IAH-OIL-TRASH

A recovery in business travel IS in sight. That DOES NOT mean companies will return to the SAME levels of travel. I know companies in Houston that have already decided to cut back on numbers and frequencies of people traveling internationally PERMANANTLY. Technology had rendered a lot of oil and gas travel unnecessary and the COVID period has only accelerated adoption of remote operations monitoring, meetings, etc. I like to travel and I could already see the writing on the wall back in 2012 - remote work and communications just wasn't being institutionalized to the extent it could be. After the last 18 months, it is now. Managers are going to be harder pressed now to justify $20k to send a couple of people to a partner meeting in Europe when they've been doing fine w/ Zoom or whatever for the last 18 months. I'm pretty sure if I was still working, a good percentage of my travel would be permanently slashed (much to my chagrin). There will be people still traveling, but I think recovery to pre-pandemic level will take years - and it be driven by industry growth going forward, not a return to pre-Covid status quo. Anyone who thinks we'll be at the same level of int'l business travel by next year or the year after isn't very well connected to reality.