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BUSINESS Thursday 12 November 2020
Future of business travel unclear as virus upends work life

By DEE-ANN DURBIN and events — like trade shows
DAVID KOENIG — will still be important in
AP Business Writers the future. But he thinks
Brian Contreras represents new kinds of business travel
the worst fears of the lucra- could also emerge.
tive business travel industry. Lockdowns have taught
A partner account execu- employees how to adapt
tive at a U.S. tech firm, Con- to different work environ-
treras was used to traveling ments, he says, so hotels,
frequently for his company. airlines and even cruise
But nine months into the ships should beef up their
pandemic, he and thou- connectivity and cater to
sands of others are work- business travelers.
ing from home and dialing Late last month, Marriott
into video conferences in- introduced flexible options
stead of boarding planes. aimed at business travel-
Contreras manages his ers, including one-day stays
North American accounts with an evening check-out.
from Sacramento, Califor- Clarke also expects some
nia and doesn't expect to companies will flip their
travel for work until the mid- travel. Instead of letting a
dle of next year. Even then, few executives travel a lot,
he's not sure how much he he said, companies could
will need to. let most employees work
"Maybe it's just the accep- In this Thursday, April 9, 2020, file photo, a lone airline crew member pulls his bags behind him from home and fly them all
as he walks through the baggage-claim area at Denver International Airport in Denver, amid the
tance of the new normal. coronavirus outbreak. back to their headquarters
I have all of the resources Associated Press once a year.
necessary to be on the Some businesses are al-
calls, all of the communi- though remotely," MBC for work. 10 employees at the end ready changing the way
cative devices to make spokesman Mazen Hayek Companies have also of July, more than triple the their work is done. Cynthia
sure I can do my job," he said. MBC has reduced reined in travel because number it had at the end of Kay and Co., a media pro-
said. "There's an element trips by more than 85%, times are lean, he said. Exx- April. duction company based in
of face-to-face that's nec- Hayek said. onMobil cut business travel But for some workers, tele- Grand Rapids, Michigan,
essary, but I would be OK Amazon, which told it em- in February — even before conferencing can't replace used to send its seven em-
without it." ployees to stop traveling the pandemic's full impact being there in person. ployees around the coun-
That trend could spell big in March, says it has saved was felt in the U.S. — be- Rebecca Lindland, an au- try to make videos for cli-
trouble for hotels, airlines, nearly $1 billion in travel cause of falling global de- tomotive consultant and ents like Siemens.
convention centers and expenses so far this year. mand for oil. founder of Rebecca Drives, When travel came to a halt
other industries that rely so The online shopping giant, Those who want to travel used to travel 38 weeks in March, the company in-
heavily on business travel- with more than 1.1 million may also be limited by trav- each year for test drives vested in proprietary soft-
ers like Contreras. employees, is the second- el restrictions, Belobaba and auto shows. This year, ware and sent iPads and
Work travel represented largest employer in the U.S. added. Last month, Pole- she didn't fly from March other equipment to clients
21% of the $8.9 trillion spent At Southwest Airlines, CEO star CEO Thomas Ingenlath until September. Test drives so it could coach them
on global travel and tour- Gary Kelly said while overall observed a mandatory 14- have been cut back to re- through their own video
ism in 2019, according to passenger revenue is down day quarantine in China af- gional events, so attendees shoots, President Cynthia
the World Travel and Tour- 70%, business travel — nor- ter flying in from Sweden for don't have to travel as far. Kay said.
ism Council. mally more than one-third the Beijing Auto Show. Lindland misses the down- As a result, the company's
Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bas- of Southwest's traffic -- is off Polestar, an electric car time air travel gave her, sales are down only 15-
tian recently suggested 90%. brand jointly owned by and she's confident she 20% even though its travel
business travel might settle "I think that's going to con- Sweden's Volvo and Chi- can return to the skies safe- spending has plunged 75%.
into a "new normal" that tinue for a long time. I'm na's Geely, has always ly. She wears a mask, and Still, Kay and her staff were
is 10% to 20% lower than it very confident it will recov- tried to limit travel for envi- even before the pandemic eager to get back on the
used to be. er and pass 2019 levels, I ronmental reasons. But the she always carried Lysol road once they felt they
"I do think corporate trav- just don't know when," Kelly 14-day quarantine has re- wipes and hand sanitizer. could do that safely. Kay
el is going to come back told the AP. stricted travel even further, "I've been wiping down my began traveling again last
faster than people suspect. U.S. hotels relied on busi- said Kiki Liu, Polestar's head tray tables since 1985," she month. "For some people,
I just don't know if it will be ness travel for around half of communications. said with a laugh. this is the way they will work
come back to the full vol- their revenue in 2019, or The cutback in travel has Sam Clarke, an assistant going forward," Kay said.
ume," Bastian told The As- closer to 60% in big cities been a boon for telecon- professor in the college of "But you can't account for
sociated Press. Right now, like Washington, according ferencing services. Zoom business at California State the spark that happens
Delta's business travel rev- to Cindy Estis Green, the said it had 370,200 custom- University San Marcos, when you get people in the
enue is down 85%. CEO of hospitality data firm er businesses with at least agrees that some in-person same room."q
Dubai-based MBC Group, Kalibri Labs.
which operates 18 televi- Peter Belobaba, who
sion stations, says it's unlike- teaches airline manage-
ly employees will travel as ment at MIT, said business
often once the pandemic travel is down partly be-
ends because they've cause some people are
proven they don't need to. afraid to fly and partly be-
"We have managed to de- cause companies fear lia-
liver projects and negoti- bility if employees contract
ate deals very successfully, COVID-19 while traveling