Quarter 4 was always going to be tricky. October through December is traditionally a busy stretch of the corporate travel calendar, with the year’s final stakeholder meetings, conferences and year-end events all squeezed in before the annual slowdown. At the same time, holidaymakers and international arrivals are competing for the same seats and rooms. For SMEs used to booking as and when they need to, record fuel prices on top of peak-season demand is a costly combination.

“Smaller businesses tend to have a smaller booking window when compared to larger corporates,” says Herman Heunes, GM at Corporate Traveller. “Multi-nationals, for example, typically require flights to be booked 21 days in advance, while SMEs are far more flexible and reactive. And they need to be, but in Q4 it can get expensive, especially against a backdrop of rising fuel prices.”

So how do you keep Q4 on track without the costs running away with you? Heunes has the following advice:

Book the trips you can already predict

Look at last year’s calendar. If your team went to Cape Town in November or Durban in December, they’ll probably go again. The message is simple: lock in fares now, before the best options – and flight times – sell out.

Of course, booking is often cash flow dependent, and Heunes says partnering with a strong travel management company (TMC) can make all the difference.

“SMEs don’t have the travel volume to negotiate good rates on their own,” he says. “A TMC does. Partnering with one gives you access to its buying power, so you benefit from negotiated rates with airlines, hotels and car rental companies that you wouldn’t get booking direct. On top of that, Corporate Traveller offers clients a credit facility, so you can book now and pay later, protecting your cash flow.”

Adopt a Total Trip Cost (TTC) mindset

The instinct when prices spike is to cut costs wherever possible: book the cheapest flight, cap hotel spend and push for budget stays. But the ticket price is only part of the picture. TTC adds in the ground transport, the lost working hours and the toll on the traveller (which is particularly important if your team’s already had a long year).

Take the classic Q4 compromise: a cheaper flight with a longer layover, paired with a hotel further from the city centre. The saving looks good on paper, but it often means a tired traveller, a taxi fare to and from an outlying hotel, and maybe a lounge visit to make the layover bearable. By the time you add it all up, the “cheaper” option often costs more, in money and morale.

“Always look at TTC rather than just ticket price,” says Heunes. “Paying slightly more for a flight or a hotel near a client’s office can deliver more in the long run. You avoid extra ground costs, and your team arrives on time and ready to work.”

Pay for flexibility where it counts

December work is inherently reactive. Stakeholder meetings run long, end-of-year event schedules can shift at the last minute, and unpredictable weather can easily disrupt itineraries. In fact, research shows that both travel managers and bookers consistently cite trip instability and the financial risk of non-refundable bookings as top concerns during peak seasons.

If a client meeting moves, even by a couple of hours, a “cheap” fare instantly loses its value, forcing you to buy a brand-new ticket at peak, last-minute prices. A flexible corporate fare costs a little more upfront but acts as an insurance policy, protecting the budget when plans inevitably change in Q4.

Book the car with the flight

Ground transport should never be an afterthought, yet it is often left to the last minute. In Q4, corporate demand coincides directly with the holiday rush and, interestingly, there are a few categories that sell out first, including minivans and 7+ seaters (important to note, if you’re transporting your team to an event), automatics (across all categories) and SUVs/4X4s. Get in quick, and ensure your travellers are enrolled in ‘fast-track’ or ‘skip-the-queue’ programmes, as any time saved during Q4 is a massive win.

Look after your people

Year-end fatigue is real, and it directly affects how travellers perform when they arrive.

“Put someone on a 06:00 flight with a long layover to save a few hundred rand, and they’ll just arrive feeling flat and exhausted,” says Heunes. “But it’s important to look at ground-level friction too. Negotiate early check-ins or late check-outs wherever possible and enquire about complimentary hotel shuttles. These ‘soft perks’ are incredibly difficult to secure on your own during peak season, but ask your TMC to work their magic.”

What to do now

“Most Q4 savings come from decisions made before the rush,” says Heunes. “An hour of planning this week will make a massive difference come December.”

Here are three things you can do immediately:

• Audit your ticket credits. Cancelled meetings throughout the year leave unused ticket credits sitting forgotten in inboxes until they expire. Check what’s there before you book anything new. A good TMC will track and apply these automatically, so check in with your travel manager to confirm.
• Pull your bookings from last year. If you have recurring meetings or events, lock in flights and rooms this week.
• If you have partnered with a TMC, let them do the heavy lifting. Be proactive, make travel decisions as soon as possible so they can leverage their buying power and supplier relationships to secure the best corporate fares and rates available – alongside perks like early check-in and room upgrades.

That familiarity, however, has been complicated by a regulatory shake-up that caught many businesses off guard. Under South Africa’s National Land Transport Act, which came into effect in September 2025, e-hailing platforms were required to register with the National Public Transport Regulator within 180 days. While some platforms met that deadline, others did not, and in the North West, police have already begun impounding vehicles belonging to unregistered operators.

