For SMEs and smaller corporates, business travel has to count. A three-day trip has no slack built into it. A bag that goes missing, or time lost at the airport as you sort it out, isn’t a minor irritation. It can impact your mood – and derail your day.

“Carry-on-only used to be a personal preference,” says Herman Heunes, GM of Corporate Traveller South Africa. “Today it’s a considered decision, one that touches on cost, risk and carbon all at once.”

Here’s why carry-on-only is one of the smartest travel policies you can adopt in 2026, and exactly how to pull it off.

Why it’s worth the squeeze

Your bag is safer in your hand. SITA’s 2026 Baggage IT Insights report, released at the end of June, shows global baggage mishandling improved by 23% last year. The catch for us? Africa recorded the highest mishandling rate in the world at 12.1 bags per 1,000 passengers, around two and a half times the global average, with international routes to and from the continent averaging 15 per 1,000. On a three-day trip, day one is usually a meeting day. There’s no buffer for shopping – or a courier to deliver your suit.

It’s cheaper and getting more so. Checked baggage fees are climbing worldwide. In April, major US airlines (like United, Delta and JetBlue) all raised bag fees within a single week, largely to offset climbing jet fuel costs. Closer to home, a checked bag added at the airport on a domestic carrier can cost two to three times the pre-booked online rate.

It’s lighter on your carbon footprint. Aircraft emissions are directly tied to weight, and for passenger aircraft, approximately 50% of the weight is the plane itself, 30% is fuel, and the rest is split between passengers, baggage and belly-hold freight. Your suitcase is a tiny slice of that, but it’s the only slice you control.

It makes you disruption-proof. When a flight is grounded, everything you own is in a small wheelie bag at your side, so you can join the rebooking queue, race to a new gate or take a seat on a different plane without a second thought. The checked-bag passenger is anchored to a suitcase somewhere in the bowels of the airport or belly of the plane.

“One lost or delayed bag won’t sink a trip, but it makes everything harder than it needs to be,” says Heunes. “Packing light is a small habit with an outsized return.”

The 3-day formula

Clothing: Pick one colour “family”, for example, navy or charcoal, so every top works with every bottom. Wear your full first-day outfit and heaviest shoes on the plane, then pack two shirts, one spare pair of trousers, sleepwear and three sets of underwear. It’s a similar approach to the  viral “sudoku” packing method, where you select 3 tops, 3 bottoms and 3 layering pieces. By arranging these 9 items in a 3×3 grid where every vertical and horizontal row functions as a complete outfit, you can create up to 27 distinct styling combinations. And remember, merino wool and some technical fabrics shrug off creases and resist odour naturally, allowing for multiple wears between washes.

Toiletries: Solid bars for shampoo and deodorant sidestep the liquids limit entirely (and avoid spills). Decant the rest into sub-100ml containers and let the hotel supply the basics.

Hairdryer: A hairdryer is permitted in your hand luggage, but unless you have a dinky travel-sized one, it can take up a lot of space. Another solution? Check out your hotel’s room amenity list in advance. Most will have hairdryers; if not, ask for one at reception.

Tech: One multi-plug adaptor, one cable per connector type and a power bank, which must travel in the cabin anyway. Nothing else.

Documents: Go digital. For example, Corporate Traveller’s Melon Mobile app keeps all your trip details in one place, alerts you to any flight changes or cancellations and automatically updates your itinerary accordingly. Keep your laptop, medication and valuables in your under-seat bag in case your carry-on gets checked at the front of the plane (or on the jet bridge or steps) – which can happen if the overhead bins are full.

The details that save you: Weigh your bag at home; South African carriers actively enforce the 7kg cabin limit at the gate on busy routes, and an overweight carry-on costs far more at the airport than a bag booked online. Packing cubes compress brilliantly but add nothing to your weight allowance. And if you genuinely must check a bag, book it the moment you book the flight, and drop a tracker (like an Apple AirTag) inside. Three days, one bag, zero time at the carousel. Once you’ve breezed past baggage reclaim straight into your first meeting, you won’t ever go back.

Instead, Corporate Traveller’s data points to something more interesting: a marked increase in trip duration. The insights form part of Corporate Traveller’s latest report: The smarter business travel guide for finance leaders.

As Juliette Da Silva, CFO of Flight Centre Travel Group South Africa explains, in 2024, the average business trip length was 3.21 days. In 2025 it jumped to 5.31 days – a 65% increase year-on-year.

“Companies are batching their meetings,” says Da Silva. “Travellers are visiting multiple stakeholders and combining market visits that would previously have been split into three separate trips. If you’re going to incur the cost and the traveller disruption of getting on a plane, you want to maximise the return on that journey.”

It’s also called trip stacking and Herman Heunes, General Manager of Corporate Traveller South Africa, sees the shift play out in booking patterns every day.

“The trips we’re booking in 2026 look nothing like the trips we were booking in 2023,” he says. “Clients are coming to us with bigger, more complex itineraries – multi-city, multi-stakeholder, often spanning a week or more. What used to be three separate Johannesburg-to-Cape Town hops for three different meetings has become one trip that does all three plus a client dinner and a team workshop on the way through.”

That shift has changed how Corporate Traveller’s client conversations unfold, Heunes adds.

“Five years ago, a lot of our cost conversations were around securing the best airfare. Now they’re about trip design: how you sequence meetings, where you base yourself, which hotel is actually closest to your three client sites rather than the one with the cheapest headline rate. Those decisions often save more money than a fare negotiation ever would.”

