WORLD - Face-to-face meetings offer an average return on investment of more than 12 to one, according to data compiled by Meeting Professionals International (MPI).
In a white paper titled Meetings Deliver, MPI relays Oxford Economics’ discovery that every dollar invested in business travel generates an average of US$12.5 in incremental value, and the average US business would lose 17 per cent of its profits if it cancelled all business travel.
“In every major economy, 2009 was the year when executives sought to control costs by indiscriminately cutting meeting and business travel budgets, often with little or no consideration of the purposes for which face-to-face contact is still absolutely essential,” the paper says.
The white paper cites a survey of Harvard Business Review subscribers, 95 per cent of who saw face-to-face meeting as “the key to success for long-term relationships” while 89 per cent considered meetings “essential for ‘sealing the deal”. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the survey is sponsored by British Airways, which stands to make obvious gains from facilitating these meetings.