South Africa’s evolving e-hailing regulatory landscape has raised a question that most businesses haven’t had to ask before: do we actually know what’s happening once an employee gets into that car?

The honest answer, for many SMEs, is no.

“That gap has nothing to do with e-hailing being the wrong choice and everything to do with the fact that the governance hasn’t kept pace with the convenience,” says Herman Heunes, General Manager at Corporate Traveller South Africa.

The good news? Closing the gap is simpler than most businesses think.

The managed travel illusion

E-hailing arrived in South Africa’s corporate travel landscape and immediately made itself indispensable with real-time tracking, digital receipts, cashless payments, and a rating system that creates at least some accountability between driver and passenger. As part of a broader managed travel programme – sitting alongside chauffeur transfers, hotel bookings, and flight management – it’s a powerful tool. Used in isolation, without policy or oversight, it looks and largely feels like a managed solution.

The problem is that looking like managed travel and being managed travel are two different things.

South Africa’s new e-hailing regulations have made a previously invisible assumption very visible, very quickly.

“Visibility is the biggest challenge we see with SMEs and e-hailing,” says Carmen Hidalgo, Customer Success Team Leader at Corporate Traveller South Africa. “If companies don’t know how employees are moving around, they can’t effectively support them when things go wrong. That’s a policy problem. The tools to create that visibility already exist. Most businesses just haven’t connected them to a formal framework yet.”

The myth around SMEs and duty of care

There’s a persistent assumption in the SME market that duty of care is something multinationals worry about. For smaller businesses, the thinking often goes, the informal approach has worked fine so far.

But, ultimately, rather than the size of your travel programme, duty of care is about the fact that when an employee travels for work, whether they’re flying to Johannesburg or getting into an e-hailing vehicle to reach a client meeting across town, their employer has a responsibility to take reasonable steps to keep them safe and to support them if something goes wrong.

“Liability may sit with multiple parties in a ground transport incident, but responsibility cannot be outsourced,” says Heunes. “What we want SMEs to understand is this: building a duty of care framework that properly supports your travellers doesn’t require complexity – it requires clarity. Clear guidelines, approved providers, and a defined process for escalation. That’s achievable for any business, regardless of size, and it changes the experience for your travellers and your risk profile significantly.”

The shift Heunes describes is already visible in how Corporate Traveller’s SME clients are approaching ground transport. “We’re seeing companies move from convenience-led bookings to visibility-led bookings,” he says. “The question used to be ‘how do we get a ride?’ Now it’s ‘how do we manage the journey?’”

That change reflects a growing understanding that e-hailing is no longer simply a transport choice.

“It’s a traveller experience, a business risk, and a duty of care decision, all at once,” Heunes adds.

So, what does that actually look like in practice?

What good looks like

Sensible e-hailing governance for an SME requires a few deliberate decisions, consistently applied.

Start with an approved provider list. Knowing which platforms are operating within the legal framework is a reasonable baseline. That list may evolve, and a good TMC will help you stay current, but having one at all puts you ahead of most SMEs.

Build basic safety guidelines into your travel culture. When using e-hailing, encourage employees to conduct the following safety checks:

• Verify the vehicle registration, make, and model against the app before getting in.
• Confirm the driver matches the photograph.
• Never accept a different vehicle on the driver’s say-so.
• Keep the trip inside the app – if a driver asks you to cancel and pay directly, decline.

Define what visibility means for your business. This doesn’t have to mean real-time GPS monitoring of every employee, but it might mean ensuring that travelling employees share their trip details with a colleague, or that bookings are made through a platform that generates reportable data. The goal is that if something goes wrong, you know where your people are and you have a process for responding.

Create a simple escalation path. Who does an employee call if their driver doesn’t match the app or if they feel unsafe? If the answer is “I suppose they’d call their manager,” that’s a starting point, but it should be written down, communicated, and tested.

Treat e-hailing as part of your travel policy, not an exception to it. “If employees are already using it, it belongs in the policy,” says Hidalgo. “Ignoring it doesn’t reduce the risk – it just means you’re managing it without a framework. The businesses that have taken the time to include ground transport in their travel governance tell us the same thing: it’s one of the easiest wins in the whole travel programme. A few clear decisions, and suddenly you have visibility and accountability where you previously had none.”

The regulatory framework will settle, and the industry will find its footing under the new rules.

But the underlying question – do we actually know what’s happening once an employee gets into that car? – remains.

E-hailing is the right choice for most SMEs. It’s cost-effective and accessible, and when it’s working well, it supports the kind of lean, efficient travel programme that smaller businesses need.