The behavioural shift is healthy for both ROI and traveller wellness, but it’s shifting where budget pressure shows up.

“Longer trips mean more hotel nights,” says Da Silva. “And South African hotel rates have been climbing steadily over the last three years – from an average room night of R1,050 in 2023 to R1,301 in 2025. So, while companies are getting better value per trip, they also need to be watching accommodation spend much more closely than they used to.”

Similarly, average international rates have climbed from R2,424 in 2023 to R2,877 in 2025. For a finance leader whose travel programme is still measured primarily on airfare savings, that’s a blind spot worth closing.

Both Da Silva and Heunes agree that travel policies need to catch up with traveller behaviour.

“The longer-trip, higher-ROI pattern should be baked into policy, not treated as an exception,” Heunes says. “If batching meetings is the new normal, your policy should actively encourage it. That means flexibility on minimum stay duration, smart advance-purchase requirements, and preferred supplier relationships that reward the kind of multi-night bookings your travellers are now making.”

Put simply, companies can save money in a number of ways: booking in advance (and as Da Silva notes, advance booking windows are already lengthening, up to 17.9 days in 2025), leveraging loyalty programmes, and exploring alternate accommodation options including guesthouses. Geographic clustering – combining multiple close destinations into a single trip – cuts airfare costs, while negotiating midweek rates lowers accommodation spend.

Da Silva frames it as a broader mindset shift.

“South African companies aren’t travelling less because business travel matters less,” Da Silva says. “The value of business travel is not in question. Instead, they’re travelling differently, stretching the return on every journey and tightening the discipline around when and how trips get booked. In today’s economic environment you have to make sure every rand counts. The companies doing this well are treating travel less as a line-item cost and more as a managed investment – and using current conditions as an opportunity to reset policies, renegotiate supplier agreements, and build programmes that flex with market volatility.”For a closer look at the data – and a practical framework for managing travel spend in volatile conditions – download Corporate Traveller’s latest report here.

JOHANNESBURG – You’re at the airport. Business class ticket in hand, you head toward the lounge only to be turned away at the door. Or your meeting moves and you try to change your flight, and discover the original ticket is non-refundable. Or you arrive at check-in with two bags, as you’ve grown accustomed to in business class, and learn you’re only entitled to one.

It’s the reality of “unbundling”: the practice of separating a standard airline ticket into its individual components. As an example, business class used to mean something fairly consistent. A lie-flat seat on long haul. Lounge access. Two bags. The ability to change your flight if the world intervened. You paid a significant premium for it, but you knew what you were getting. Those days are over.

According to Amadeus, the shift began in 2019, when Emirates introduced its special business class ticket – a stripped-down product that retained all the onboard comforts you expect (lie-flat seat, an elevated restaurant-style dining experience and top-tier entertainment system  ) but removed ancillaries like lounge access, seat selection and chauffeur services. It was a proof of concept: passengers would accept a reduced overall experience, at a reduced cost, if the seat itself remained premium.

Other airlines soon followed, with the likes of Qatar and KLM also introducing business class “lite” options. Come 2026? Tiered business class structures are fairly standard across the industry. The seat is the same. The cabin is the same. The ticket is not.

The three things most likely to disappear

Guaranteed lounge access is usually the first casualty. United’s unbundled “Base Polaris” fare includes access to a United Club lounge – not a Polaris Lounge, with its premium dining and spa facilities. Emirates’ base fare excludes complimentary airport lounge access. But as Mummy Mafojane, GM at FCM South Africa explains, for many travellers, particularly those on long-haul journeys with onward connections, the lounge is not an optional extra – it is a significant part of what they paid for.

“It’s very different for leisure travellers and business travellers,” says Mafojane. “Leisure travellers are often happy to pick and choose their perks. But business travellers rely on lounge access to work, decompress and even shower. No access can be an unwelcome surprise.”

Flexibility is the second to go. Base-tier business class tickets are frequently non-refundable and non-changeable – conditions that would once have been unthinkable at this price point.

“This is a particularly important consideration for travel bookers and travel programme managers,” says Mafojane. “2026 has already delivered a masterclass in travel disruption – at this point, locking yourself into a rigid, non-refundable ticket isn’t a saving; it’s a liability.”

Baggage is next. Finnair’s “light” business class fare excludes checked baggage unless the passenger holds elite Oneworld or Finnair Plus status. ZIPAIR, the Japanese low-cost long-haul carrier, goes furthest of all: its lie-flat business class seat includes nothing beyond the seat itself – no baggage, no meal, no seat selection. Everything is purchased separately.

The problem isn’t the product, it’s the presentation

ZIPAIR is actually a useful reference point. A lie-flat seat with each additional service priced individually and transparently, is a coherent offering. Travellers know what they’re getting. The more significant problem arises when legacy carriers sell something structurally similar, stripped of lounge access, flexibility and baggage, while marketing it under the same business class branding that has historically implied a comprehensive end-to-end experience.

For corporate travel programmes, the consequences extend well beyond a disgruntled traveller. A non-changeable ticket reissued during disruption, a bag fee at the counter, or a stranded employee with no flexibility and no recourse represents a programme failure, not just a personal inconvenience. Base fares also typically earn fewer frequent flyer miles and accrue less toward elite status – meaning the apparent saving at the point of booking may cost considerably more when the full picture is considered.

