Over the last few years, I've written several times about the pleasures of a good meeting. Meetings are so much fun, especially if they take place in some hard-to-reach locale that means sitting in a packed airplane, sleeping in a strange hotel, and otherwise giving up comfortable routines.

Some executives may get to party at exotic locales, but most of the business meetings I go to—even when they are in perfectly nice places—are work. We start early and end late. Dinners and other events—though stimulating—are more often than not more work than pleasure. Sound familiar?

Why Do It?

So, why do we do it? There is one big reason: Meetings are stimulating and productive. Meetings with customers help us understand their needs in a way that phone calls, e-mails, Web meetings, etc., can never quite equal. Technology is very useful, but it doesn't replace face-to-face contact.

Over the years, most of the new and novel ideas that have helped us in a major way have had their "aha" moment during the course of an event outside of the office. At an industry association meeting. An education seminar. A meeting with a client. (Our staffers hate it when I get back to the office with a new brainstorm.)

Yet, you wouldn't get those brainstorms from reading or watching the news, or listening to your favorite member of Congress. Listen to them and you hear that business travel is bad, marked by excess, evil. (And there has to be some irony in this as President Obama uses Air Force One to make the Jay Leno show in California. He knows the importance of travel and he's not scrimping.)

In Support of Business Travel

Faced with this condemnation, the New York Times Business Section of March 22, 2009, had several articles on the other side, supporting business travel. The most provocative was by Ben Stein, the actor/lawyer/writer/economist polymath, whose column was titled "Don't Blame the Business Trip."

Stein starts off by noting that he, too, hates to "... see my tax dollars going to entertain employees of bailed-out companies lavishly." He then goes on, "The truth is that business meetings are usually not a waste of time, even if they are held in Las Vegas or at a resort with a golf course.... At the meetings I attend, men and women fly coach, stay in immense, boxy hotels, start their meeting days at breakfast at 7 a.m. and work through the day until far later than seems reasonable to me." If that sounds familiar, join the club.

Stein asks, rhetorically, "Could Congress really do its work if it held its sessions by teleconferencing?" And he goes on to condemn the "puritanical excess" sweeping the country, saying that its most likely effect will be to cause unemployment among the waiters, cooks, and maids in the hospitality industry.

Brutal Times

This is probably the toughest business climate I've ever faced, and we are being forced to take measures that we don't like. We're taking them because we need to preserve energy and capital to be ready to take advantage of the opportunities that will be there when the economy recovers (and it will!).

Now is the time to prepare for innovation, and reaching out beyond the confines of the office is very, very important. We're saying "no" to a lot of travel, and we're trying to get the biggest bang for the buck by making the most of local opportunities, using technology where it's appropriate, and pinching pennies. We're doing this so we can have funds for the most important travel.

HR's Role

I'm curious how the rest of you in HR see this. Do you see travel as a waste of time and money? For your own department? Sales? Others? Are we being penny-wise and pound-foolish to cut travel? How does your company see it?

Just email me your responses so that it gives some idea as to what others think about the same at :- viv_mehta@hotmail.com