The US market for desktop videoconferencing will grow to $435m in 1999 from its current level of $90m, according to one market research firm, but a MORI poll suggests that its effect on travel will be minimal. A report from New York market research firm, Input, said that people see desktop videoconferencing as a personalised, low-cost alternative to board room videoconferencing and the growth in desktop videoconferencing vendors and multimedia computers will swell the market by over four times. Input added that a five year compound annual growth rate of 35% makes the videoconferencing market one of the most dynamic segments of the information services industry in the 1990s. Despite the projected success of the industry, however, John McGilvray, an analyst at Input, said travel arrangements were unlikely to change dramatically. There will be some effect, he said, but not in the near term. The amount that people have to travel will not be significantly changed. He added that travel will be affected in the l onger term but such changes were not currently quantifiable. A MORI survey of 300 businesses conducted in February found 71% of respondents were not likely to let their business travel decisions be affected by videoconferencing. Only 5% believed it was very likely that desktop videoconferencing would affect their business travel. Videoconferencing appears to be having little or no negative affect on the volumes of business travel, said Richard Lovell, group managing director of Carlson Wagonlit Travel, which commissioned the study. It could be argued that the human side of business transactions is lost with videoconferencing. The poll found that over 42% of all passengers were flying in business class and over 50% on flights over five hours.