The corporate travel blind spot

For business travellers booked through a corporate travel management system, the risk is compounded. Many company travel policies were written when business class was a single, standardised product. They haven’t yet been updated to account for fare tiers within business class, meaning an employee may be booked on a base fare and arrive expecting the full experience. Travel managers, Mafojane explains, are increasingly having to specify not just the cabin class, but the fare tier, in their booking policies.

How to check before you commit

The fare tier name is your first signal. Base, Basic, Saver, or Light anywhere in the fare description is a warning to look further. Don’t rely on the airline’s general business class page, always check the specific fare conditions attached to the ticket you’re about to buy.

Confirm lounge access explicitly. Confirm baggage allowance in the booking summary, not the marketing overview. Check whether the ticket is changeable and refundable; if it is neither, you are holding something that functions more like an economy saver fare than a traditional business class ticket, regardless of what seat you’re sitting in.

“Obviously, travellers love a lie-flat seat, and all the space and comfort business class delivers,” says Mafojane. “But flexibility trumps all when it comes to a well-functioning travel programme.”

In other words, check the Ts&Cs carefully – and compare a premium economy fare with a ‘lite’ business class fare and decide which makes more sense on the day. If you hold elite frequent flyer status, check whether it restores any stripped benefits and be very mindful of which tiers you book.

What this actually means

None of this makes the tiered model inherently dishonest. For a leisure traveller with fixed plans, carry-on luggage only, and no interest in airport lounges, a base business class fare may represent genuine value – a lie-flat seat at a significantly lower price. The issue is assumption: the assumption that business class still has a fixed, reliable definition. It doesn’t. And in a managed travel programme, that ambiguity has a cost. A traveller turned away from a lounge, stuck on a non-recoverable ticket, or charged for a bag at the airport is an irritation at best and a significant unplanned expense at worst. Knowing which tier a ticket sits in, and what that means in practice, is now a fundamental part of the booking process, not an afterthought. And the onus sits squarely with the booker or travel manager.

Johannesburg – The cost of getting someone to London or Nairobi is significantly higher than it was six months ago, and travel managers are being asked to tighten their purse strings. With rising oil prices, fuel surcharges and capacity constraints affecting airfares, the next logical place to look for savings is accommodation. Enter the buddy system.

Why companies still use it

To be fair, room-sharing isn’t always a crude cost-cut. Sometimes the logic is entirely practical. A large group travelling together for a team build or MICE event may face genuinely limited accommodation options, particularly in smaller cities or in peak periods. Especially if you want to keep everyone together. Last-minute travel, a block booking that falls through, a conference hotel that’s at capacity: these are real scenarios where sharing a room is the most workable solution rather than a policy choice.

For junior-level staff, it can also carry a certain social logic – a sense of shared experience that fits the moment. And for short overnight trips where the room is little more than a place to sleep, some travellers genuinely don’t mind.

“There are situations where it makes practical sense and everyone’s comfortable with the arrangement,” says Herman Heunes, GM of Corporate Traveller South Africa. “The problem is when it becomes the default response to a budget squeeze rather than a considered decision. That’s when it starts to cost more than it saves.”

What it actually costs

The saving from sharing a room is real but against the full cost of a business trip that now includes inflated airfares, it’s a modest return.

The hidden costs (think snoring, scrolling until midnight, room temperature, bathroom schedules and someone else’s 5am alarm), meanwhile, don’t appear on any expense report. Research shows that sleep-deprived workers are up to 50% less productive than well-rested colleagues, and significantly more likely to experience burnout, emotional dysregulation and higher absenteeism. Shared rooms mean different sleep schedules, different routines and perhaps most importantly, no space to decompress or prepare.

“For a company that has spent a fortune getting someone to their destination, a compromised night’s sleep when they get there is a poor return on that investment,” says Heunes.

And as he explains, there’s also the question of duty of care.

Under ISO 31030, the international standard for travel risk management, companies carry legal and moral responsibility for employees during work travel. A shared room creates an environment that is genuinely difficult to govern – medical privacy, religious observance, potential for harassment complaints. These considerations don’t make room-sharing impossible, but they do mean it warrants more careful thought than it typically receives.

What does your travel policy actually say?

Here’s a question most travel policies don’t answer: what happens when someone says no? Or agrees in principle, then asks to pay the difference for a single room? Without a clear framework, these conversations land awkwardly – usually on a line manager who’d rather not be having them.

The companies handling this best have a few things in common: room-sharing is an opt-in arrangement, never a default; there’s a documented process for opting out without needing to justify a medical condition or personal circumstance; and where a traveller chooses to upgrade at their own cost, the policy says so explicitly rather than leaving it to negotiation. It sounds administrative, but getting this right protects the company as much as the traveller.

The generational picture

It’s tempting to assume that younger employees are more relaxed about room-sharing –that the generation comfortable with co-living and flat shares won’t mind bunking with a colleague. The reality is more nuanced. SilverDoor’s research on Gen Z business travel finds that younger travellers want spacious co-living environments and the freedom to build a personalised routine on the road, but that appetite is for shared amenities, not shared bedrooms. They want community on their own terms: a shared kitchen, a gym, a rooftop bar, an optional dinner with colleagues. And a door they can close when they need to.

Older road warriors have their own reasons for valuing privacy: confidential calls, client preparation, insomnia, the hard-won ability to decompress after a long flight. For senior employees handling sensitive commercial information, a shared room is also a professional risk. Across all generations, given the choice, most people would prefer a room to themselves. The difference is just how loudly they’ll say so.