“We know SMEs aren’t interested in replacing it with something more expensive and more complicated. The goal is to make sure the governance is as good as the convenience,” comments Heunes.

That’s a realistic ambition, and for SMEs that haven’t started yet, the distance between where they are and where they need to be is shorter than they think.

“Good travel governance doesn’t need to be complicated,” says Hidalgo. “It just needs to exist.”

People are becoming increasingly obsessed with the science of sleep. Smartwatches and rings track both sleep stages – light, deep, REM – and sleep quality; wellness schemes like Discovery Vitality encourage and reward it; and supplements promise it in a bottle. Sleep tourism, meanwhile, is one of 2026’s defining luxury travel trends, with hotels building entire itineraries around a good night’s rest.

It’s great news for business travellers. Especially as recent Booking.com data shows that roughly 60% of business travellers report some level of sleep disruption on the road, driven partly by the “first night effect” – the brain staying semi-alert in unfamiliar surroundings – and worsened by ambient noise, uncomfortable beds and rooms that run too hot or too cold.

For Herman Heunes, GM at Corporate Traveller South Africa, the sleep conversation is just as important as, if not more important than, discussions around flight classes.

“Travellers spend 8 to 12 hours on an airplane and a few days in a hotel. Obviously, a lie-flat seat on a plane makes a difference, but a good sleep environment at a hotel, including heavy drapes or block-out blinds, cool temperatures and acoustic insulation, is priceless,” says Heunes.

What “sleep-friendly” actually looks like

While you may have heard of sleep or pillow menus – where guests can choose from a selection of pillows (including soft, medium, firm, hypoallergenic or memory foam), the fundamentals are less glamorous: darkness, quiet, temperature control, comfortable bedding and enough uninterrupted time to sleep.

Sleep-friendly hotels have actually re-engineered their rooms to make sure they measure up, including commercial blackout curtain systems, soundproofing (because lifts, housekeeping stations, kitchens, function venues, loading bays and rooftop equipment can all create intermittent noise) and consistent climate control.

From pillow menus to sleep menus

Hotels are expanding their sleep offerings to include calming teas, lighter evening meals and snacks suited to late arrivals.

For example, Westin Hotels and Resorts’ global Sleep Well Programme centres on the brand’s Heavenly Bed – a custom pillow-top mattress with layered bedding and down pillows – alongside a bedside lavender balm to calm the senses, and a Sleep Well Menu for in-room dining built around amino acids and vitamins linked to better sleep.

Four Seasons has developed a customisable bed with mattress-topper preferences at participating properties, including Four Seasons Hotel The Westcliff Johannesburg. These mattress toppers (with three distinct levels of firmness) can be swapped out by hotel staff in a matter of minutes to match a guest’s specific preferences.

The red-eye problem

Of course, none of this helps if a traveller lands at 05:00 but can’t access a room until 14:00. Standard check-in windows were never designed around overnight flights, and “early check-in requested” is not the same as guaranteed early access – it simply means the hotel will help if a room happens to be available.

This is where a travel management company (TMC) earns its keep. As Heunes explains, the most dependable options are booking the room from the previous night, flagging the traveller’s arrival time so the room isn’t released as a no-show, negotiating guaranteed early access into the corporate rate, reserving a day-use room, or confirming showers, lounge access and luggage storage as a fallback.

“Chat to your TMC about negotiating early check-in or late check-out as part of your hotel programme,” says Heunes. “If you don’t have a TMC or hotel programme, consider booking an additional night. It may look wasteful on a spreadsheet, but it can be a sensible investment before a negotiation, presentation or other high-value meeting. A good TMC will identify potential issues, like an unfriendly arrival time, ahead of time and suggest practical solutions rather than leaving the traveller to negotiate at reception.”

A handful of hotel groups are ahead of the curve, but mostly for elite loyalty members: Marriott Bonvoy Ambassadors get “Your24”, a self-chosen 24-hour check-in/check-out window; IHG Platinum and Diamond Elite members get early check-in (subject to availability); and World of Hyatt Globalists get a guaranteed 4pm check-out. The catch is that none of this helps an SME traveller booking direct with no status to leverage – but TMCs can help.

Jet lag is only part of the problem

Not every exhausted traveller is jet-lagged. Jet lag is a temporary sleep disorder that happens when your body’s internal clock is out of sync with a new time zone; sleep deprivation simply means you have not slept enough.

To counter this, travellers and TMCs should ask for:

• Full-blackout curtains
• A room away from lifts, functions and street noise
• Individually controlled air-conditioning
• Suitable pillow and bedding options
• Guaranteed rather than requested early check-in
• Late-night food or early breakfast
• Reliable airport transfers
• Day-use or shower facilities if the room is unavailable

These preferences can be stored in traveller profiles and used when selecting preferred hotels.

