I took my first business trip, with my first job, fourteen years ago, travelling from Hong Kong to Bangkok on Thai Airways. The only way of finding out which airline to take was for the company secretary to go through our business travel agent. I remember the price because it cost way more than my monthly salary, and I did my best to claw some of it back through free crisps and double vodkas in the business lounge. My last business trip before going freelance two years ago, was from London to Paris. Although my job title was far more impressive than it had been in Hong Kong, I booked this flight direct, online, with Easyjet, and passed the receipt over to the company accounts department who automatically credited my bank account. There was no business class, the plane dropped me off around two hours from the city centre, and I wasn’t given so much as a pack of peanuts to keep me happy – but the company accountant, of course, was smiling enough for both of us.
It’s hard to believe the revolution in the way we travel that has come about in such a short space of time. The internet (if we define it as Tim Berners-Lee, a researcher at Europe’s CERN Particle Physics Laboratory, inventing the very first web server and web browser in 1990) has just celebrated its 18th birthday – and low cost airlines in Europe are even younger, dating from the deregulation of the European airline market in 1997. Today, almost 40 percent of UK flight tickets go to low cost carriers who use internet-only booking engines, and a recent report in The Scotsman detailed how the revolution has transformed the ability of small Scottish firms to do business in London, boosting profitability and allowing them to compete with rivals in other areas across the border.
Little wonder, then, that everyone I spoke to when researching for this article said that, by 2020, the one thing that we can rely on is that the internet will have an even greater impact on our business lives than it does now. From airline CEOs to hotel concierges, the idea of how we are going to travel, where we will be travelling to and how we are going to work while we’re doing so, brought variations on the same response – that if we think we are plugged in to some global network now (wifi – tick, mobile – tick, ipod – tick), then just wait another few years. By then, bandwidth and data transfer will have become limitless, meaning that we’ll be wired into a global communications network through devices as small as a tie pin.
So is the future of business travel going to be like a scene from Minority Report? A shopping paradise where speaking advertisements are targeted directly at each of us as we pass through airline terminals and railway stations? It seems inevitable that IT will track and monitor the progression of people and goods – our check-in will take place without us realising it as we pass through the airport doors, we will stroll through fast-track immigration at the other end, all fees, tolls and fares will be debited automatically from our cards – and rather more annoyingly, parking tickets will be automatically transferred over as points onto our driving licenses… oh hang on, that happens already.
But perhaps the real reason for this tracking will be somewhat darker than simply queue-free check in. Philip Carlisle at the Guild of Travel Management Companies sees the ability to closely track staff as inevitable – and essential. ‘Health and safety issues for large companies really now means health, safety and security – and companies will increasingly need to keep track of exactly where their people are in case of emergencies’ – meaning that our wired-in tie pins will come into their own, not just for paying for our car park tickets, but as tracking devices in the case of a terrorist threat.
Carlisle also sees this as the reason why, despite the fact that we’ll be booking almost all of our personal flights direct by 2020, business travel will still have need for the experts. ‘Allowing employees to book direct may make cost savings, but situations like 7/7 showed the drawbacks of not knowing where your staff are at all times. Most companies already see this as a benefit worth paying for; everything will increasingly need to be done within company policy, and company security rules.’
All of this might make virtual business seem more attractive, but there is little chance of it fully replacing traditional meetings. The 2004 Business and Convention Travelers Report showed that business travel volume grew more than four percent in 2004 and continued strong growth is expected over the next few years, correcting a sharp fall in recent years that was compounded, inevitably, by 9/11.
The report found that while improvements in technology have altered the business travel landscape – nearly 40 percent of all business air travelers were substituting web conferencing for some travel in 2004 – the figure was down from 47 percent reporting the same in 2002. Most business travelers say that technology works well for established business, but nothing beats a handshake for establishing a new contract.
And besides, travel in 2020 should be far quicker and easier than it is today. For a start, our options will be wider. Besides the above alternative of virtual meetings through video and internet links, if we do decide to travel, we will not be forced into crowded airports or onto congested roads. New technology will have made trains around the world faster (even Network Southeast should be more like today’s Shinkansen in Japan) and will be the transport of choice for short-haul inter-city routes across Europe and Asia. Even America, in another 15 years time, may have learned to embrace the train.
If we do take the plane (and US airline passenger and cargo traffic is conservatively estimated to have tripled by 2025) the choice will be quite distinct – low cost (or free) carriers offering point-to-point tickets on both short and long-haul routes, where the seat comes for nothing but money is collected through a range of ancillary products such as hotels, car hire and even Ryan Air’s inflight gambling proposal, or ultra-luxurious aircraft like the 600-seat, double-decker Airbus 380 or Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner. More than ever, you will get what you pay for.
Carole Caubet, Vice President Communications at Airbus, points out that, as the travel market gets more and more crowded (WTO estimates 1.56 billion tourists by 2020), the business travel market will focus more and more on offering an alternative to crowded low cost flights. ‘The Airbus is concentrating on expanding personal space in the air – with bars, duty free areas, areas to move around for personal health and safety issues.’
Singapore Airlines has already taken their first delivery of the 380, and although the Boeing 787 is not due until 2010, it sounds worth the wait. It will have the largest windows on any modern commercial jetliner – 48 cm windows, giving all passengers a view to the horizon – and will of course have all wireless technology inside. Willy Walsh’s BA already has plans to add the aircraft to his fleet.
And finally, by 2020, will we see Concorde back in service? Reg.Davies, Curator of Air Transport, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, thinks not. ‘Corcorde was a technical miracle but an economic disaster. It won’t be replaced.’