Where the smarter saving lives

Heunes suggests looking at the aparthotel model where possible. It delivers private bedrooms and bathrooms alongside shared kitchens, living spaces and co-working areas. Teams travelling together can book adjacent units or multi-bedroom configurations, getting the proximity and informal connection of shared travel without the privacy trade-off. Hilton research found that 81% of extended-stay guests cooked in their accommodation during their last stay – a direct reduction in meal expenses that contributes to the overall saving. On stays of three or more nights, aparthotels typically run 20–30% below comparable hotel rates, with self-catering reducing the meals budget further still.

In South Africa, The Capital is a good example. Globally, hospitality groups like Frasers Hospitality, Quest, Marriott International, Hilton and Minor have all developed their aparthotel offering through different brands. It’s the best of both worlds: hotel amenities, co-working spaces, shared apartments – complete with kitchens, lounges and private bedrooms.

For Heunes, beyond accommodation type, the other levers – consolidated hotel programmes, negotiated corporate rates, right-sizing to trip length, travelling out of peak times – consistently deliver savings without asking anything of the traveller.

“The smarter conversation isn’t about who shares a room,” says Heunes. “It’s about building an accommodation strategy that absorbs the pressure from rising airfares without putting it onto the people travelling. Aparthotels, negotiated rates, the right product for the right trip length, that’s where the true savings live, and something you can sustain.” The Middle East crisis has forced South African travel buyers to get creative about routes and carriers in ways nobody anticipated at the start of 2026. That same creative energy, applied to accommodation strategy, is where the more sustainable answer lies. The buddy system finds money once. A better policy finds it on every trip.

Johannesburg – FCM Travel announced that Sam – already known to customers as the company’s AI travel companion – has been fundamentally reimagined. What goes live across more than 90 countries in June is not just an upgrade.

It is a new category. A proprietary AI ecosystem built at the core of FCM’s technology, making Sam the intelligence layer running through everything FCM does – not a feature sitting on top of it. For existing customers, what’s coming will feel like a different product entirely.

“This is a genuine, game-changing first for the managed travel industry,” said John Morhous, Global Chief Experience Officer, FCM Travel. “A lot of our competitors are trying to bolt AI onto existing stacks, but the real power in AI is that the more connected it is, the more you can do with it. Sam is built, not bought – and that compounds over time.”

Sam intelligence works across all roles – travellers, arrangers, and travel managers – with equal depth. Most AI in managed travel still focuses on a single point in the journey. Underpinning it all is FCM’s proprietary technology architecture, which defines which trusted data sources Sam queries for each interaction, preventing hallucination and ensuring enterprise-grade accuracy.

Customer data is stored in FCM’s private environment and never used to train public AI models.

Central to Sam’s architecture is its proprietary guardrail system – a capability that goes far beyond hallucination prevention. Travel managers can configure precisely how Sam responds to specific query types, ensuring answers always reflect their policies and rules of engagement.

A traveller not entitled to business class will never receive a recommendation for a premium fare. An out-of-policy hotel will not be surfaced as an option.

Spend thresholds, approval workflows, and supplier preferences are all automatically enforced in conversation, giving organisations the benefits of conversational AI while retaining the programme controls that enterprise travel demands.

“Travellers are tired of fragmented experiences – piecing together more than five tools just to get through a trip,” said Morhous.

“Sam isn’t a single point of support. It’s there throughout the entire journey, for every person in a travel programme. Because our AI is proprietary, the accuracy and compliance enterprises need isn’t bolted on, it’s built in.”

“But what truly sets this apart is our people. Sam works alongside our FCM travel managers so that when a human moment matters most – a disruption, a complex itinerary, an urgent need – our experts step in with the speed, context, and care that no technology alone can replicate. Sam makes those moments more meaningful, not less.”

At launch, Sam delivers end-to-end trip support across the full traveller journey, with real-time programme data intelligence for travel managers through plain-language conversation, seamless handoff to FCM Travel Managers with full context intact, and a unique smart redirect into customers’ existing booking tools – the only AI solution in managed travel to offer this.

“June is only the beginning,” said Morhous. “Because we own our technology end-to-end, every release makes our customers’ programmes smarter.”

Mummy Mafojane, General Manager at FCM South Africa, agrees: “Sam represents a meaningful shift in what you can expect from a travel management partner. FCM South Africa customers have travel programmes that stretch across the continent and beyond, often through complex routings and shifting conditions. Sam brings another layer of intelligence, consistency and speed into every interaction, allowing our local travel experts to focus on what they do best. We see this as the start of something significant for managed travel in our market.”

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Johannesburg – Travel buyers and travel managers are, once again, navigating interesting times. The Middle East crisis has meant new routes, new hubs and a renewed focus on duty of care. Volatile oil prices and capacity constraints are squeezing costs at the same time. Travellers themselves are warier than they were a year ago, and the journeys they are being asked to take are often longer, with more stopovers and less margin for error.

Against that backdrop, travel perks carry more weight than usual. A flat bed, a lounge shower and a late checkout matter more when you have just flown an extra five hours via a new connection.

What makes this moment especially interesting is the picture sitting just behind it.

Before tensions escalated in February, airlines were betting big on premium economy and business class cabins – overhauling their fleets and offering passengers more space, connectivity, state-of-the-art inflight entertainment and, in some cases, hotel-like privacy. Hotels themselves are pouring investment into luxury and lifestyle properties, with the global luxury hotel market forecast by Skift to more than double to $369 billion by 2032.

