The elephant in the room – will Janet Yellen give us all a rate hike for Christmas? And, after all this time, there are no returns. I am not sure any budget for 2016 will hold up after today. But, despite predictions that technology would make business travel obsolete, a Morgan Stanley survey in “The Economist” signaled the hottest new sales trend is face-to-face meetings. 63% of American firms increased their travel budgets for 2015. A similar proportion said that they would increase spending again in 2016. And the trend is growing beyond the US. Businesses and other organizations in China, collectively, will soon be spending more than their American counterparts on business travel, according to the Global Business Travel Association. With more ways to communicate than ever before, it’s getting tougher to get people’s attention. Our industry’s hybrids, like Redfin, the “online brokerage combined with in-home sales agents company”, probably are the future. Technology won’t go away. Apparently, neither will the “look ’em in the eye” meeting.
December 16, 2015