Business Travel Will Fuel Support Services
Business travel is expected to increase rapidly during the 1990s. Futurist Marvin Cetron expects the principal reasons to be population growth and the integration of a global economy.
Most business travel will continue to be done by airplane, with passenger counts growing from 380 million in 1985 to almost 800 million by the end of this decade. To cope with demand, airplanes that can carry as many as 1,000 passengers may be used by 2002.
Subsequently, flight delays are expected to grow as airports struggle to handle large numbers of flights. Look for businesses such as shopping malls, movie theaters, exercise clubs, even office facilities rented by the hour to spring up in easily reached locations around airports, capitalizing on travelers whose flights have been delayed.
Corporate travelers will increasingly use their own aircraft, creating a greater market for small jets. In Britain, Chichester-Miles Consultants Ltd. has developed a jet with a body of glass-reinforced plastic that is less than 25 feet long yet seats four people. It will be available in the early 1990s and will have a cruising speed of 500 m.p.h. and a range of 1,700 miles.
Early in the next century, laser-powered spacecraft could send travelers into orbit and halfway around the world in less than 45 minutes. Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute predict that this sort of craft would provide the most efficient form of passenger flight transportation. An unmanned vehicle will likely be tested by 1995, and a manned craft could be operating experimentally shortly after 2000.
Corporations Behind More Programs to Educate Workers
U.S. businesses fret over the future supply of literate, trainable and technologically adept workers. The nation’s high school dropout rate is projected at 28% in the 1990s, and many of those who do graduate may lack an adaptable education.
Businesses increasingly will form partnerships with local governments to improve education efforts--in effect, to “grow” the workers they will need. Already, joint business-government efforts are planned or are under way in various parts of the country for education programs for children and adults.
In Mississippi, a partnership between government sources, IBM and Richard Riordan, a Los Angeles philanthropist, will put computer learning centers in every kindergarten and first grade in the state. Children will be taught to read and write using these computers, and in the process they will develop basic computer skills. More than 70 of an expected 523 computer learning centers have already been installed.
Corporations are also founding and funding degree-conferring schools that provide training appropriate for the workplace. These institutions attract high school students by providing free tuition, job placement and a high level of instruction. These aren’t small, single classroom facilities; IBM operates a veritable campus at its headquarters in Armonk, N.Y., and through its worldwide seminars instructs 22,000 students a day. Herbert London, dean of New York University’s Gallatin division, the so-called school without walls, predicts that “it is only a question of time before the corporate BA is perceived as a direct competitor to the conventional college degree.”
Picture This: Possibilities for Video Are Wide Open
As the popularity of video continues to grow, new business applications for videotaping and videocassette recorders will be developed. VCRs are now found in nearly half of all American homes and will increasingly be found in offices and other business settings in the 1990s. The number of in-office video cameras, studios and production facilities is also expected to rise.
“Video letters” may become a popular means of business communication in the 1990s. Brief videotapes could be sent in place of letters, resumes or short business presentations, adding the visual dimension to communications.
Already, Short Takes Inc., a video products firm, has developed “video booths” where consumers can tape short, inexpensive video letters. The user purchases a videocassette, steps inside the booth, inserts the tape into a slot and proceeds with the taping--much like the conventional still-photo booth. Users can see themselves on a monitor in the booth and direct the action of the video. Video booths have been installed in hotels and retail locations, with office building installations expected soon.