All while travel programmes are balancing safety and traveller wellbeing against value and cost management. Competing priorities, all playing out in the small print of what your company will and won’t cover.

The airline perks you might not know about

Status used to mean miles flown. Today, it increasingly means money spent. As The Points Guy puts it, the “hamster wheel” of chasing flights is being replaced by credit card spend, shopping and bookings through an airline’s network of partners (including car rentals) rather than simply bums in seats. 

The perks are varied too – many unseen and underused. Most major programmes now let you extend priority boarding to companions, share lounge access with a plus-one, and occasionally use complimentary upgrades on partner airlines. Lounge access through the right credit card sits in the same category: a perk most eligible travellers underuse.

The biggest unseen perk, though, is corporate. As Herman Heunes, GM of Corporate Traveller South Africa explains, two passengers in the same business class cabin may have paid wildly different fares, depending on how the corporate fares were negotiated behind the scenes.

“Corporate contracts often come with soft ‘perks’ the retail flyer rarely sees,” says Heunes. “Including guaranteed availability, waived change fees, volume rebates, and sometimes even chauffeur transfers on carriers like Emirates and Qatar Airways. This is exactly where a managed travel programme adds value beyond rate.”

What business class actually gets you

The world’s top airlines are getting very serious about their business class offering. Qatar’s QSuite offers sliding doors, “Do Not Disturb” indicators and customisable ambient lighting – not to mention a turndown service complete with pillows, a quilted mattress, plush blanket and PJs. Cathay Pacific’s Aria Suite (winner of the World’s Best Business Class in the 2026 AirlineRatings Awards) has privacy pods, plenty of cubby storage, a 24-inch, 4K in-flight entertainment screen, free Wi-Fi and a 5-star, restaurant-style dining experience.

For Heunes though, business class is often misunderstood.

“While lie-flat seats are great, what corporate buyers are really paying for is productive time: the space to work on a laptop, sleep on an overnight flight, and arrive functional,” says Heunes. “For staff travelling on the long-haul routes that South Africans know so well, rest, productivity and morale means business class pays for itself before the seatbelt sign goes off.”

Hotel perks worth knowing

Hotels are arguably winning the perks race – with many designed around health and wellbeing.

The Wall Street Hotel in New York, for example, has partnered with the ness, a trampoline-based movement studio, to bring intentional, low-impact wellness directly to your room (complete with trampoline and sessions streamed on your in-room smart television). Shangri-La Singapore’s Horizon Club Business Rooms come with adjustable standing desks, dual 4K monitors on request, and complimentary pressing of business clothes. IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group) has implemented acoustic doors and heavy soundproofing, while Hyatt’s premium properties supply white noise machines.

Quieter perks are worth knowing about too. Pillow menus, once an outlandish luxury, are now pretty mainstream at upper-tier establishments. The Benjamin Royal Sonesta has a 10-choice pillow menu, and guests can choose from anti-snore, buckwheat, cooling pillows, and Swedish memory foam tailored to their sleep positions.

More mainstream? Most hotels are happy to offer all sorts of things if you only know to ask: chargers, adaptors, sewing kits, toothbrushes and toothpaste, yoga mats, boardgames and even weighted blankets, sleep masks and slippers. Kimpton Vero Beach Hotel in Florida, USA, even runs a “Forgot it? We’ve got it!” programme, letting guests borrow accessories like sunglasses and handbags.

Again, for Heunes, it’s the more practical perks that make the difference.

“Early check-in and late check-out are huge for long-haul travellers,” says Heunes. “Flights out of South Africa often seem to land at unfriendly times. Always check with your travel management company what’s possible, and what can be negotiated. Some hotels also provide a complimentary shuttle service, which is a big perk in anyone’s language!”

What your company will and won’t pay for

Luxury hotels’ concierge services are well-versed in special – often eccentric – requests (including Evian baths, egg-free omelettes and VIP access to shows and events) but, in truth, when it comes to business travel things are far more boring.

As Heunes notes, internal scrutiny of spend has increased and buyers are expected to show financial control while supporting productivity, safety and traveller wellbeing.

Depending on the size of your company (and travel programme) the budget could expand to premium economy or business class on flights over six hours, full board, hotel Wi-Fi, laundry, reasonable tips, and increasingly, properties that support hybrid work with ergonomic desks and good connectivity.

What companies almost universally will not pay for is the minibar, in-room movies, spa treatments outside an approved wellness stipend, seat upgrades without pre-approval, alcohol outside client entertainment, traffic fines, anything for a travelling partner, and direct bookings outside the managed channel.

Which could leave modern business travellers in a slightly awkward position: flown upfront to Heathrow, ergonomically supported at the hotel, and quietly paying for their own packet of cashews from the minibar. “This is where travel policies are so important,” says Heunes. “Even companies with small travel programmes need to agree on perks and spend – and how reimbursements are managed. It is a core part of any travel programme.”

Johannesburg – Business travel is holding its own, even as global conditions shift. New data from FCM Consulting’s inaugural hotel-focused research report shows that while the routine internal meetings that once generated high volumes of corporate trips have given way to more purposeful travel, demand into key markets, including London, Dubai and Johannesburg itself, remains strong.

FCM Consulting’s Insights Report 2026, released ahead of the global corporate hotel RFP season, reveals that hotel occupancy in major business hubs averaged 73.7% globally in 2025, up 1.3 percentage points on the prior year.

