How technology can't ever replace all travel

During tough economic times, when there are cutbacks in people's travel for both business or leisure, there are often predictions about how technological advances will mean less actual travel away from home in the years ahead. Recently, a fresh round of forecasts warn those who serve travelers to prepare for a day when there will be far less need to travel, given the ubiquity of electronic communication by laptop and smart phone, and tech solutioins to meetings like telepresence, which enables virtual face-to-face meetings for people in locations thousands of miles apart.

Yet for all the warnings, and I can remember them going back to the early 1990s, the amount of travel hasn't changed significantly. A trade publication from Britiain has a good article today about a new report by Amadeus, the big Europe-based global distribution system that links travel companies with travel agents and customers, that predicts a continued need for travel, even as technology may change how we go about leaving home and what we experience once we've left. Read more of the story in Air & Travel Business News here ....