Insights

Half of LGBTQ+ travellers have experienced discrimination while travelling, according to a study by Business Travel Show Europe (BTSA). Being at the receiving end of discrimination has a significant impact on anyone’s travel experience, but if you are travelling for business, it can hinder productivity, affect your mental health, and even jeopardise your safety.

There's only one direction for business travel costs at the moment: up. That's according to the Global Business Travel Forecast 2023, which predicts that airfares will rise 48.5 per cent in the remaining months of 2022 and 8.5 per cent next year. Hotel prices are also expected to increase by 18.5 per cent this year and 8.2 per cent in 2023.

SMEs have been at the forefront of business travel recovery for the past two years. Unfortunately, new macroeconomic challenges in South Africa and globally are currently threatening the recovery of SMEs and business travel, according to a new study by Wakefield for SAP Concur.

Are you ready to get down to business? Your road warriors and jetsetters need to know you've got their back. The landscape of business travel has changed. Pent-up travel demand coupled with post-pandemic staffing shortages have led to flight cancelations, overbooked planes, queues, and other inevitable wobbles.

They say that necessity is the mother of invention. There’s no doubt that COVID-19 accelerated technological innovation—and the adoption of digital tools and solutions. We now live in a world where contactless check-in, biometrics, digital wallets and e-tickets are the norm rather than the exception.

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.

Business travel can be a great way to improve productivity and performance, but it can also come at the expense of employee wellbeing. A study conducted by Collison found that 35% of business travellers had concerns about the impact of travel on their mental health and admitted that they had at some point given a false reason to avoid having to travel for work.

Loadshedding, energy costs, inflation and the rising cost of living is hitting small business owners in South Africa hard. With little or no cash to spare, many SMEs are reconsidering their business travel needs, wondering whether they’ll ever be able to travel again. After all, whether you’re talking flight tickets, accommodation options or even per diem allocations, having travellers on the road is an expensive business.

Company culture has become a top priority for leaders across all industries. It can be difficult to maintain a healthy company culture in a workplace that’s increasingly remote or hybrid. With people spending less time in the office, opportunities to build connections have become increasingly crucial to strengthening corporate culture. This is why business travel has never been more important. In a way, travel managers are becoming the new custodians of the corporate culture.

The travel industry has almost made a full recovery with travel numbers nearing pre-pandemic figures. But the return of travel is proving more difficult than most in the travel industry would have thought.

Does talking travel technology make your eyes glaze over? So many tools. So much functionality. We get it! But….it’s kinda important. Actually … it’s super important – especially if you’re an SME with growth plans and employees that travel to facilitate your company’s growth.

Business travel has come a long way. So too has the technology used to manage it. And while technology has advanced at super speed, there is one aspect to business travel that hasn’t changed – the need for personal service.