[ghaff]

Upthread was about moving people.

New York City to (near) London is almost certainly the most common route by ship and it really isn't that many people in the scheme of things. I couldn't imagine having gone to my boss and telling them I'd spend a week getting to London for an event and spend 4x or whatever the amount. You can also get New York to Hamburg or a shortish train trip from Paris. And business passengers are most of the (especially premium) travel volume on those general routes. (And that doesn't even take into account far less frequent liner schedules.)

I don't dispute that, if you take budgets out of the equation, we could probably make corporate events more exclusive and more fun, but that's not really the way things are.