As travel costs rise, more meetings go virtual

NEW YORK – July 24, 2008 – With travel costs soaring and airlines cutting service, more and more organizations are rethinking both face-to-face meetings and business travel, in general. At the same time, technology has matured to the point where personal meetings are not always necessary in conducting business affairs.

Forrester Research analyst Claire Schooley remarks, "These technology tools are going to change the way corporations think about travel and work in the long run." She credits a series of step-by-step advances in telecommunications networks, software and computer processing as reason for the optimism.

The results can be seen not only in pricey, new tele-presence systems such as those from Cisco Systems or Hewlett-Packard, but also in more mainstream collaboration technologies such as Web conferencing, online document sharing and Internet telephony.

For instance, the audio and desktop presentations in Internet-based meetings are now more likely to be in sync and interactive. Companies of varying sizes are starting to shift to such virtual meetings for training and sales purposes. A June report by the Global e-Sustainability Initiative and the Climate Group estimated that as much as one-fifth of all business travel worldwide could be replaced by videoconferencing technology.

Source: New York Times (07/22/08) P. C1; Lohr, Steve

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