When biz travel is likely to resume
 

Currently many large corporations ban biz travel till June 2021. Undust your crystal ball - when do you think biz travel will resume?

Well, some is happening now. However, I’m guessing possibly sometime in 2022 before it really starts coming back. And I don’t think it will ever be completely back. Because, even if it is greatly slowed until June 2021 as you say, companies will come up with accommodations to compensate for that in the meantime. They already have. So I think a lot will be based on a decision that if they haven’t spent the money for travel for 18 months or so, why restart? Some similar decisions are being made with office space as well. I don’t think the world will be the same, even when the virus is somehow contained.

I think late 2021 or early 2022. Even if we get a vaccine towards the end of this year or in Q1 of 2021, it's going to take probably 6-9 months to get distributed. Plus, I tend to think that we're going to need more than just a vaccine to fully return to normal. So I'm hoping that by mid-2021 we have some more effective therapeutics. I think with therapeutics and a reasonably effective vaccine we can get back to normal. Providing of course that organizations decide that business travel is worth the cost, which I'm not sure that all will.

Well, on this point some actually start to realise that WFH is (at least in many cases) is not as great as originally perceived...

I don't mind some WFH and the flexibility, but man 100% WFH now almost 6 months in is driving me insane. If I am going to be 100% WFH through all of 2021, I may seriously reconsider my career choice after another 6-9 months of this.
I am going stir-crazy here.

And in many cases it’s better. No commuting with lost time and traffic, less office space to pay for and the ability to recruit talent that don’t want to move in some cases.

Part of that might be attributed to the lock down in general, not strictly WFH. If you could WFH but still go out as readily as before it might be different.

You are not the only one

Meh....the ideal of me every day, day-in, day-out for the next ~15 years of rolling into the home office next to my bedroom and staring at a screen of Zoom meetings and Excel spreadsheets doesn't excite me in the least.

I need to leave the house.

In theory. In practice for many companies it would not be so easy to get rid of their offices. As for recruiting talent "that don't want to move" - pray to god it would never happen, because that talent most likely will be in another country.

For sure, but only part. On top of that, imagine what it looks like to WFH if you don't have a spare room (which is the case for many outside of US).

It is interesting how quickly the conversation drifted from biz travel to WFH :). I guess for many it is much more real problem. In my case, though, my job in a "normal world" requires lots of travel...hence the question.

I only stopped for two and a half months and have been traveling quite a lot since June 1st. Mostly business, but vacation travel too.

If you look at the airlines, you can see a lot of increase in flights, especially trans-Atlantic. For instance Air France went from 3 times a week to JFK, to once a day, and now it is two flights per day and next month will be 3 flights per day. Plus DL flies the same route. UA as well from EWR. Since there isn't much tourist travel, that means that there are mostly business people. Lots of TATL business travel going on now. Note also that the CDC dropped even the recommendation for a quarantine after international travel. I've taken two TATL flights this summer and a whole lot of US domestic travel.

So in short, I'd say that hard core business travel is already back. But the less important travel such as for conferences won't be back til sometime next year.

The question may end up be answered in a slightly different way. Who will be the new business travellers in 2021 and 2022?

That's encouraging

Good point. Ideas?

A lot of it already is from other countries. But point taken. I was thinking of not wanting to live in a big city for instance. Clearly not everyone is going to work from home for a variety of reasons. I don’t think I implied that I thought it was binary, all at home or all in the office. It wasn’t even that before the pandemic But I can’t see there not being a shift to more working from home.

nothing stops you from doing this meeting from hotel on the beach, campsite or RV and then exploring smth new... you can rent a place anywhere your want and experience completely different lifestyle without worrying about your paycheck - it's an amazing once in a lifetime opportunity IMHO...

i answered that way because I don’t think business travel will return to what it was before. It has continued and will increase, but I don’t think it will ever be the same again.

i think this is a really useful way to phrase the question.

Good point. People were doing this before the pandemic. More people ar doing it now.

