New BA survey backs travel
New research by BA has shown that 95% of business people believe "face-to-face" meetings are the key to the success of long term relationships.
The research, among 2,300 business leaders in the US and the UK, also revealed that 89% felt that in person meetings were "essential" for concluding a deal.
The research was carried out for the airline by Harvard Business Review which launched the findings at the National Business Travel Association's (NBTA) annual convention in San Diego, California.
The study found that business leaders believed face-to-face meetings were more important than video conferencing, webinars and audio-conferencing in most areas of contact.
These included meeting new clients, negotiating contracts, interviewing for senior appointments, identifying new growth opportunities and managing major contracts.
Only in managing suppliers did the leaders believe that conferencing was preferable to meetings.
The research also found that most of the leaders (78%) believed that investing in maintaining current clients was more important that putting money into training, technology or new staff.
But most (60%) also admitted that in the last six months their companies had cut their travel budgets.
Other measure taken to cut travels spend included buying cheaper tickets, cutting the number of trips and staying at less expensive hotels.
Angelia Herrin, research editor for the Harvard Business Review, said the survey showed that what business people really wanted was "solid human connections."
She added: "Technology serves as an effective supplement, but face-to-face communication is the broadest bandwidth communication you can have in professional life, helping to cement long term relationships and drive business growth."
On the back of the findings, BA said it was launching the second phase of its "Face-to-face" campaign which aims to drive travel among SMEs in the US.
The carrier said the new "business Opportunity Grants" would award ten free round trips in 2010 to 100 US-based SMEs with fewer than 500 employees.
Under phase one, the airline will in the autumn fly 1,000 US entrepreneurs to destinations to which BA flies in a bid to boost their business during the recession.
Simon Talling-Smith, BA's executive vp for the Americas, said this was "really just the start."
He said companies were cutting travel spend during the recession and "forgetting the importance of getting out and meeting people."
This was in turn affecting airlines "and BA is not an exception," he said.
He added: "We want to kick start the idea that people need together and meet face-to-face."
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