It’s not just executives at the world’s major airlines who have been left shaking their heads in collective disbelief at the astronomical price rise of fuel in recent months – those charged with managing companies’ travel spend aren’t having things too easy either.

The soaring cost of fuel has sent flights prices through the stratosphere in recent months – even the seemingly recession-proof Ryanair has said that it may only break even in 2009 – meaning that procurement travel costs have gone the same way.

However, some companies, and countries too, are taking an innovative approach to cost cutting. Over on BusinessGreen.com, a report claims that Cisco has saved 16,000 journeys at a cost of $141million by replacing expensive business travel with teleconferencing.

"We are beginning to see some really interesting case studies which highlight the scale of the savings that can be realised," said Tim Stone, the company’s senior marketing manager for unified communications. "Internally we have had 214 TelePresence units deployed.”

It’s an impressive figure, which seems to suggest that on-screen communication and virtual handshakes could soon replace the real thing. And whereas nothing will ever replace the face-to-face interaction that is so crucial in forming lasting relationships with both suppliers and vendors, teleconferencing could soon represent the kind of cost savings that are hard to ignore.