The re-emergence of business travel: where are we going next?
It’s clear business wants to get moving again – so now’s a good time to examine why travel is so important, how businesses measure its value, what’s changed (hint: a lot), and how to lead the next era of business travel.
Why do we go places?
Human connection is an innate desire; we want to see our colleagues, we want to make new memories, and we want to feel normal again. Virtual meetings might be more efficient, but they don’t have the same effect. They’ve been the context for “relationships” during the pandemic, but face-to-face connections – meeting customers, socializing with clients, walking through their work environments – cannot be completely replaced.
How should we measure the value of business travel?
If there wasn’t value in taking our business on the road, we wouldn’t have been doing it for decades. But if there’s one silver lining to the pandemic, it’s that it has given us time to re-examine the things we’ve been doing for decades to see if “what we’ve always done” is “what we should keep doing.”
What’s changed, other than everything?
As we venture out into the uncharted territory of post-pandemic corporate travel, what do we need to be looking for, what surprises lie beyond the horizon, what hurdles and opportunities will we face?
Travel in 2021 and beyond is like nothing any of us have ever seen, but it doesn’t change the truth about why we need to take business on the road. We want to see our customers and colleagues again. We want to sit across the table. We want to collaborate on the next big idea. And we just want to feel normal again.
Travel makes all that possible, but before we go, we must put strategies in place that put the traveler before the business and health above all else.
Download the whitepaper to learn more.