Key corporate cities tell a similar story: London held at 81.2%, a top destination for South African corporate travellers, while Sydney reached 81.5% occupancy (up 4.0 points), Singapore hit 79.2% (up 2.0), and Tokyo led the Asia-Pacific region at 82.9%.

Closer to home, Africa has seen the steepest price change globally, with a rolling 12-month average room rate (ARR) decline of 19.8% by late 2025. Bucking this trend? Johannesburg and Cairo with an ARR up 23.6% and 12% respectively in Q4 of 2025.

On the opposite end of the scale, cities where prices eased include Ghana (-42.2%), Ethiopia (-31.1%) and Kenya (-22.2%).

FCM Consulting reports that while corporate demand remains stable across the continent, it remains highly price-sensitive, with businesses shifting from premium tiers to 3- and 4-star properties, where monthly rates fell by up to 23%.

“Average daily rates can differ widely,” says Mummy Mafojane, GM of FCM South Africa. “As an example, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Nairobi, Cairo and Rabat were all up on 2024 rates – while Windhoek, Gaborone, Lagos and Luanda were all down year-on-year. South Africa was boosted by the G20, while North Africa (notably Egypt and Morocco) is seeing robust leisure tourism growth.”

For Mafojane, it requires targeted, proactive management as buyers head into RFP season.

“Where rates are softening, buyers have a genuine opportunity to consolidate volume and push for preferential corporate rates. Where rates are climbing, the focus has to shift to compliance and getting travellers to book further ahead, because that’s what protects the budget.”

Importantly, the global data reflects a fundamental change in how and why organisations travel. The report, authored by FCM Consulting’s global team of hotel programme specialists, finds that hybrid working has not killed business travel, it has made it more intentional, with teams coming together for client work, revenue conversations, project assignments and physical presence events.

• 77% of organisations say face-to-face meetings are essential to business objectives
• 73.7% global hotel occupancy in 2025 – up 1.3pts year-on-year
• 81.2% hotel occupancy in London, near multi-year highs
• 81.5% hotel occupancy in Sydney, up four points in a single year.

“Travel is now more focused on bringing people together with purpose, whether for client work, revenue generation, or internal alignment,” said Rachel Newns, Global Hotel Practice Lead, FCM Consulting. “The organisations recognising this are approaching the RFP season very differently from those still measuring success by reducing trip volumes.”

The research draws on data from managed travel programmes across the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific, combining proprietary booking data with regional market analysis.

It finds travel patterns are diverging sharply by traveller type: sales teams prioritise location and consistency; project teams are making longer stays in fewer cities; and senior leaders expect a combination of reliability and discretion that legacy hotel programmes often fail to deliver.

“Hotel programmes tend to evolve gradually,” said Newns. “Suppliers change, targets move, policies are amended, yet the overall programme design can remain largely unchanged. Taking time to revisit its foundations often reveals where adjustments are needed.”

FCM Consulting’s data shows that contracted and consortia rates continue to deliver significant savings against the best available rate, with public rates fluctuating by up to USD$62 globally.

Fixed negotiated rates in high-demand markets provide meaningful protection – but only when programmes are actively managed, and travel patterns are understood at the city level rather than at the regional aggregate level.

The report also highlights a frequently underutilised lever in hotel programme management: corporate loyalty. Major hotel groups have continued to expand their loyalty ecosystems, and travellers holding status with preferred brands represent both a compliance risk and a genuine opportunity for buyers who manage it well.

Complimentary breakfast, lounge access and room upgrades can meaningfully improve the traveller experience at no incremental cost to the corporate account. The challenge is integrating loyalty strategically into programme design – and having frank, early conversations with suppliers about recognition and status support during transition planning. “Ultimately, internal scrutiny of spend has increased,” explains Mafojane. “In today’s climate, buyers are expected to show financial control, while ensuring hotel programmes support productivity, safety and traveller well-being.”

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JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA – Following February’s Middle East airspace crisis, South African corporates with the right travel programme infrastructure have a narrow window to lock in favourable long-term hotel rates if they act now.

While the sudden airspace closures across the UAE, Qatar, and Jordan sent hotel occupancy in hubs like Dubai and Doha plummeting, the aftermath has created a counter-intuitive reality. According to FCM Consulting’s Insights Report 2026 published this month, average daily rates in the Middle East have softened significantly, creating a rare procurement window for South African corporates to lock in long-term deals before a projected 4% rate recovery kicks in.

However, the report reveals that only companies with robust, actively managed travel programmes are in a position to exploit this drop.

“We are seeing a clear divide in how South African businesses are reacting,” says Mummy Mafojane, General Manager of FCM South Africa. “Companies relying on unmanaged travel or outdated hotel lists are still spooked because they couldn’t locate their people during the February chaos. Meanwhile, companies with proper duty-of-care infrastructure are stepping in right now to negotiate highly favourable hotel terms while prices are down.”

When disruption hits, infrastructure is everything

For South African companies with staff travelling to the region, the questions during the airspace closures arrived immediately: where are our people? Can we reach them? What are our contractual positions with the hotels they’ve booked?

The answer depended almost entirely on one factor: whether the organisation had an  actively managed travel programme built with disruption in mind.

“A hotel programme that simply lists preferred properties is not a risk management tool,” Mafojane notes. “Duty of care means knowing where your people are, having the relationships to move them quickly, and building flexibility into your programme before you need it – not after the crisis has already started.”

