With all travel at a standstill, and businesses resorting to video-conferencing platforms for corporate meetings, there are central questions that corporate agents, travel suppliers and clients are mulling over. Will corporate travel survive COVID-19? And, if so, how will it look? Will conferences take off again in the ‘Zoom’ age? Will cost-cutting mean no more trips for executives?
Morné du Preez, ceo of Tourvest Travel Services, believes there will again be an uptake in corporate travel. “If you look at all the previous disasters – 9/11, 2008/2009 and 2012 – within 18 months to two years, travel hit its peak again. I don’t expect anything different here.”
Morné believes that corporate travel will recover more quickly than leisure travel. “The majority of us are impacted by the current scenario, and we won’t have too much money to spend on leisure travel.
“But corporate travel is necessitated by the fact that businesses have to continue to operate. There’s no way that you can do a proper business deal and negotiate on a video call – It just doesn’t work that way.”
He says the recovery time will depend on how long lockdown will last. “The longer we stay in isolation, the longer it will take to recover. If we can get to level two, let’s say by the end of May, I think by July we will be able to fly, and corporate travel will start taking place again.”
Morné foresees that conferencing will probably take a little longer to recover, but doesn’t believe it will be replaced by technological alternatives. “I can start looking at my emails, or play on my phone while in a Zoom conference, and I’m now taking in only 2% of the value because I’m distracted. But when you sit in a conference and a person stands up to speak and you see the passion they have – I don’t think you’ll ever lose the value of that.”
He points to the first day of level four, with crowds of people exercising in Cape Town, as an example of what’s to come. “People want to interact with people,” he says. “We’ll be surprised at how quickly people change their dynamics.”
Samantha Frank, owner of group travel and event DMC Pink Mosquito, believes corporate travel will go back to normal, but that it was going to take “a very, very long time”.
“I really don’t see any activity in international travel happening before September/October this year, if we’re lucky. There’s talk about bubbles right now. The bubble factor is New Zealand and Australia opening borders to each other, as opposed to the whole world. You may very well find that in Europe, certain cities will open to each other but not to others. I think that may happen in the short-term.”
From a group travel and events perspective, Sam foresees that big events will not be allowed until some form of cure or vaccine is found. “I also believe that, the way we’ve been put under duress and forced to work differently, because of caution and cost, people won’t naturally travel. They will look at facilities like conference calling, Zoom meetings, or Skype. They may think differently about how to travel, and the necessity for travel.
“We work with a lot of business schools, and they do lots of international travel. Will they change that? Will they change to tech-driven online interactions, rather than getting on a plane?” she asks.
“We can assist with virtual meetings and the like. Some corporates will work with us, but others won’t, because they themselves will invest in the new technology.”
When it comes to alternatives to the social aspects of corporate groups, the solution might be to ‘pocket’ them. “Instead of having 200 people in a room, we may need to have four rooms of 50 people. Your ceo or speakers just rotate, or you video conference from one room. This allows them to socialise in different ways.”
While there are ways to be innovative, Sam says the success of their business is bringing groups together, and social interaction. “Big sales conferences are about motivating people and creating a hype. You don’t get the same emotion and energy via a video conference.”
The most critical thing for businesses right now is to stay in contact with customers. “You may not be dealing with them, but still keep those relationships going, and check in. See if there’s any way to help them in their times of need. You can tap into skills like product management and organisation to assist them in their businesses if you want to keep that relationship for when travel is back to normal.”
