Face to face matters.

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This week in Barcelona, ninety thousand people are expected to attend the Mobile World Congress.  Taking place over four days and with over 1,700 exhibitors, the highlight this year will be the keynote speech by Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg.  All the major players will use the event to launch their latest products; the Samsung S5 Smartphone and Smartwatch; the Blackberry Jakarta; the Nokia Normandy; and the Sony Xperia tablet.  You won’t have heard of any them yet, but you will have soon because what happens in Barcelona doesn’t stay in Barcelona – it quickly becomes headline news around the world.
Last November, World Travel Market attracted well over 50,000 people to London.  Later this month ITB will bring an incredible 170,000 visitors from around the world to Berlin, and a new event, World Travel Market Africa has just been announced to take place for the first time in Cape Town in May this year.  This is travel networking on a mammoth scale.
These modern events have evolved out of the trade fairs which began in late medieval Europe, when traders would visit towns to showcase their products, allowing potential customers to touch and feel the goods on offer. It’s not hard to see why they have survived and thrived.  In the tactile world of mobile technology the ability to demonstrate products face-to-face is essential.  It’s no surprise that the biggest shows today are car shows, where manufacturers spend vast amounts of money to launch their latest models to millions of visitors.
But what’s the point of travel trade shows?  There’s no product to display – the only way you’re going to experience a hotel or a destination is to get on a plane and go there.  No amount of celebrity endorsement or authentic local dance is going to change that.   Why, in an era when video conferencing technology is efficient and free to use; when LinkedIn can connect you to almost anyone in the world; and when our carbon footprint and its impact on the environment is well understood, do we still insist on traveling to these events?
In Barcelona this week they will be celebrating new technology which should logically make the show itself redundant. If Mark Zuckerberg says anything of note, social media will spread it across the globe in an instant. If there’s a new product to see, you can watch the video on YouTube then share it with your friends on Facebook.
But this misses the point. Travel, more than any other, is a business built on relationships, and relationships are built on trust - which is notoriously difficult to acquire on Skype.  More importantly travel is about friendship.  When we invite our customers to visit another country we are inviting them to visit a friend; a friend that we’ve come to know very well.  So well in fact, that we can personally recommend them.

Travel is social.  That’s why face-to-face matters; it’s how friendships are made and deals are done. Don’t expect any change soon.

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