Conference calls on the Rise as Businesses Say No to Flying

Online, December 2, 2009 (Newswire.com) - Powwownow's latest offer to giveaway 5,000 free conference calls (http://www.powwownow.co.uk/Conference-calls ) was created as a response to British Airways' latest campaign to offer 5,000 free business flights to SMEs. However, these SMEs were still liable for airport taxes and charges amounting to hundreds of pounds. Powwownow has been overwhelmed by the response with over 3,500 businesses taking advantage of this free conference call offer.

'Here at Powwownow we totally agree that meeting face to face is a great way of doing business, but we also live in the real world and know that SMEs simply can't afford to fly everywhere. It's expensive for them and costly for the environment. Instead of worrying people into taking unnecessary flights, we thought we would do something positive and offer free conference calls with absolutely no hidden charges' comments Andy Pearce, CEO at Powwownow.

Powwownow decided to take on the aviation industry after BA flew Boris Johnson business class to New York back in September, where he told an assembled press conference that video conferencing didn't work http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/sep/15/boris-johnson-british-airways
Powwownow dually responded: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/sep/17/boris-johnson-business-flights

This was followed by a campaign by Flybe called 'Business is Better Face to Face'. Adverts appeared in the national press urging businesses to fly to meetings and proclaiming that 'Conference Calls Don't Win Business'. Powwownow now felt that this was a very irresponsible and issued a response about the real cost of airtravel (http://www.powwownow.co.uk/lifebehindblog/?p=729 ). Flybe's Simon Lilley responded (http://www.powwownow.co.uk/lifebehindblog/?p=807 )
and actually said 'sure we use conference calls' !

To take advantage of Powwownow's latest offer simply register at Flypowwownow (http://www.flypowwownow.co.uk ).