“Companies should also track traveller feedback on noise, darkness, temperature and early room access, not only room rates, Wi-Fi and breakfast,” says Heunes. “Direct feedback from travellers is gold.”

For SMMEs, prioritising sleep on the road doesn’t require a bigger budget. In fact, Heunes keeps the checklist short: identify the right hotels, confirm blackout curtains, soundproofing and privacy, ask whether a pillow or sleep menu exists, and secure early check-in at the booking stage for any red-eye arrivals.

“Many hotels have done the hard part,” says Heunes. “The average room is quieter, darker and better designed than it’s ever been. What’s left is choosing the right flight, class and ground transport to get your people there – prioritising ease and rest from end to end.”

Carmen Hidalgo, Customer Success Team Leader at Corporate Traveller South Africa, says the framing is where most people go wrong.

“The biggest misconception is that lounge access is a luxury perk,” she says. “For frequent business travellers, it’s a practical tool, one that cuts travel fatigue, improves comfort during delays and helps you make better, more productive use of time spent in airports.”

Once you see the lounge as a high-functioning co-working space, and a chance to rest and breathe, things start to look a little different.

When it makes financial sense

For business travellers, the most common options are lounge memberships such as Priority Pass, airline loyalty programmes, purchasing day passes as needed, or accessing lounges through corporate travel agreements and company credit cards. For occasional travellers, day passes are often the most cost-effective. For more frequent travellers, membership programmes generally provide better value over time.

Hidalgo believes that if a traveller is flying every month or making 10-15+ lounge visits a year, a membership or bundled access option starts making more financial sense than buying day passes ad hoc.

Of course, it also helps to know what the passes cost. Walk-in rates at the general-access lounges, Bidvest among them, run from about R300 to R700 a visit, while premium co-branded bank lounges (like SLOW) do not allow general walk-ins and instead require specific bank card tiers or partner programmes.

The door price is only part of the calculation, though. What you’re really paying for is the quiet productivity of a well-considered space.

“The biggest value is in reliable connectivity, comfortable seating, charging facilities, a quieter working environment and complimentary refreshments. These are the features that help business travellers stay productive,” says Hidalgo. “The high-end touches like spa treatments or shower facilities are nice to have, but they’re rarely the reason an SME traveller sees a return on investment.”

That return is easiest to see when things go wrong: your flight is pushed back, your phone needs a charge and the terminal is heaving. You can brave a noisy coffee shop, or move to the lounge, plug in and clear your inbox before you fly. Six or seven trips a year can easily add up to the better part of three working days in airports, and lounge access gives you some of that time back.

A lounge reality check, and how to maximise your time

While lounges were once a quiet refuge for the select few, premium credit cards have thrown open the doors. Now lounges across the world are coming under fire for snaking queues and crowded floors, especially over peak periods. To control numbers, operators have pushed back with restrictions: entry windows that open only a few hours before departure, higher walk-in rates, caps on guests per cardholder and, in some cases, a charge to pre-book a seat. All of it chips at the overall experience, and it’s fair to ask whether a busy lounge is now simply a glorified waiting room.

Hidalgo doesn’t dodge the point. “Overcrowding has reduced some of the productivity benefits travellers used to expect,” she says. “So, we tell clients to treat lounge access as one part of the trip, not the whole experience. And you do need to be intentional about it.”

As Hidalgo explains, customers commonly allow lounge access for frequent travellers, longer layovers, delays, or trips where employees are travelling directly into meetings. The objective should be helping travellers make the best use of their time while maintaining sensible cost control.

“A managed travel programme gives businesses greater visibility and control over traveller benefits, including lounge access,” she says. “Depending on the programme, access may be linked to negotiated supplier agreements, traveller status, or internal travel policy guidelines. The best travel policies treat lounge access as a structured and managed benefit rather than an ad hoc traveller expense.”

When it comes to maximising your lounge experience, a few simple steps make a big difference:

• Check in before you arrive. Use the airline app and travel with hand luggage where you can, so you clear the landside queues and head straight through security to the lounge.
• Mind the fine print. Some lounges, SLOW among them, only let you in 90 minutes before boarding a domestic flight, while international departure lounges have different windows (for example, three hours before boarding).
• Don’t overlook arrival lounges. At the bigger hubs you can shower and press a suit after a red-eye before walking into a client meeting.
• Use the Wi-Fi for the heavy lifting. The private network will carry a video call or a large upload that terminal signal tends to drop.
• Find the quiet corners. Phone booths and work suites, where they exist, are for the calls and pitch prep you’d rather not have overheard.
• Eat before you board. A proper meal in the lounge frees the flight itself for sleep or focused offline work.
• Claim a plug early. Grab a seat near a charging point and get everything topped up before you leave, so you land ready to go.
• Check what else is included. Many lounges offer showers, printing or a fast-track security lane, so it’s worth knowing what your access covers before you pay for it elsewhere.

