Companies can make this more appealing by holding the meetings in nice parts of the world -- note, nice doesn't have to be outrageously expensive -- putting people up in nice hotels with suitable space for spouses and kids, and by making the week before vacation for half the group and the week after for the other half, with the option to stay in the same hotel at the company's expense.
This won't work for everyone, or every company, but it's a much nicer carrot than usual.
No. It's a lot easier to hire someone to watch the kids on a regular basis, and also they go to school during the day. I can hire people to pick them up and watch them after school, and then help them after work with homework and chores and such.
But if work wants me to travel for a week, it either means my spouse has to pick up all the stuff I do at home, or I have to find someone I trust to stay at my home for a week on an ad-hoc basis.
It's much harder to find ad-hoc babysitting than regularly scheduled babysitting.
When I owned a business, that’s what I did. Everyone worked remotely, except for me and a couple of people. I had a small coworking space simply because working out of my shoebox sized apartment was not fun. I hired everyone from the local area & occasionally had a meeting in the coworking space.
Companies can make this more appealing by holding the meetings in nice parts of the world -- note, nice doesn't have to be outrageously expensive -- putting people up in nice hotels with suitable space for spouses and kids, and by making the week before vacation for half the group and the week after for the other half, with the option to stay in the same hotel at the company's expense.
This won't work for everyone, or every company, but it's a much nicer carrot than usual.