About a hundred respondents:
How has the recession affected your agencys conference, training, or travel budget
16.7 Not a Lot
33.3 Little
25.9 A lot
24.1 Travel? What Travel?
Very interesting. Seems like the travel industry has taken a hit this year, huh?
Better to ask whether travel has declined because agencies are fearful of negative publicity associated with conducting or attending meetings and conferences particularly in high-priced locations.
@Mike Greenberg – I believe this is a MAJOR concern with a lot of agencies.
Indeed. See link to Wall Street Journal piece.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124822843228670879.html
I was always amazed at the amount of money used for travel within our agency. I am still amazed because e-meetings have become so much more efficient. Sure, not everybody knows the techmology required to jump into an e-meeting but I sure hope we move toward that in the future. I love traveling as much as anybody but don’t really like feeling like I’m using my own tax dollars to attend 4-5 hours of meetings per day in Seattle or Reno. As the baby boomers move out of government and the agencies get younger and more savvy re: the apps available, I see alot of savings in our travel budgets. It’s mainly managers now who get to go to the really COOL places. I find I take free computer training more often and I think that’s good. You can learn alot more by taking 2-3 online classes per week than by taking one or two big trips a year and the cost is miniscule in comparison. cb
Perhaps a good follow on question would be: If you are not traveling as much due to the recession, how are you keeping up with the information used to travel to get?
I think it is interesting that gov agencies are concerned about high-priced locations now, but we were ENCOURAGED to hold conferences/meetings in New Orleans 2 years ago to HELP their economy. (Pre-Katrina N.O. was considered to be a “resort location, too!”)
@Cindy Lou Baker, @Jim Blesse, and @Julie Marquis- thanks for sharing.