So, is it worth it?

For all the grumbling about crowds and cost, most travellers still answer yes. Airport Dimensions’ Airport Experience 2025 study, which surveyed more than 10,000 regular flyers worldwide, found that 97% were unwilling to give up their lounge access, and 45% would switch banks to keep card-linked lounge privileges. With terminals busier than ever, 62% said they would pay for premium services to get some breathing room, treating the lounge as a travel essential.

The top end of the market is reading the same signal and spending accordingly. Etihad’s First Class Lounge and Spa in Abu Dhabi has a gym with cardio machines and weights; Finnair’s Platinum Wing in Helsinki runs a traditional Finnish sauna; and from September 2027, San Francisco International will offer private bedrooms, showers and a speakeasy for travellers waiting out a long layover.

For most business travellers, though, the appeal is more grounded. “They can be impressive,” says Hidalgo of the flashier offerings, “although most business travellers still place the highest value on quiet spaces, comfort and the ability to work efficiently.”

It’s evidence of an invisible itinerary: the planning, coordination and caregiving responsibilities that happen behind the scenes, before a single flight is booked. Think school runs and lift clubs, dog walks and vet visits, stocked fridges and pre-cooked meals, medication schedules for elderly parents or kids, emergency contacts briefed well in advance, and detailed instructions so everything runs like a military operation.

Gen X and older Millennials, in particular, feel the strain. The modern “sandwich generation” find themselves juggling dual caregiving responsibilities that directly impact professional obligations, including work travel.

The encouraging part of the research is what follows – clear evidence that the right organisational support and policies ease the load and support traveller health and wellbeing.

“The first fix is making sure every trip has a clear purpose, for the business and for the traveller,” says Elize De Jager, Operations Team Leader at Corporate Traveller South Africa, a global travel management company (TMC) that specialises in providing tailored business travel services to small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs). 

“It’s a principle that matters for any company watching its travel spend, particularly SMEs, but it carries extra weight for the person weighing up whether a trip is worth the disruption at home. Few will say that part out loud, though. Admitting to the caregiving and coordination happening behind the scenes takes a genuinely safe workplace, and not everyone has one. In the wrong environment, the cost of staying quiet can be steep: with women turning down worthwhile trips – for their personal development, career and for the business itself – simply because of what’s happening at home. That’s not ideal.”

Better policies and systems

De Jager’s view is a practical one: the fix isn’t asking people to share more about what they’re carrying. Visibility only helps, she says, if a workplace receives it well – and in the wrong culture, disclosing too much too soon can do more harm than good. Instead, it’s about fixing outdated policies.

“Some workplaces can feel as if they’re structured around an imaginary worker who has no caregiving responsibilities and unlimited availability,” she says. “That person is increasingly rare – and was probably never the norm.”

Douglas’s research with the University of Pretoria touches on how important organisational support is when it comes to traveller wellness and wellbeing. Put simply, higher levels of organisational support lead to higher levels of employee engagement. This could mean offering employees an opportunity to recover after a trip; providing the necessary training and coaching ahead of key trips (including cultural awareness guidance, which can help travellers navigate unfamiliar environments with greater confidence and reduce unnecessary risk); allowing more comfortable travel (including premium economy or business class for long-haul flights); and ensuring that all the travel arrangements run smoothly. And of course, this shouldn’t just be understood – it should be written into policy.

De Jager says this might include:

• Giving travellers a say in flight timing, particularly for early departures or late arrivals.
• Giving travellers a choice in ground transport, i.e. a pre-booked shuttle or transfer instead of defaulting to the cheapest option, especially after dark.
• Choosing accommodation with safety in mind, including 24-hour reception, security and security cameras, key-card access to lifts, safe locations and positive reviews.
• Building in recovery time after long trips, rather than an immediate return to a full schedule.
• Canvassing cross-departmental input into policy design, so travel policy reflects real working lives.
• Flexibility to extend a trip so the family can join, where workable. Excursions, outings and leisure activities all play a role in employee morale and satisfaction.

For De Jager, none of these are radical. They’re achievable, and TMCs can help draft the policies, vet accommodation and transport suppliers, and negotiate corporate rates to help make it happen.

Closing the gaps

“A policy that books the cheapest available flight without factoring in who’s collecting children from school or covering an elderly parent’s evening care, isn’t neutral; it simply shifts a cost from the balance sheet onto the traveller’s household,” says Christelle Louw, Operations Team Leader at Corporate Traveller and mother of three.

“Companies must recognise that women bear a disproportionate share of caregiving,” says Louw. “But many men are caregivers too. If HR policies are routinely built around flexibility, and reflect the realities of the world today, it becomes a choice for everyone – not a special favour for a woman in a man’s world.”