I've been WFH with various levels of travel for 14 years. I love it. The idea of having to get dressed up to go into an office when I'm on the phone or text anyways just stresses me out. Being able to work barefoot in shorts and a t-shirt actually makes me mre productive because I am comfortable. I save money on gas, lunches, clothes, etc. I love having zero commute, being able to have lunch with family (my daughter this year since school is virtual, but my parents live with me and I enjoy our lunch breaks), being able to be here for workers, contractors, repair people, etc is incredibly handy, being able to fold laundry while on a conference call, etc. I'm actually more productive at home than in the office since I can work when I am at my best and take a quick break to restart when I need to. I would like to eventually get back to some biz travel but if it falls from pre-covid 25% to 10%, I'll be happier.

before the pandemic in most places wfh had to be requested and it was usually limited to a few days a week.. there was always a perception of not beeing a team player and perhaps missing on opportunities if you were not present in person at least part time.. now all this nonsense is gone - just go and take advantage of true remote work options..
on a related note long term house rentals in california mountains, tahoe, coastline etc are very expensive and near impossible to get now

I'm getting to that point too DTWflyer. I can't even use my personal computer after hours b/c the "home office" is just "work" now in my head. I am shopping for a laptop in fact so I can sit on the couch upstairs and still have something more powerful than a phone.

...if you don't have kids

most if not all kids are remote too here in CA...

Where I live most kids are in school at least part of the time. We will see how long that lasts.

I have done 5 flying business trips since the beginning of June. It is refreshing walking through the Atlanta airport all by myself. Having the seat open beside me is awesome. These are both selfish though.

The Atlanta airport being dead is not sustainable. Empty seats on an airplane is not sustainable. Empty hotels is not sustainable. [mod edit]

Before the pandemic I had almost all of the people working with us on site. Most need to be on site, they do stuff with specialized equipment. But not all. Even before the pandemic I have had one person who works for me, doing computational analysis, working from home. They worked on site for about 10 years then got married and wanted to move out of town. So they asked me if it would be possible to keep working with our group remotely. I said let’s give it a try because they were such a valuable employee. That was 15 years ago and they still work with us as a very valuable employee.

It obviously depends on the person and the job. Everyone isn’t going to stop traveling and work at home. But the pandemic is happening at a time when technology, everything from broadband to computers is changing a lot. There may be a vaccine early next year or there may not be one in 5 years. I would guess much better treatments and tests are actually more likely in the short to medium term than a vaccine. This has been big enough to change things permanently. Especially when it’s happening with changes in technology and growing concern over climate change.

To echo above, I also am going insane WFH all the time. But I’m rather extroverted and am more energized in-person. Just feels so benign having zoom calls and not working in the war room together and it really drains me (much less I’m not tied down atm and loved the alt-travel lifestyle/perks).

I do wonder if we’ll ever get back to pre-Covid habits. For those who had to travel most weeks, I don’t see that being the status quo moving forward, at least for my field where hospital clients are very cost-conscious. Honestly contemplating my exit to industry now.


Just out of curiosity who would be the folks back to flying part time or regularly right now? I do have a friend in tech implementation who has to fly as a SME, but in my world of healthcare consulting everyone is grounded until further notice. Which makes sense since there’s no reason for us to be adding additional risk to the hospitals right now.

For some, it has never stopped.....maybe slowed

$30K in airline spend and over 130 nights in a hotel so far this year.....

For those wondering what I do:
I keep your lights on......

I think people like field service engineers and certainly some sales jobs. I’m certainly not. I just know some people are traveling. Hospitals are very sensitive to this. Cancer centers, for instance, were some of the very first to ban travel.

My company is a Big4 consultancy firm, and we won't have significant business travel before autumn 2021.

And even then on much reduced levels compared to the last 3 years. MS Teams simply works - and we have travelled a lot before.

It seems to be resuming in my area, most people I know that used to do business travel on a regular basis are now back on the road. The obvious factor that delays full resumption are various border restriction that make some trips (e.g. intercontinental) impossible. Luckily I'm currently in a place that has very liberal border policy, so at least returning from the trip is easy & smooth. Another issue is that the willingness to travel is even lower than it used to be due to various restrictions and measures that are in place in travel and hospitality industries - in other words, travel sucks right now and no one's rushing to take a plane in current "war" conditions. Much more thought is given to whether the particular trip is really useful. I certainly feel that business travel is picking up much faster in locations which are back to business as usual, while online solutions are being preferred for places where many restrictions are still in place.

Finally, some of business travel will never return. I'm definitely not in the crowd that claims that everything can be done via Zoom - personal contact is important and business travel will continue to grow to facilitate it. However, over last couple of years I've heard many people complain about being forced to do pointless trips just because someone's in the management is conservative and insists on doing business the same way he did 25 years ago. This pandemic proved that some meetings can be easily done without flying an employee across Europe just to attend an hour long consultation with his boss.

