More video, less planes?
In a report dated June 8, 2021, researchers from the Pegasus chair, specialized in air transport in France, looked at the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic on the behavior of business travelers.
And more particularly on their consumption of air travel and use of videoconferencing, a source of concern for many professionals in the sector.
The study logically reveals that 72% of business travelers have flown less since the start of the crisis and that 70% of them wait for the total lifting of the restrictions before re-traveling. More interestingly, once the restrictions are lifted on the planet, the decrease in the traffic of business travelers is estimated at 42%.
“This drop in the number of flights is explained by the explosion in the use of videoconferencing since 2020. 53% of business trips were replaced by videoconferences in 2020, a rate which should drop to 51% as long as the trips are limited before stabilizing at 38% when all trips are possible “, We can read in the study.
The latter also underlines that all types of business trips will not be as impacted by the arrival of video. The travelers surveyed will naturally be more likely to keep their trips when it comes to interacting with external stakeholders: prospecting or trade shows. Conversely, travel for internal reasons (project monitoring, training) will be more easily transposed behind a screen.
“The future therefore lies in the hybridization of business travel and videoconferencing. It is better to see them as two complementary modes that go to self-feed. Nevertheless, the question of the distribution between these modes remains ”, concludes the Pegasus Chair.
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