Since January, Jen Coleman has kicked her videoconferencing habit, flying from her home in London, first to Miami and later to Melbourne, to see clients in person — and win a renewed contract for her company.
The pessimists “were wrong,” says Andrew Crawley, chief commercial officer for American Express Global Business Travel, the industry leader. “Business travellers are coming back.” While it remains to be seen whether the recovery can be sustained — executives may ultimately take fewer business trips than previously once the initial euphoria of a return to travel wears off — the pace of the rebound is shoring up confidence at airlines as they deploy fleets and map out their post-pandemic networks. The Bloomberg World Airlines Index has climbed about 50% from a May 2020 low.
Some in the business say there’s bound to be a degree of retrenchment after two years of relative success with virtual get-togethers. At the very least, executives will become more selective, ditching marginal trips that let them briefly see colleagues with no immediate, quantifiable payoff, says Keith Tan, CEO of the Singapore Tourism Board: “People do enjoy not having to travel hours and hours and go through jet lag for meetings we now know we can do effectively over Zoom.
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