We polled the industry and had 117 respondents to our latest Industry Insights Question regarding office visits and travel. Responses were gathered from a mix of travel buyers and suppliers between August 20 and September 1, 2021.
We asked the question: Are you traveling to visit buyers or being visited by suppliers who have traveled in order to meet face-to-face in the office?
Of 117 respondents:
57 percent have not traveled to visit or been visited by someone who has traveled within the last 60 days and do not plan to within the next 60 days.
43 percent responded yes, either within the last 60 days, planning to within the next 60 days or both.
12 percent responded yes, within the past 60 days only. 18 percent responded yes, within the NEXT 60 days only.
13 percent responded yes to both the past 60 days AND the next 60 days.
Future Outlook
Interesting to note…31 percent of total respondents plan to travel for this purpose within the NEXT 60 days.
Comments from Respondents:
Did meet with an airline rep off site for lunch at a restaurant, but no in office visits are allowed at this time
At my company. we are not allowed to meet face to face until 10/15/21 - if Covid cases go down.
I am anxious for that to happen, but we are being extremely cautious due to the spread of the Delta variant.
I have visited with local Hotels to discuss the upcoming RFP season.
We are only allowing business essential travel at this time.
Our company has currently pushed all supplier/vendor in-house visits until October.
Our travel is client and business critical only at this point in time. Face to face meetings with suppliers, conferences, industry events are not considered business critical and are not happening at this point in time.
I have attended conferences.
As a buyer, nine of my suppliers have attempted an in-person meeting since March 2020. We are in the process of a TMC/OBT RFP which we plan to award in Q3. I will expect an in-person meeting.
I'm on the buyer side and while we are open to in-person meetings, we are still significantly limiting the number and type of visitors in our offices. As a result, we have to look for third party sites to meet - frequently that hassle isn't worth it.
Traveling next week. All meeting will be in restaurants and not in office.
We did schedule two meetings with suppliers, but I think we were all a little nervous about it due to the surging Delta variant.
Visit was outside office.
No visitors allowed in our offices at this time.
Meetings have been outdoor restaurant visits/meetings.