Conferencing Service Providers Get Big Boost from Corporate Travel Cutbacks

A new report from travel industry research company PhoCusWright predicts that the corporate travel market will decline by about 15 percent in 2009.

Meanwhile the total U.S. travel market, including leisure travel, is projected to decline about 11 percent in 2009, dipping below 2006 levels.

According to PhoCusWright's “U.S. Corporate Travel Distribution” report, corporate travel has historically comprised about 40 percent of the total U.S. travel market, but that share is expected to shrink -- from 39 percent in 2007 to 35 percent in 2010.


“Current economic challenges and public scrutiny of travel and entertainment spending has placed corporate travel on the chopping block,” said Susan Steinbrink, PhoCusWright's senior research and corporate market analyst, in a release. She said not only will there be less corporate travel, but there will be “stricter policies and tougher policing when spending does occur.”

And it’s not just the high cost of travel that is causing many companies to cut their travel budgets – some companies are citing other reasons, such as the global spread of swine flu and the threat of civil unrest which is playing out in certain regions of the world, such as Mexico, as reasons for keeping more employees in the office.

All of this is good news for audio, Web and video conferencing service providers, such as The Conference Group (News - Alert), which are seeing rapid uptake of their solutions as a result of these travel cuts. Companies are increasingly turning to conferencing services to give their employees the ability to hold live, face-to-face meetings with partners, customers, prospects and investors – and also to facilitate collaboration between internal employees, teams, departments and division heads spread across geographically-dispersed locations.

Even Steinbrink acknowledges that “the recession will positively affect innovation, as corporations and travel management companies intensify efforts to optimize travel programs. This means bringing more spend under management, accelerating integration efforts across the corporate travel value chain, and leveraging new technologies -- from mobile to video conferencing -- to bolster the bottom line."

The Conference Group is a full-service audio, Web and video conferencing service provider focused purely solely on Web-based collaboration solutions. The company offers tailored programs to meet a variety of specialized client needs, while maintaining an aggressive pricing strategy. The Conference Group offers a global solution with toll-free access numbers from over 60 countries worldwide.

In an effort to provide its client base and sales partners with the latest in collaboration technology, the Conference Group provides a Web portal for online account provisioning, an e-commerce portal for instant passcode assignment, and a control panel to monitor conference calls while in progress. As an added benefit, the Conference Group provides free conference recording and playback feature with its reservationless conference call service.

The Conference Group recently introduced ReadyShow, a multi-point video over IP service, rounding out its comprehensive suite of collaboration services.

But with a multitude of new entrants and new services being introduced every month, competition in the conferencing market is becoming fierce. As such the Conference Group is continuously adding new features and capabilities to its services.

For example, the company recently added a new feature to its audio conferencing service that allows a conference leader or other user to create and maintain lists of conference attendees for automatic dial-out. This new capability, dubbed “UBlast,” allows a user to quickly get a pre-defined group of people on a conference call with just the click of a mouse. Using a proprietary Web interface, a conference leader can easily create, add, delete or modify “dial-out” lists, and then enact them automatically upon entering the conference (or manually by entering a code).

In addition the company recently started offering a 1,000-seat user license for its Web conferencing service with a suggested retail price of $99 per month.