ust over two years ago, Romano Nickerson was traveling three days or more per week for client meetings and attending four conferences a year. But his road-warrior lifestyle came to a screeching halt in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. Nickerson, a 48-year-old principal in the Colorado-based architectural consulting firm, soon discovered that nearly all of his in-person meetings could be handled virtually.
, the percentage of frequent business travelers who say they’ll never return to the road has ticked up from 39% in October 2021 to 42% in February 2022.back in November 2020, Bill Gates sent a chill through the travel industry when he predicted that more than 50% of business travel and more than 30% of days worked in offices would go away permanently.
While few people expect business travel to disappear completely, the sector is going to look very different on the other side of the pandemic.