Joyce defends work travel in era of Zoom meetings

Qantas boss Alan Joyce has blasted predictions videoconferencing will replace the need for business travel.

Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce. Picture: Russell Shakespeare

Qantas boss Alan Joyce has blasted doomsday predictions that COVID will kill off corporate travel, insisting businesses need face-to-face interactions to thrive.

The rise of Zoom and Microsoft Teams meetings throughout lockdown periods has led to predictions by the International Air Transport Association that businesses will see travel as an unnecessary expense in the post-pandemic world and dramatically downgrade interstate and overseas work trips.

Speaking at a Griffith University function on the Gold Coast this week, Mr Joyce said there was almost as much pent up demand for business travel as tourism.

“I’ve talked to a couple of our biggest (corporate) customers, and one of the CEOs said he was relying on contacts built up over decades to get through the pandemic, but he would eventually need to rebuild those contacts,” Mr Joyce said.

“We know personal contact, people interacting with each other, has a huge difference from doing it over the internet.”

He offered the example of Qantas Domestic CEO Andrew David who was “stuck in New Zealand for a few months” early on in the COVID-19 crisis.

“We said ‘Andrew, you need to get back’ and since he’s been back it’s made a massive difference having him on the ground, talking to people, dealing with people,” Mr Joyce said.

“We are a people organisation, most companies are, so I believe that (business travel) will come back. Maybe there will be a hit but it will come back substantially.”

His comments followed predictions by the IATA that corporate travel budgets would be “very constrained” as companies continued to face financial pressure, even as the economy improved.

The umbrella body for more than 250 airlines worldwide said “video conferencing appeared to have made significant inroads as a substitute for in-person meetings”.

“In addition, while historically GDP growth and air travel have been highly correlated, surveys suggest this link has weakened, particularly with regard to business travel,” the IATA report said.

Mr Joyce’s confidence about the need for business travel was shared by Sydney Airport CEO Geoff Culbert, who has led calls for the staggered return of international flights.

Mr Culbert said without travel, major business deals would simply not be made.

“Foreign and direct investment into Australia will stall unless we get business travel into this country,” Mr Culbert said.

“I know this myself, having worked for multinational companies. If we were going to make a major investment in Australia we wouldn’t get that investment green lit unless a decision-maker from head office could come down and kick the tyres.”

One group hopeful of a decline in international business travel of as much as 40 per cent was the Climate Group, which said the reduction would slash carbon emissions by as much as 28 million tonnes a year.

Climate Group director of corporate partnerships, Mike Peirce, said its research had found ­corporations and governments did not want to return to “business as usual”.

“We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to rebuild a greener, fairer future and they want to grab it,” Mr Peirce said.

“Businesses have seen there are many digital solutions available to them that allow for remote working to be effective and collaborative while cutting costs and emissions from travel.”