The key findings of the study indicate that majority of business travelers will rely on electronic alternatives more in the future than they have previously, in order to meet their travel spend reduction goals. Further, the study notes how companies who had widely deployed conferencing technologies saw, on average, greater reduction on travel spending in 2009, with conferencing having the biggest impact on internal travel. Another key finding was a continued increase and high expectation in the use of electronic alternatives for purposes ranging from team meetings to large events, to meetings with suppliers and partners. More than 40% of companies indicated the need to have their organizations replacing more sales-related travel with conferencing over the next few years.

Despite these plans to rely more on conferencing technologies, doubts and confusion persist about the effectiveness of these technologies as travel replacements. Indeed web-conferencing was “usually” an effective replacement, while video-conferencing was not rated as “usually effective” by a majority of respondents. The study was based on a survey of more than 200 corporate travel managers from across the globe, and provides an in-depth analysis of the current and expected usage of travel alternatives (e.g., web- and video-conferencing) broken down by region, industry sector, and company size. The research also investigated travel spend patterns, including T&E-to-sales ratios, and tactics travel managers plan to employ to control travel spend in 2010.