South Africa’s domestic business travel recovery ranks second in the world

New Zealand has demonstrated the strongest domestic business travel recovery in the world since the Covid-19 pandemic broke, but South Africa claims the second spot. This finding was revealed in FCM’s A fresh approach in a new world. What does it look like?, a white paper that explores the current state of the corporate travel market.

New Zealand has seen its domestic travel reach a stunning 80% of pre-Covid volumes. This is followed by South Africa and France at 25% of pre-Covid volumes, while South America and the Nordics have achieved 15-20% levels, and the US and Switzerland between just 1-10% recovery.

“South African companies are bolder in their approach and have shown a definite appetite for travel.”

FCM is the flagship corporate travel brand at Flight Centre Travel Group. Andrew Stark, MD Flight Centre Group Middle East and Africa, explains that the majority of companies around the world are adopting a ‘wait-and-see’ approach to gauge how other organisations are returning to travel. “South African companies are bolder in their approach and have shown a definite appetite for travel. Once the vaccine is more widely available, we expect to see a further stabilisation of the numbers,” he says.

The paper lists the biggest challenges facing corporate travel in 2021 as government restrictions, lack of content availability, a tightening of approval processes, stringent health requirements and a hesitancy to travel, while suggesting that confidence in the market will hinge on a combination of vaccines, health passports and an overall desire to ‘get back on the road’.

The FCM white paper can be downloaded here.

 

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