I'll be waiting for a vaccine which I am on the list for the next trail for the Oxford one.

But will clients want me to visit or where will I meet them if they are not in the office....

The reopening of Borders will not reopen many corporate travel wallets including mine.
MS Teams works for many but not all things. Flying will not return to pre covid levels of discretionary, jump on a plane, travel.
The slashing of corporate travel budgets is already here for Conferences, done attend by Zoom. Trade shows, send 2 not 10. Discretionary Meetings, Use Teams. internal international meetings Ditto. Customer visits driven by customer.
A top leader in Europe recently told me "I could do my job without leaving my loft apartment in London every again" = Savings as long as they hit plan

As long as you hit plan. That is what will bring back much more business travel. The plan will keep increasing as it always does and some people are going to have to get on trains and airplanes to keep hitting those numbers.

WFH? I have for the last five months, thanks to the virus restrictions, been living out of two Samsonite spinners and at least two different hotel rooms a week. @ 49 flight segments to date and six more scheduled in the next ten days. I can tell you that airplanes are filling and airports are slowly coming to life. Most flights are inexpensive all it takes is a need or a desire to go. I am more than willing to share my travels and workload, any takers?

I think the purpose of the travel will impact when it returns. Some of that will in turn be impacted by work at home. Think of sales for instance. We are work from home where possible and approved by the supervisor. Most purchasing decision makers are working at home, at least a lot of the time. We have restrictions on how many people can be in a space, as do most other places around here (maybe all of them are). So it seems that sales calls are at least largely reduced. Most of my travel before the pandemic was probably for conferences. At least many of the large conferences are changed to virtual well into next year. You can’t readily say in December that you want a 20,000 person conference to happen in February. That decision has probably already been made. Sure, I know of one I usually go to in January that last time I heard was up in the air whether in would be on site, and I’m sure there are others as well. But I also know larger, later in the year conferences that already went virtual. Many hotels, speakers, conference space, buses for attendees for each big conference That doesn’t happen fast.

The trouble is that while the top leader enjoys working from his loft, someone else will be out there meeting clients in person and stealing his business.

This is a great time to cut unnecessary business travel. All that pointless travelling around the globe just because "we always did it that way" is gone. However, in all those instances where personal contact brings revenue, we'll see travel restoring as soon as feasible (this can already be seen in Europe) because even if some companies insist on videconferences, they will be quickly replaced by those who will use their willingness to travel to their advantage.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has released an updated global passenger forecast predicting that air travel will not return to pre-COVID-19 levels until 2024, a year later than previously projected.


https://www.businesstraveller.com/bu...til-2024-iata/

Pinterest pays $89.5 million to terminate San Francisco office lease

https://www.sfgate.com/business/arti...e-15525421.php

My wife’s company already terminated lease of 2 floors from 3 they had. Even with reduced office space of 3x, on the remaining floor it is occupied only by 20%. They will be WFH and no business travel till end of 2021.

I find this bizarre (I don't have kids). I haven't been to the office (other than on weekends) since March. Many of my colleagues go in every day. When I ask them why they take the unnecessary risk, the answer is "you haven't seen my kids" or something similar. People would rather risk their lives than spend another moment with their children. Why did they have kids in the first place?

I absolutely love WFH and never want to go back. The flexibility has made me more productive than ever. Microsoft Teams has been fantastic.

Our company won't allow non-essential travel at least until next year. Essential travel is done via NetJets. The Phenom 300 is nice, but I still prefer the Citation X.

My Boss has a good ball (crystal!)?
 

September 2019 - Boss announces new incentives to reduce travel costs:

Achieve all targets within Bonus Matrix in Q4 & Q1 but reducing domestic / international flights / hotels wherever possible to zero, then 30% of travel costs saved will be added to individual bonus. About 50% of Senior Execs took advantage, achieving targets, resulting in significant increase in personal bonus. Others felt that targets could not be achieved by predominantly WFH, and therefore lost out.

From the start of April, with everyone WFH and no client visits, sales are more or less on target. Those that lost out are now pleading with the Boss to reimplement the travel savings from October this year - although he has categorically stated it will not be repeated, and that all travel budgets until April 2021 are now zero. Travel Budgets for FY 21/22 are likely to be only 15% of pre Covid-19. An immediate saving of +/- $4m.