Tag: business travel

While corporate travel is starting to recover, the pandemic continues to impact the industry, and industry players can see a change in booking behaviour. For example, the shift to last-minute bookings, necessitated by the uncertainty of the past two years, hasn't subsided as quickly as expected.

Having reached the halfway mark of 2022, there’s little doubt that travel is rebounding – and quickly. So much so, that airports around the world are reporting delays, queues and flight disruptions as they struggle to hire (and rehire) staff quickly enough to meet the huge surge in demand.

The travel industry was delighted with the announcement that came through during the night and that will ensure some level of normality and confidence in the market that travel is open and easy. It will also certainly help to support the recovery of the sector.

According to a study completed by Deloitte Insights, in 2020, United States companies’ travel budgets plummeted by a shattering 90%, with most business meetings moved online to popular video conferencing apps like Microsoft Teams and Zoom.

Prior to 2019, anyone booking travel would have considered cost saving their key priority. Not anymore. Although travel bookers are, obviously, still keeping an eye on expenses, they (and their clients) are now more concerned with wellbeing.

Life looks a whole lot different since the dawn of COVID-19 – face masks, elbow greetings, temperature checks at practically every entrance, and an overwhelming amount of sanitiser dominating our days. And business travel definitely isn’t an exception.

The global pandemic has affected meetings, conferences, and events in their tracks. Like every other industry, the events industry went through an unprecedented time, and had to reinvent itself in order to survive. The pandemic accelerated the digital world, and customers are now open to the idea of digital events alongside face-to-face.

COVID-19 has changed a lot of things – including the way that companies and employees approach business travel. Just over a year since COVID-19 made its presence known in South Africa, it would seem as though some of these changes are fleeting, while others are here to stay.

Travellers won’t book without flexible Ts & Cs and health and safety protocols in place, with the majority saying they want to travel internationally in 2021. A recent survey we conducted shows how COVID-19 has changed how South Africans travel. Most survey respondents stated that they still want to travel internationally in 2021, provided there is booking flexibility and that health and safety protocols are in place.

As President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a return to Level 1, there is a renewed sense of positivity in the air and the potential for new beginnings. Now is the time for businesses to rebuild what was lost or damaged as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and to start getting back to ‘normal’. It is time to get up, get moving (literally) and resume corporate travel.