As travel has gotten harder because of security concerns, Web conferencing has gotten easier. So why does anybody go anywhere any more? Because customers and clients expect it; because competitors still travel; because the march of technology has not matched the value of personal contact. In fact, Web conferencing is a completely different way of being there.

「We've seen a couple of times throughout the last 10 years the idea that with videoconferencing, Web conferencing, nobody's going to need to travel any more, but it really hasn't panned out that way,」 said Caleb Tiller, a spokesman for the National Business Travel Association, a trade group. 「Right now we're seeing corporate budgets for travel as high in 2000, planes more full than ever in history and hotels more full.」

But Web conferencing is driven partly by the difficulties of travel; at WebEx,, a firm in Santa Clara, California, that provides 「Web meeting applications,」 Colin B. Smith, a spokesman, said that the company saw ripples when there was news like the arrests in London of Muslim extremists accused of trying to bomb planes. 「But it's a ripple in a tidal wave,」 he said.

WebEx's product allows participants to see each other's taking heads over Webcams. It can also allow colleagues in different cities to manipulate the same spreadsheet, annotate the same PDF, edit the same document or rearrange the same PowerPoint document. The number of participants is almost unlimited. Better than a real meeting, a Web meeting can include features like instant messaging, in which one person can send a message to all the others or to one of the others. It can be recorded, archived and replayed.

The airlines are worried about the hassles involved in travel, but not really about the Web as competition. James May, the president of the Air Travel Association, the trade group of the big airlines, said that basic needs had not changed since his grandfather used cars and trains to sell thread, buttons and sewing equipment.

「The personal touch, the face-to-face interactions, that will always come into play,」 he said. 「Based on absolutely no empirical data whatsoever, there's nothing that can ever replace a face-to-face meeting.」 He added, 「If you and I are talking and I can look at your face and read you, that's a very important piece of the human interaction.」

Still, not every meeting has to be face to face, even though the demands of a global economy require more meetings, the experts say. People who collaborate often, and people within the same company, may consult over the Web in between face-to-face gatherings, sometimes holding Web conferences far more often than they would ever have traveled to each other's locations.

「We all know each other, we've all met each other, we don't have to do it face to face,」 said Mr. Tiller, describing corporate strategy. 「Save that money for much more important, lucrative trips; have that sales guy make two more trips.