Companies that navigated the February disruption most effectively shared a common set of characteristics. Their travel management company (TMC) had real-time visibility of traveller locations and bookings. To maintain this level of control, FCM Consulting’s report sets out a practical framework for travel programmes operating in complex and volatile regions. This includes flexible rate agreements that protect against sudden cancellations, hotel safety standards calibrated to location risk and developed in consultation with corporate security teams, regular reviews of regional conditions, and a TMC relationship that provides genuine crisis coordination, not just booking administration.

South African companies relying on direct bookings, unmanaged travel, or outdated preferred hotel lists had none of these protections. In an environment where booking lead times in the Middle East had already compressed significantly as risk awareness grew, the absence of programme visibility was a significant duty-of-care failure.

The broader procurement opportunity

The broader message from the analysis is not that South African companies should retreat from the Middle East. Commercial momentum in the region remains significant, supported by:

• 177,281 hotel rooms currently in Saudi Arabia’s inventory, with nearly 50,000 more under construction.
• USD$234 Middle East average room rate for 2025 (up $27 year-on-year).
• A projected 4%+ Average Daily Rate (ADR) recovery in the region once stability returns.

For SA buyers with the programme infrastructure to act, the current interim softening in rates represents a genuine opportunity to lock in favourable long-term agreements, securing enhanced terms before rates climb again on the back of the region’s structural growth.

“The companies navigating this most effectively are not the ones that stopped travelling. They are the ones who invested in the right programme infrastructure before the crisis and are now positioned to move quickly as conditions normalise,” said Mafojane.

The Middle East disruption is the most acute example in the report of a theme that runs through FCM Consulting’s entire 2026 analysis: the growing importance of programme agility in an unpredictable operating environment. “Strong demand does not always mean stable conditions,” the report notes. “Programmes must account for disruption as well as growth.”

JOHANNESBURG – The UAE has lifted its airspace restrictions, the US-Iran ceasefire appears to be holding (as of 18 May 2026), Emirates has restored 96% of its global network, other Gulf carriers (including Etihad, Qatar and Saudia) continue to rebuild operations, and capacity constraints are gradually settling. By most operational measures, things are looking up.

Traveller confidence is a different story.

As Mummy Mafojane, General Manager of FCM South Africa, explains, geopolitical conflict – including fresh drone attacks – continues to impact travel decisions, with travel managers rerouting travellers, changing itineraries, delaying non-essential trips and taking a hard look at their duty of care policies.

What business travellers are actually feeling

South Africans are fairly resilient by nature. Covid, years of load shedding, economic volatility and the loss of more than one domestic carrier have produced travellers that know how to roll with disruption.

“But business travel complicates the picture,” says Mafojane. “When your company sends you somewhere, a grounded flight is more than an inconvenience. It can quickly become a question of duty of care, insurance, work and family obligations, corporate liability and personal safety, all at once.”

Global Rescue’s recent Traveller Sentiment and Safety Surveys show that 56% of travellers are more concerned about personal safety than a year ago. The travel risk and crisis organisation also found that:

• 82% of travellers express some level of concern about personal security risks abroad, including kidnapping, extortion and violent crime;
• 38% describe today’s travel risk as unpredictable;
• 36% believe international travel is more dangerous than it was before 2020; and
• 31% of seasoned travellers say illness or injury abroad is their biggest concern for 2026, followed by civil unrest or terrorism at 21%.

Can bosses still dictate where and when staff travel?

Legally, in South Africa, the short answer is yes: employers can generally direct where and when employees travel for work, provided the request is reasonable and aligns with the employment contract. In return, they must cover the costs, ensure safe working conditions and respect the employee’s fundamental rights.

Practically, duty of care has evolved well beyond a clause in an employment contract. ISO 31030, the international standard for travel risk management, now sets a benchmark courts use to judge whether an employer acted reasonably.

It requires senior leadership ownership (where the organisation’s appetite for risk is defined, documented, signed off at the top and reviewed regularly), pre-trip risk assessment, real-time tracking and a credible incident response plan. It also explicitly covers psychological wellbeing, not only physical safety.

For South African employers, it means that travel decisions can no longer be made in isolation from the traveller. A reasonable instruction is one that has been thought through, risk-assessed, properly supported and openly discussed with the person being sent.

“Travellers want clarity, choice and a sense that someone has thought carefully about the trip before they board,” says Mafojane. “The companies getting this right have moved from a purely compliance mindset to a conversation. Pre-trip briefings, transparent route options, and a clearly understood escalation path are no longer nice-to-haves; they are the foundations of a strong travel programme.”

The trust “signals” travellers are looking for

For Mafojane, the levels of disruption experienced in late February/early March proved that human-led crisis response – with experienced travel managers at the helm – isn’t going anywhere.

“Automated tools are brilliant, and they certainly speed up our response time, but travellers still turn to human support in times of genuine disruption,” says Mafojane. “A 24-hour line answered by an experienced consultant remains a valuable feature of a corporate travel programme.”

Reliable, consistent technology also builds trust over time.

“Travellers lose confidence quickly when booking systems, itinerary tools, expense platforms and tracking apps fail – or tell them different things,” says Mafojane. “An integrated system, from booking platform to traveller app, should be a reliable source of information. It’s an important aspect of duty of care.”