This Women’s Day, the business case is simple: sustainable corporate travel is fair, flexible and designed for real life and real people.

It’s a remarkable feat of engineering. It’s also, if we’re honest, a long time to spend in seat 47E. Which raises a question: if work required it, would you strap in for the ultra-long-haul?

Before you answer, “that’s Australia’s problem”, consider this. South African business travellers are already seasoned ultra-long-haul flyers. Delta’s Johannesburg to Atlanta service runs to over 16 and a half hours. United flies non-stop from Joburg and Cape Town to Newark – both around 15 and a half hours. Interestingly, neither breaks into the world’s top 10 longest non-stop flights, which routinely run between 17h 35m and 19h 15m (New York JFK to Singapore). As the flights get longer, the world continues to get smaller.

“South Africans are already flying 15, 16, nearly 17 hours right now, often in economy, and often going straight into a meeting upon landing,” says Herman Heunes, General Manager at Corporate Traveller South Africa. “Project Sunrise is a reminder to relook your travel policy and ask: what does a company owe a traveller it puts on a flight like that?”

A different category of travel

Here’s the thing the airlines have already figured out: ultra-long-haul is a fundamentally different product to ordinary long-haul – and they’re building accordingly.

Qantas didn’t simply order more planes. It commissioned a purpose-built aircraft, the Airbus A350-1000ULR (Ultra Long Range), with an extra fuel tank and a deliberately roomy cabin of just 238 passengers (where a standard A350-1000 typically seats 350-400 passengers). It brought in sleep and nutrition scientists from the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre. The aircraft features a dedicated Wellbeing Zone for stretching and movement, plus 12 custom lighting scenes designed around circadian rhythms to nudge your body clock towards its destination while you cruise over the North Pole.

Singapore Airlines, which holds the current record with its Singapore to New York service, made an even blunter design choice. Its ultra-long-range aircraft has no economy cabin at all. Just 161 seats, all business and premium economy. The airline that knows more about ultra-long-haul flying than anyone on earth quietly concluded that economy seating and 19 hours don’t belong in the same sentence.

If airlines are treating these flights as a separate category, travel policies probably should too.

What your travel policy should actually say

This is where the conversation gets practical, for travellers and for the people who book on their behalf. A sensible ultra-long-haul policy covers a number of things:

Lie-flat above a defined threshold. Pick a number, say 12 hours, above which lie-flat seating is standard. The math is simple: a traveller who sleeps arrives able to work, and a traveller who spends 15 hours upright arrives physically exhausted and unproductive.

Lounge access at both ends. The journey includes the hours around the flight. A shower, a proper meal and a quiet place to work before boarding (and after landing) cost a fraction of the fare and change the entire experience.

A recovery buffer on arrival. The rough science of jet lag is that your body adjusts about one time zone per day (depending on whether you’re flying east or west). Landing at 06:00 and presenting to a client at 09:00 is a big, big ask. Build in a 24-hour buffer before the first commitment.

Rest days on the return leg. For flights crossing multiple time zones or exceeding 12 hours, companies often grant one full, paid “rest day” before a return to standard duties and expectations.

Early check-in (or late check-out). If an employee lands early in the morning and must work that afternoon, travel bookers may negotiate early check-in so the traveller can sleep, shower and change before the meeting.

Flexible ground transportation. Taking public transport or driving a rental car after a 12-hour flight is another big ask (especially if a traveller is landing in a foreign city). Policies generally mandate expensing an airport shuttle, chauffeured ride or taxi to eliminate the danger of fatigued driving.

Pre-trip health screenings. Some corporate policies recommend or fund medical consultations for frequent flyers on ultra-long-haul routes to manage risks like deep vein thrombosis (DVT).

Ancillary expenses. Think preferred seating fees (nabbing extra legroom in emergency exit rows or bulkhead seats) or in-flight Wi-Fi.

“None of this is about pampering people,” says Heunes. “It’s duty of care, and it’s protecting the investment. If a company is spending tens of thousands of rands to put someone on the other side of the planet, the marginal cost of making sure that person arrives functional is the best money spent across the whole trip.”

But we’re an SME, not a bank

Fair. Blanket business class policies are a luxury many smaller travel programmes simply can’t carry. But as Heunes explains, there’s a wide middle ground between “business class for everyone” and “good luck in the back”, and this is precisely where a travel expert earns their keep: smarter routings, fare classes with upgrade potential, well-timed stopovers, loyalty programmes put to proper work, negotiated rates and premium economy deployed where it genuinely helps.

It’s also worth saying that non-stop is not automatically better. For some travellers, a one-stop itinerary with a shower and a stretch in Singapore, Dubai or Doha beats the record-breaker comfortably. A good policy allows that choice rather than defaulting to the shortest elapsed time on the screen.

