Recession a trigger for change?

News Article - 10 February 2009
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Businesses interested in accounting for carbon emissions as a way of allowing them to control costs during the recession may be considering cutting down on much of their travel.

However, for companies that still need to fly in order to participate in face-to-face meetings with clients and partners, there may be another way that they can do this while keeping their overheads down.

Paul Simmons, UK regional general manager for easyJet, claims that the recession could be the "trigger for change" in business travel.

"If you think about what happened in 2001 after that crisis, from my perception a lot of European business class travel stopped and people were asked to travel economy," he says.

Mr Simmons adds that many such travellers never switched back once the financial slowdown was over and that the same trend may appear during the current recession.

According to a survey by Critical Research for the WWF, 62 per cent of companies surveyed are already reducing their business travel footprint.

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