Business travellers throughout the United Kingdom and Europe are currently faced with two pressing issues that will have a direct effect on their mobility and effectiveness in working from the road.
The first of these is the threat of H1N1 influenza – the now infamous swine flu – which may or may not reach the disastrous contagion predictions of health ministries and world health officials. The second is another year of service cutbacks – route cancellations and reduced flight frequency – as the global economy slowly moves into a fragile recovery.
Few events have been so thoroughly hyped in the media as the steady increase in the incidence of the H1N1 virus. In the last six months, the UK has gone from having the highest number of confirmed cases in Europe to its medical authorities announcing they are “tantalisingly close” to containing and preventing future cases of this flu strain.
Yet there are those in the business travel industry, including the leadership of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE), who believe that all the media attention and worst case scenarios may be inuring the travelling public to the challenges that will be posed by widespread infection.
Feeding the fever
A recent ACTE survey, which polled a substantial cross-section of the association’s international constituency, indicates that 37 percent of corporate respondents are not seriously concerned about the disease, owing to its apparently mild nature and extremely low mortality rate compared with other strains of flu. Indeed, most of the precautions urged by government health agencies include only the most basic of precautions, such as frequent hand washing and carefully disposing of tissues – which should be used whenever sneezing or coughing.
The extent of public confidence that the disease will simply fade away is manifest in the second finding: 66 percent of companies responding to the survey have no instructions or plans to assist travellers who get caught in airport health screenings or who come down with symptoms of the flu while travelling. This means that travellers will run an increased risk of exposure to infection in the confines of airports, aeroplanes, trams, restaurants and even restrooms.
Yet the most basic, widely counselled advice for anyone with flu-like symptoms is to stay at home, drink hot tea with lemon and wrap up in a snug blanket until the feeling passes. Treat the illness, simply, like an uncommonly bad cold.
Staff infections
But just think of the impact this sensible advice may have on travellers when it is applied to pilots, mechanics, air traffic control personnel, hotel workers, and hundreds of thousands of others who make travel possible. What would travellers experience in the scenario of a widespread – if relatively benign – influenza?
There would be no purpose to a meeting between principals if the hotel or meeting facility staff was so stretched that the service was barely acceptable. Furthermore, it might not be practical to try to attend such a meeting if airline personnel were also stretched to the limit. It may not even be possible: it is fair to assume that service cuts would immediately occur in such an event.
Travellers too, it is assumed, would be less likely to risk exposure to the virus as a natural precaution. This shifts the emphasis of H1N1 preparation to two other levels: the first lies in minimising exposure while travelling, while the second calls for complete familiarisation with electronic travel and meetings alternatives.
Salient solutions
While it is hoped that the disease will not reach predicted proportions, travellers are already facing service restrictions and cutbacks from carriers and hotels facing some of the tightest operating budgets in the last 20 years. Route cancellations have become commonplace as airlines have moved to meet falling demand and hotels, especially the luxury sector, struggle to meet service standards with reduced support staff.
According to ACTE’s October 2009 travel spend survey, this trend is likely to continue well into next year. 50 percent of respondents claimed their travel budgets will remain unchanged for next year, 25 percent said they will spend more on travel for 2010 and the remaining 25 percent said they will spend less. This effectively guarantees a very slow recovery for the business travel industry and consequently the leisure market as well.
The slow global economic recovery, coupled with the potential for additional service disruptions from swine flu, makes it advisable for travellers to familiarise themselves with an electronic alternative to meetings or travel.
Technological advances, along with a substantial drop in operating costs, have given rise to the popularity of these systems as a complement to air-travel. They will prove themselves invaluable for business travellers and the self-employed should they be faced with restricted flight options or reduced economic circumstances, be this due to a weak strain of flu or a weak recovery.
One of the most interesting recent conclusions of the business travel industry, learned at the feet of an enduring recession, is that electronic travel and meeting alternatives have great potential as well as known liabilities.
They are not a substitute for the face-to-face relationship-building process, but they do have a permanent place in an effective, modern travel policy.