Finally, more than a passing nod to traveller wellness and wellbeing. Travellers notice the difference. Flexibility on rebooking, openness to bleisure (combining business and leisure travel) where it makes sense, proper pre-trip briefings that cover what to do when things go wrong, and post-trip recovery time are the markers that read as genuine care. “The programmes that will thrive over the next year are the ones that focus on traveller confidence,” says Mafojane. “Get that right, and the rest follows.”

Johannesburg – If you want to know where South African business is being done in 2026, just take a look at Corporate Traveller’s booking data. One of South Africa’s leading travel management companies (TMCs) for small- to medium-sized businesses, their top four international destinations have remained the same for the past three years: Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya and the United Kingdom.

And although there’s been some jostling for position, they’ve consistently dominated the top of the table. Three African neighbours and one long-haul anchor – each with compelling reasons to stay a little longer.

Bleisure still firmly on the agenda

Yes, flights will cost you more this year. Middle East airspace disruption is in partial recovery – Emirates announced on 4 May that it had restored 96% of its global network – but the knock-on effects remain. Rerouted long-haul flights are running between two and five hours longer than pre-crisis on many routes, and the price of jet fuel has more than doubled over the past month.

The cumulative effect is simple. Getting your people to a meeting in Lusaka or London now costs much more – be it in money, hours or traveller fatigue – than it did a few weeks ago. Which is precisely why bleisure is about to look a lot more attractive to South African business travellers, and a lot more sensible to the people approving their trips.

As Herman Heunes, GM of Corporate Traveller, explains, the smart play is to make every flight count for more.

“We’re seeing clients batch their meetings, sequence their itineraries more carefully and build in incentive opportunities, where you combine business and leisure,” says Heunes. “If you’ve already paid for the flight, the carbon and the time away, you may as well get more out of being there.”

That “more” is increasingly bleisure – the practice of tacking a few personal leisure days onto a business trip – and the data shows it has crossed firmly from perk into policy.

The Global Business Travel Association’s Industry Outlook poll, published in October last year, found that 43% of corporate travel programmes now have defined bleisure policies, with 71% of buyers citing improved employee satisfaction. Research from Skift puts the figure even higher: 60% of business travellers took a blended trip in 2024.

There’s a retention story underneath those numbers too. International research consistently shows that employees who travel for work are more likely to stay with their employer, with the figure climbing to over 75% among Gen Z. For SMEs that can’t match multinational salaries, a thoughtful bleisure policy is one of the highest-leverage, lowest-cost levers available, even in the face of cost pressures.

Planning a trip?

Zambia, which has held Corporate Traveller’s number-one spot for three years running, is at its most spectacular right now. Victoria Falls is at near-peak flow following the rains, and the Lower Zambezi and South Luangwa camps are reopening for the dry season. A Lusaka meeting could extend into a Livingstone weekend, and May to June is a shoulder window with rates noticeably softer than the July-to-September peak. For seriously memorable incentives consider a Victoria Falls sunset cruise, a private bush walk or a game drive in Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park.

Short on time? Lusaka itself rewards a single free day: a guided tour through the Kabwata Cultural Village for handwoven crafts and traditional Nyama Choma, the Lusaka National Museum for a feel for the country’s history, and a short drive out to the Lilayi Elephant Nursery to watch orphaned calves at feeding time.

Tanzania is similarly well-timed. The Great Migration is moving through the central and western Serengeti, with herds heading towards the Grumeti River crossings in June – a less-photographed but equally dramatic counterpart to the Mara crossings later in the year. Travellers in Dar es Salaam or Arusha can extend into a three-night Serengeti add-on, or build in a Zanzibar weekend if the calendar, commitments and budget allow.

A day to spare? Catch a boat from Dar’s famous Slipway to Bongoyo or Mbudya Island for white sand and snorkelling or stay on the mainland for the colourful chaos of Kariakoo Market, grilled octopus and live music on Coco Beach, and an evening of Swahili seafood somewhere on the waterfront.

Kenya is in a similar rhythm. The long rains are tapering, and the Maasai Mara is in its build-up to the river crossings that begin in earnest in July. The Great Migration remains a bucket-list trip for many – and incentive or reward like no other.

A gap in your itinerary?

Nairobi rewards the time generously. A half-day safari in Nairobi National Park puts lions and rhino within sight of the city skyline, while the Giraffe Centre and Karen Blixen Museum make for an easy afternoon in the leafy Karen suburb. For those with a free weekend, a 4×4 transfer down the Rift Valley delivers cycling and boating at Hell’s Gate and Lake Naivasha – or, with a single short flight from Wilson, the Maasai Mara itself.

And then there’s the United Kingdom, which offers what is arguably the most obvious bleisure or incentive opportunity: Wimbledon, running 29 June to 12 July. For travellers with London meetings in late June or early July, it’s the easiest extension on the calendar. The public ballot has closed, but hospitality routes and Debenture options remain available, and the queue system still allows same-day ground passes for those happy to queue (and soak up the atmosphere). Beyond the tennis, London in the summer is hard to beat: think long days, Thames cruises, pub lunches, Kew Gardens, shopping and more.

With flight costs and traveller fatigue both climbing, a smart bleisure or incentive add-on is one of the easiest ways to stretch the value of a trip your team is already taking: a thank-you that doubles as a productivity boost, and a chance for your people to see Africa and London in a light no boardroom ever offers. It pays, though, to do it properly. Heunes says a good TMC will help you design itineraries that work, negotiate the right rates and, importantly, build in the duty-of-care considerations required. “The trip is already happening,” says Heunes. “Chat to your TMC about making it an unforgettable one, even in the current climate.”