Video conferencing technology reduces excessive travel costs of the U.S. Interior Department

Officials of the United States Department of the Interior tend to travel frequently to locations including Sacramento, Boise and Fairbanks to care for the area's national parks and water projects. According to the Fresno Bee, the total travel costs were $287,796 for 329 trips taken between Denver and Sacramento in 2009. A higher total cost and number of trips were counted between Sacramento and Washington, D.C. and Sacramento and San Diego.

The department could significantly cut costs and reduce unnecessary travel time by using video conferencing technology to take the place of even half of their scheduled meetings. In Sacramento, one spokesman from an office in the Interior Department stated that workers have begun to use video conferencing once a week.

With the advanced technology of online meetings, workers can take advantage of video conferencing's web-based portability and conduct meetings on the field, accomplishing the same tasks that they would face-to-face.

Scott Flaherty, a Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman from the Pacific Southwest region, asserted, "The day is coming when the first option is not to travel, but to do a meeting by video conference."