“The best itinerary is the one that gets the job done properly,” says Heunes. “Sometimes that’s the non-stop; sometimes it’s the sensible stopover. What it should never be is whatever happened to be cheapest on the day, with the traveller left to absorb the consequences.”

So, are you in?

There’s something thrilling about the Sydney to London non-stop: three meal services, two sunrises and a piece of aviation history from a single seat. Plenty of travellers will board it out of sheer curiosity.

But whether it’s a bucket-list adventure or a 22-hour endurance test depends far less on your personal stamina than on what your company wraps around the flight.

“Ask questions before the trip, not after it,” Heunes says. “If your travel policy was written when your longest flight was 11 hours to London, it’s due an update. The flights are getting longer. The policy should be getting smarter.”

Governments now want your information before you even board your flight, and for business travellers running on tight itineraries and even tighter margins, that shift has consequences.

“The SARS Traveller Declaration is a fundamental change in when compliance happens. The border has moved, and it’s moved to 24 hours before departure. Business travellers who don’t adjust their pre-trip habits and routine are going to feel it,” says Herman Heunes, General Manager at Corporate Traveller South Africa.

An emerging global pattern

South Africa is joining a growing cohort of governments that have decided the old model of processing travellers at the point of entry is too slow, too manual, and too reactive.

The UK’s Electronic Travel Authorisation, now required for millions of previously visa-exempt visitors, must also be secured before boarding. The EU’s ETIAS system, expected to launch late 2026, adds a pre-departure authorisation layer for travellers who previously needed nothing more than a valid passport. Across Asia, countries including Thailand and Indonesia have introduced or expanded digital arrival and declaration systems (the Thailand Digital Arrival Card and All Indonesia Arrival Card, respectively) that replace the paper cards travellers once filled in on the plane. Ethiopia, meanwhile, requires all arriving and transiting passengers to complete an online Traveler’s Health Declaration Form before arrival at Addis Ababa Bole International Airport.

The architecture is different in each case (some are entry authorisations, others are customs declarations or health declarations), but the direction is identical.

Pre-travel. Digital. Mandatory.

“What we’re seeing globally is the rise of the smart border,” says Heunes. “Information moves ahead of the traveller. That’s better for governments, and ultimately better for travellers who are prepared. But it creates a new category of risk for anyone who treats pre-trip admin as an afterthought.”

What the SARS declaration actually means for business travellers

The new SARS Traveller Declaration is a manageable addition to the pre-trip checklist for leisure travellers with a suitcase of personal belongings. They simply complete it within 24 hours of departure, keep the confirmation on their phone, and proceed as normal.

However, for business travellers, it’s slightly more complex. The declaration requires passport details, travel information, contact details, and – critically – disclosure of any goods, currency, or items that fall outside personal use. Business equipment, product samples, gifts intended for clients, commercial goods, and cash above the R100,000 threshold all require declaration. Allowances cannot be combined between travellers, and goods exceeding the duty-free threshold trigger further customs assessment.

Importantly, this is not a form to rush through. SARS has been unambiguous on the consequences – failure to declare, or making a false declaration, can result in delays, detention of goods, penalties, or enforcement action under customs legislation. For a business traveller catching an early morning flight to close a deal, none of those outcomes are acceptable.

“If samples or goods get held at customs, the real cost is the stress and disruption that ripples into expos, meetings and other commitments,” says Heunes. “That’s why the declaration needs to be part of the travel workflow rather than something forgotten about until check-in.”

The compliance gap that travel management closes

The uncomfortable truth for many SMEs is that the systems designed to streamline border processing actually increase the pre-trip burden on anyone without a managed travel programme. Leisure travellers have time and flexibility; large corporates have compliance infrastructure. SMEs and smaller businesses (the ones most likely to be sending their MD on a last-minute flight to Nairobi or their sales lead to a trade show in Frankfurt) are most exposed to the gap between “booked” and “compliant”.

The new normal for business travel looks something like this: a traveller needs not just a valid passport and a booking confirmation, but potentially (depending on their passport) an ETA or ETIAS authorisation, a completed customs declaration, and documented details of any goods or currency they’re carrying – all resolved before they reach the airport.

“Managed travel was always about more than getting the best fare,” says Heunes. “It was about making sure the trip actually works. That’s truer now than it’s ever been. A good travel booker is securing flights while, more importantly, ensuring their travellers are actually ready to travel.”

The companies that will navigate this new landscape most effectively are those that treat compliance as part of the travel booking process rather than a separate responsibility left to the traveller to figure out alone.

