My C21st business model relies on this partially true. For global networked businesses it will surely be true. Those who do travel the globe will be experts who have to go to fix something not just for face-to-face contacts/meetings. C21st business models are less about relationships and more about connectivity so the need for face-to-face contacts will lessen and lessen very quickly. Videoconferencing is not and never will replace global travel. However, it will quickly become an active part of regional and local networked business models. It is at the local/regional levels that I expect to see increasing not decreasing business travel - travel will increase for those in sales, HR, and marketing. C21st business models at local/regional levels are going to succeed or fail on the basis of the 'consumer experience' delivered and so I expect to see a whole range of new jobs evolve to cover this critical aspect of supplier-to-consumer interactions. Local business will remain relatively people-intensive and so there will be an increased need for HR professionals to travel. C21st business is going to change in some remarkable ways and the most remarkable thing we are about to see is that the 'new talent' in a business is not the staff but the consumers. Globally, these C21st consumers need connectivity to business networks (machine-to-machine) in large part (eg Google) not relationships with people in company. Locally, consumers need a great 'experience' when purchasing your company's product or service. Much of this local/regional business will be done with 'self-service' business models that have superb feedback loops and follow-up regimes to attend to the needs of grumpy consumers. A great deal of this new local/regional business will be done with 'lavish people pampering' services and so recruiting and retaining excellent staff will remain important. In these C21st local/regional businesses models it is the 'sense of community' that wins consumers today and next week. To support all types of new local/regional business models there will be a pressing need for more not less travel - travel will be all about fixing the 'experience' consumers have when they purchase from you....