Lisa Earle McLeod* believes business travel will make a comeback post-pandemic — but in a different and far more dynamic form.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Delta Air Lines previously expected corporate travel to return to 60 per cent of pre-pandemic levels by September.
Instead, executives say they’ve seen a drop in bookings and a rise in cancellations in recent weeks.
As the pandemic marches on, many organisations are delaying travel and return-to-office plans, with some foregoing these ideas indefinitely.
While I don’t think business travel will vanish entirely, I do predict it will go through a major change.
I am personally thinking long and hard before I fly to a meeting.
I’ve seen how a reduction in travel time has enabled me to be healthier, more strategic, and enjoy my life more.
I want to travel again, but the threshold of ‘worth it’ has become much higher.
Here are three predictions I have for business travel in 2022.
Experiences will replace information-dumps.
The only thing that makes the ‘this-meeting-should’ve-been-an-email’ feeling worse is when you had to fly to the meeting.
Gone are the days when 500 employees would fly into an airport Marriott just to watch an executive read their PowerPoint aloud.
In the future, in-person gatherings will be focused on forging connections, having shared experiences, or actually producing a work product.
Personally, I think this shift should’ve happened a decade ago, but better late than never I suppose.
For smart organisations, future in-person interactions will lean more towards experiences instead of pent-up information dumps.
Team meetings will replace organisation meetings.
With some organisations making the decision to embrace full remote work indefinitely, I still predict a need for in-person gatherings to emerge, just on a smaller scale.
No matter how many brainstorming platforms we have at our disposal, and the ever-increasing Zoom tools out there, it’s not the same.
Fully remote teams will recognise the benefit of being physically together, at least occasionally.
I was speaking with an executive client of mine recently about this.
Her team has been fully remote for several years, long before the pandemic.
However, they met in person once a year to do some serious team building.
She’s long cited those few days a year, together, in-person, as a key pillar to her remote team’s success.
Developing close, human connections (even if you only occasionally see them) makes remote work less anonymous.
In-person meetings will not replace digital experiences; they’ll simply start to leverage them.
Over the past several years, our brains have adapted to multi-media, simultaneous experiences (even more so, lately).
The winners that capture what’s left of the corporate-travel market will be the organisations, such as hotels or conference centres, who can create immersive, differentiated, and memorable experiences.
While I’m more than ready to retire my Delta-Diamond status, I do think in-person gatherings are necessary, and done well, they can be amazing.
That said, a ‘back to normal’ approach of huge meetings and boring information dumps will quickly kill any embers of reconnection.
In-person gatherings should be reserved for experiences that bind us together, spark new ideas, and fill our emotional fuel tanks: No PowerPoint required.
*Lisa Earle McLeod is the leadership expert best known for creating the popular business concept Noble Purpose. She is the author of Selling with Noble Purpose and Leading with Noble Purpose. She can be contacted at mcleodandmore.com.
This article first appeared at mcleodandmore.com.
