Statistics from Flight Centre Business Travel (FCBT), the corporate travel division of Flight Centre Travel Group, show that South African cities occupy six of the top 10 business destinations for South Africans in 2017.
Johannesburg is the top destination for South African business travellers, with one in five travelling to South Africa’s economic capital.
Cape Town is the second most popular business destination with 15% of business travellers flying to the Mother City, with just over one in 10 travelling to Durban. Port Elizabeth comes in a steady fourth. Together these four destinations account for almost half of all SA’s business travellers.
According to FCBT’s statistics, London is the top international business destination for South Africans.
Windhoek, Algiers and Nairobi round out the top 10 cities that SMME businesses are travelling to.
The statistics also show that business traffic to Johannesburg (through OR Tambo and Lanseria) grew by 27% over the past year. But the surprise was Durban, which increased by a whopping 37% year-on-year.
FCBT have identified other fast-growing business hubs: Polokwane, where arrivals grew 134%; Umtata which saw business traffic rise by 69%; and Nelspruit and Hoedspruit, which both registered increases of 39%.
Says Ryan Potgieter, General Manager of FCBT: “While the top cities are not a surprise as most people who travel for business do so locally, what is interesting is the increase in South Africans travelling for business locally and into Africa.”
Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa recorded the biggest increase in traffic with a 142% increase in business travellers. And this trend is on the rise for Zimbabwe and Zambia. Victoria Falls saw SA business traveller arrivals increase 131% while Livingstone, just across the border in Zambia, registered an increase of 122%.
“Many experts argue that rather than cut business travel in these tough economic times, companies should be investing more in business travel to source more business. Our data shows that companies are doing just that,” says Potgieter