| Next | Section menu | Main menu | Previous |

Itchy feet

Henry Tricks: Schumpeter columnist, The Economist

Some executives can’t wait to hit the road again

AT FIRST IT was a revelation. Breakfast could be even better in the kitchen than in the
Four Seasons. Children could make you laugh more than in-flight entertainment. You
could put away the high heels and the brogues, the trouser suit and the Hermès tie.
Limos, leg room, power lunches and chocolates on the pillow? All swept aside by the
miracle of Zoom.

No longer. It has taken a gradual return to the office, Zoom fatigue and a jolt of panic
over slumping sales forecasts to make some executives itch to hit the road again. They
may still be itching in early 2021. The cancellation of post-holiday jamborees like CES,
the tech show held annually in Las Vegas in January, and the postponement of Davos, a
winter sojourn for the globalised high and mighty, suggest executive lounges will be
ghostly for some time yet. But some aspects of business travel will return, especially
those where journeys are short and hold out the prospect of a sale at the end of them.
About eight out of ten business trips are domestic, according to the Global Business
Travel Association (GBTA), an industry group. Its latest survey suggests almost two-