Business Travel Reduced - Technology Survey Reveals

Martin Bolton 19/03/05

Research by Barclaycard has revealed that technology has reduced the need to travel for nearly half (46%) of business travellers, according to the Barclaycard Business Travel Survey. The biggest impact has been seen by those in senior positions, with 56% of CEOs and 52% of FDs using tools such as video conferencing to reduce their need to travel.

The Barclaycard Business Travel Survey has shown that remote access or virtual private networking was cited by over half (51%) of those travelling less as a result of technology. These tools give travellers the opportunity to review documents remotely or from a home office and negate the need to return to the office to review documents or share data, thus reducing travel.

Another innovation impacting upon business travel is video-conferencing, which helped over a third (33%) of workers to travel less, a massive increase from just 1% last year.

In addition video mobile phones were referenced by 8%, a relatively new technology which is not yet fully geared towards the business market. The remaining 17% cited other technologies.

Tim Carlier, Barclaycard Business Head of Issuing, comments: "There are clear benefits for businesses to invest in many of the new technologies on offer.

"With a quarter of business travellers claiming their health is suffering due to time spent away from home, I'm sure we will see further penetration by such tools and innovations over the next few years."

For the 47% who are unaffected by technology the majority (89%) believe it cannot replace face-to-face dealings and for the moment will stick with travelling to and from meetings.

Other reasons cited for technology not reducing business travel are:

• 9% say it is unreliable
• 5% use none due to a 'technology overload'
• 4% say it is too expensive

At present 60% are using laptop and mobile phone powerpoints whilst on the move, 42% use facilities to enable remote access to email and 13% use wireless hotspots. A further 7% are using broadband on planes and trains.

Over the next decade a third of business travellers believe that connection to technology will not be impacted by plane and train travel and 29% see people working from virtual offices. However, 21% believe it will have little impact on business travel and at the other end of the spectrum just 16% believe technology will completely remove the need to travel.

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