferencing technology such as telepresence.
Regardless of the reason for choosing travel alternatives, the professionals
who responded to the current survey
were decidedly ambivalent about the effectiveness of such decisions. A total of
68 percent said remote conferencing is
sometimes as effective as meeting in person. Another significant group was even
less convinced of the effectiveness of
remote conferencing— 6 percent said it
was never as effective as in-person meetings while 15 percent said that was rarely
the case. Only 12 percent were firmly in
favor, saying remote conferencing was
almost always as effective.
The current study shows that the
concept of virtual meetings has become
firmly ingrained in corporate culture.
Only 1 percent of those surveyed said
that virtual meetings have decreased as
in-person meetings and travel increased
in the past year. Specifically:
■ ■
32. 4 percent said virtual meetings
have increased in the past year, but
they have not replaced in-person
meetings;
■ ■
32. 4 percent said virtual meetings
have increased as a replacement to
in-person meetings and travel;
■ ■
32. 9 percent say that the volume has
remained steady.
While champions of travel alternatives tout the beneficial effects on
employee quality of life and corporate social responsibility, these are not
the most compelling reasons for most
respondents. For the majority of respondents, the most compelling reason
Effectiveness of Remote
Conferencing vs. Meeting in Person
Remote as
Effective?
of
Respondents
Almost always 12.0%
Sometimes 68.0%
Rarely 14.5%
Never 5.8%
Source: The Wire from AirPlus USA,
November 2011
Urgency Ranking for Turning to
Travel Alternatives
( 1, Most Urgent; 4, Least Urgent)
Reason for Travel
Alternative
Average
Rating
Increased travel costs 1. 59
Decreased budgets 1.99
Employee quality of life 2. 68
Corporate social
responsibility
3. 40
Source: The Wire from AirPlus USA,
November 2011
for travel alternatives is the increased
cost of travel, ranked by 63 percent as
the most urgent reason for turning to
travel alternatives. Smaller budgets was
the next most cited urgent reason, with
significantly fewer respondents— 32 percent—ranking it the most urgent.
Despite the lukewarm opinions of
travel alternatives, new innovations mean
they are likely to continue to be viable for
certain kinds of in-person meetings—most
notably internal corporate meetings and
those with well-established client relationships. In addition to corporate-owned
systems, more wide-scale deployment of
technology is increasing the viability of
hybrid meetings, those with a mix of in-person and remote attendees. Hotel chains
have been installing telepresence rooms at
properties around the world and allowing
groups to broadcast meetings to remote
audiences via the internet.
To read the complete study, go to www.
airpluscommunity.com/wp-content/
uploads/2011/11/AirPlus_ The Wire_
Nov2011-2.pdf.