What to do now

The practical adjustment is straightforward, even if the habit change takes time. Add the SARS Traveller Declaration to your pre-trip checklist alongside passport validity, visa requirements, online check-in and boarding pass. Complete it within 24 hours of departure, keeping the confirmation accessible. If you’re carrying business equipment, commercial goods, or significant currency, give yourself time to complete the declaration accurately.

More broadly: check entry requirements for each and every destination earlier than you used to.

“The era of the paper form at the airport is ending. The new compliance window opens long before departure, and for business travellers, that window needs to be part of the plan,” Heunes concludes.

Side bar: Corporate Traveller’s latest Travel Advisory covers everything you need to know about SA’s new Traveller Declaration, including links to SARS’ FAQs and a quick video tutorial: https://www.corporatetraveller.co.za/en-za/resources/news/sars-online-traveller-declaration-now-required

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 – When a health crisis makes the news, the first instinct is either to cancel everything or to carry on as normal. Neither serve you very well.  Instead, start with five questions, asked before departure, not after something goes wrong.

1.Will my travel insurance actually cover this trip?

As Herman Heunes, GM of Corporate Traveller South Africa, explains, travel advisories can impact your trip cover.

“If you travel to a destination against official government ‘Do Not Travel’ warnings, insurers typically void your coverage for trip cancellations and medical emergencies related to the advisory,” says Hunes.

The timing matters too. Many insurers look at when the advisory was issued relative to when you bought your policy. If a severe advisory is issued before you booked your trip or purchased insurance, coverage is usually nullified.

“The advisory level at the time of departure determines a lot,” says Heunes. “Travellers who fly to a destination under an active advisory without checking their policy first can find themselves personally liable for medical, evacuation and repatriation costs that run into the hundreds of thousands.”

It’s an easy fix. Call your insurer or ask your travel management company (TMC) to confirm your specific cover before you book. Not after. And while you’re at it, also confirm whether your destination has any health entry requirements – including vaccinations or screening on arrival – and how your organisation will cover those costs.

2.Does my company actually know where I am?

A travel request form is not a tracking system. In a fast-moving health crisis, the difference between a company that knows you’re in a specific hotel in a specific city on a specific day and one that has you logged as “travelling in the DRC” is significant – and that gap can mean the difference between a swift evacuation and a delayed one.

Larger travel programmes have risk platforms that do this automatically. Many small to medium programmes don’t. If yours falls into the second category, ask your TMC what visibility they have (centralised booking systems and up-to-date traveller profiles make a big difference) – and what needs to happen before you fly.

Importantly, says Heunes, ask your team to register your trip with DIRCO. South Africa’s official travel registration system ensures the government knows you’re in a country if a coordinated evacuation needs to take place. It takes five minutes and costs nothing.

3.What is the health picture in the city I’m visiting?

Country-level warnings are a starting point, not the full story. An outbreak in a border province carries a different risk to one in a capital city with functioning health infrastructure, and a blanket advisory can make a safe trip look dangerous – and vice versa.

Your TMC should be able to provide destination-specific intelligence in addition to the government advisory. That’s where a global network makes a tangible difference.

“Partnering with a TMC that has a global footprint means you can access current, on-the-ground information and local support whenever you need it,” says Heunes. “Networks are a powerful advantage when it comes to duty of care.”

4.If the situation escalates and borders close mid-trip, what is the protocol?

Not “we’ll handle it” – the specific protocol. Who initiates the evacuation process in your organisation? Does your travel agent or TMC have a 24/7 emergency support line? Do you even have the number to call?

“The companies that manage crises well have done the thinking before the crisis, not during it,” says Heunes. “For smaller travel programmes, this is where a good TMC earns its keep – having those protocols already in place, already tested, so the traveller isn’t piecing it together from a hotel room.”

If your programme doesn’t have a documented escalation process, ask your TMC to walk you through what would actually happen, step by step. The answer will tell you a lot.

5.Can I leave early if I feel unsafe … and who covers the cost?

Fare flexibility is rarely top of mind when booking, but it becomes critical fast when a situation deteriorates. Many corporate fares, particularly at the economy end where SME travel budgets live, carry change fees or restrictions that make early departure expensive.

It’s also worth clarifying upfront who has the authority to make the call – whether the decision to abort a trip rests with you, your line manager, or someone further up the chain. In a crisis that moves fast, that ambiguity costs time.

Before you fly, confirm whether your ticket allows for early return, whether your company will cover the cost difference, and whether your insurance includes trip curtailment. If the answer to all three is yes, you can travel with genuine confidence. If not, at least you know what you’re walking into.

“Business travel is how small and medium businesses compete,” says Heunes. “It’s how you close deals, build relationships and show up in markets where presence still matters. The goal is never to stop travelling; it’s to travel in a way that’s informed, protected and sustainable. Ask the right questions before you fly, and you can do exactly that.”