We are all fed up with remote meetings
Are business trips profitable?
Profit for the company
Business travel
Profit
The pandemic had a huge impact on the collapse of the travel market. In 2020, the total value of the global travel market decreased by as much as 61 %, dropping to 504 billion USD (data from April 2021). It is estimated that the value of this market will return to its pre-pandemic level and regain its annual revenue (reduced by 830 billion USD) no sooner than in 2027.
- year 2019
- year 2021
The chart above clearly shows that companies do not intend to save on business trips in the area of sales, customer acquisition and after-sales assistance (service and training).
This trend is also confirmed by the following conclusion on the profitability of investing in travels:
For every dollar spent [on business travels], companies commonly see a $ 2.90 profit increase and a $ 9.50 $ rise in revenue.
The biggest reductions will affect internal company meetings (6%). This area also includes all kinds of sittings and deliberations, as well as formal meetings of company management boards, supervisory boards or general meetings of shareholders. It is worthwhile to adapt to global trends, because it can be assumed that our competitors are going to reduce their costs in this way.
The privote system enables a significant reduction of costs related to traditional voting sessions by offering a legally valid remote counterpart. As a full-fledged videoconferencing tool, it can also be used for standard online meetings. In this respect, it even has some advantages over popular videoconferencing solutions (e.g. shared interactive whiteboard or the option to work in subgroups).
Can you vote online and save $ 20 000?
It's simple. Just make use of online voting.
Instead of a traditional General Meeting of Shareholders, it is possible to organise its remote counterpart.
Let's try to calculate the cost of voters' participation in a conventional meeting.
We will analyse two variants: minimal and optimal.
Both variants assume:
- travelling by car or by plane,
- one day spent on a round trip,
- overnight stay at a hotel.
| Opis | Minimal version | Optimal version | ||
| by car | by plane | by car | by plane | |
| Cost of one participant's working dayFor the minimal version, we assume a annual gross salary of $ 51 ths., and for the optimal version - $ 82 ths. | 140 | 140 | 270 | 270 |
| Cost of travelling by carWe assumed a distance of 200 miles and 58 cents per mile driven for business use | 120 | 260 | ||
| Cost of travelling by planeAverage domestic fly cost in standard and businsess class. | 360 | 480 | ||
| Cost of hotel accommodation | 180 | 180 | 510 | 510 |
| Cost of meals | 50 | 50 | 120 | 120 |
| Cost of organising the trip and settling expensesCost of 4 hours of work of an employee with average gross salary. | 70 | 70 | 70 | 70 |
| Total per person | $ 560 | $ 800 | $ 1 230 | $ 1 450 |
20 participants are to partake in the sitting. Four of them will travel by plane and the remaining sixteen will travel by car.
With such assumptions, the cost of the meeting varies between $ 12 000 and $ 25 000. Of course, these are only simplified values and can be very different from real cases. However, the purpose of this article was to highlight costs that we usually overlook and their potential to generate savings.
| Description | number of people | Minimal version | Optimal version |
| Participants travelling by plane | 4 | 3 200 | 5 800 |
| Participants travelling by car | 16 | 8 960 | 19 680 |
| Total meeting cost | $ 12 160 | $ 25 480 |
Sources:
1. Skift + TripActions Business Travel Survey, 2019
2. Investopedia, 2020
3. Financesonline
4. BTN Business Travell News, 2020
5. Statista
6. ReportLinker, 2020
7. The balance careers - Average Salary Information for U.S. Workers , 2021
8. IRS - Average Salary Information for U.S. Workers, 2020
9. Business Insider - How much airfare in the US costs today compared to 10 years ago, 2019
10. Budget your trip - How much airfare in the US costs today compared to 10 years ago, 2021
