Cheaper airfares driven by airlines adding more capacity to and from Australia are set to see many businesses step up corporate travel.
Flight Center’s corporate division, FCM Travel, which counts Optus, Wesfarmers and Toyota as clients, expected to see a increase in bookings in the coming year with New Zealand accounting for the majority of international demand as a change in government fuels the public sector.
Flight Center Global Corporate Chief Operating Officer Melissa Elf told The Australian that major corporate customers are looking to double up on business travel with many looking to use the savings. cheaper airfare either to maintain existing travel arrangements, or in many cases expand the number of trips made.
“Our customers are telling us they will spend the same, if not more, for the new financial year,” he said. “This probably has to do with the fact that, as the capacity increases worldwide, a company is hoping that the rates will go down, which is what we also expect to happen.”
Australian Bureau of Statistics data showed short-term international trips taken by Australians were at pre-pandemic levels for the first time with 1.39 million taken in January.
Arrivals of short-term visitors were 17.4 percent below pre-pandemic levels. Ms. Elf said that travel could once be seen as discretionary spending by many businesses, and before on the shopping block in an economic slowdown, but she added that corporations saw key to rebuilding and growing their businesses after the pandemic.
New Zealand was the most sought after destination for corporations. Demand has increased by 30 percent between September 2023 and February from a year ago.
Of all trans-Tasman journeys across FCM’s customer base, Australian departures account for 75 per cent, and New Zealand departures account for 25 per cent, but he noted that demand from later exceeded the Australia once the difference in population was taken into consideration. Travel to New Zealand was still more than 10 percent of FCM Travel’s international bookings outside of Australia throughout 2023.
“New Zealand is only a three- or four-hour flight, depending on where you’re traveling from, so it benefits from a lot of organizations seeing it as a domestic type trip and not an international one,” Ms Elf said.
The industries traveling most frequently between Australia and New Zealand in the last six months were construction at 19 percent market share, followed by education (16 percent), government and non-profit ( 13 percent) and finance and insurance on 12 percent.
Ms Elf said the change in government had helped prompt greater travel as businesses and the public sector connected with the new leaders, while more Kiwi businesses looking to expand into Australia were booking flights from here. of the Tasman.
“While New Zealand sees a reduction in costs in government agencies in the country, we are of the opinion that the Australian public sector invests more strongly to fill that gap in the journey to them,” he said.