Cos. Push Travel Alternatives: Planners Promote Remote Conferencing Mandates Cos. Push Travel Alternatives

A majority of corporate meeting buyers employ remote conferencing tools specifically to reduce meetings expenditures, and a significant amount of those buyers' corporations have enacted policies mandating the use of travel alternatives, according to an exclusive Meetings Today study.

According to the Meetings Monitor survey of 195 corporate meeting buyers, 60 percent used videoconferencing, Webconferencing or teleconferencing to cut their 2003 meetings spending, and 47 percent of respondents mandate the use of those technologies instead of travel in at least some cases.

The survey highlights the changing role of travel alternatives within corporate meetings management programs during the past few years. The days of buyers and suppliers alike presenting the technology alternatives as a way to enhance—not supplant—travel have gone by the wayside, as new tech enhancements, lower prices and increased reliability persist. Additionally, as remote conferencing's role as a tool to decrease travel has grown, so have travel and meeting managers' roles in its management and promotion.

"We have 200 videoconferencing facilities in various building and meeting rooms, and we absolutely highly promote their use," said Armand LeCompte, Bridgewater, N.J.-based director of North American travel management for French pharmaceutical giant Aventis. "It's not a mandate that it be used, but we do offer it as a viable alternative. If potential travelers also see it as an alternative, our costs are significantly lower, which we have measured internally."

LeCompte said Aventis' videoconferencing use has increased of late, but travel has increased as well. The company, though, has no plans to mandate the use of travel alternatives. "It's their budgets, so we can steer them in the right direction, but they get to make the decision as to the best way to get their business done in the most efficient ways they can," LeCompte said. "For some meetings, you can't videoconference, like some sales events or teambuilding, but other meetings, like monthly events that are scheduled and where the participants know each other, you can."

Persuading meeting sponsors to consider travel alternatives, LeCompte said, frequently requires no more than presenting the tools as options. "It's not something they usually think of first," he said. "It's change management, in a sense, of getting them to change the mindset. You don't always have to travel."

Though Aventis does not mandate, many companies have developed policies that require videoconferencing or teleconferencing at least be considered before meeting travel is booked.

One buyer, who requested anonymity, said his company as of Jan. 1 has forbidden full-coach air travel between certain city pairs if videoconferencing capabilities are available. "We have an extensive, state-of-the-art videoconferencing system and we have restricted travel between cities because we're trying to cut air spending there in half," the buyer said. "If your only choice is full fare, we will stop you in your tracks."

The company permits travel if, in the case of a meeting, enough attendees are traveling to qualify for a lower-cost meeting or zone fare. Additionally, if the manager of a travel or meeting sponsor's business unit approves the expenditure, travel can occur. Otherwise, the mandate holds. "It's not business as usual anymore," the buyer said. "This has been a problem for a long time, and we have to make sure to watch it."

Not all travel alternatives are employed similarly, however. While videoconferencing and teleconferencing are being used specifically to cut travel, Webconferencing appears to be used less for that purpose than the other technologies and more as a communication device to enhance the content of an event or deliver content to large, disparate audiences.

"We have videoconferencing equipment in key corporate locations, including our headquarters here, our European headquarters in the United Kingdom, as well as Tokyo and Beijing," said Rick Wakida, global travel manager for Redwood City, Calif.-based Openwave Systems Inc. "We also use WebEx for company updates."

The tools, however, have different reasons for being, Wakida said. Openwave uses Webconferencing specifically for corporate communications from senior executives designed to reach mass audiences. Though it's not practical for the company's senior management to travel to each corporate location to deliver that information, Webconferencing is considered a communication vehicle rather than a method of travel avoidance. However, though its use is not mandated, the establishment of videoconferencing services is designed to eliminate or alleviate frequent travel, he said.

"Videoconferencing is set up to reduce the amount of travel between those key sites," Wakida said. "At this stage, it is offered as an alternative, and we are gearing up a campaign to publicize it so that it can be used more. We want them to consider it, but we're not at the forefront of making it a directed first choice."