Keeping up travel during recession

Thoughtful post by Christian@MICEpoint on the travel industry efforts to make the case for sustaining travel. NBTA report highlights importance of travel management in down economy

I think it points to a larger issue. Travel is fundamentally about human contact. An efficiency argument can be made only in some cases such as demonstration of a product. Those survive. Others fall on the chopping block. However we need to remember something.

The human contact is more about the future than present. There are two elements - information discovery and relationships. Both are very important. A bit of information may change the way you look at the customer or the market. Often the information is tacit or experiential. In order to get to it, you need immersive face-to-face conversations. Genuine relationships reduce transaction costs for everyone. In a mercenary world when trust is general low, it takes time to establish these relationships.

So the wise will make appropriate investments at the personal level and at the level of an organization. Some of that will look like travel.

Thoughts?