A Guide for Finance Leaders
Turn your travel budget into your best-performing asset
If you’re signing off travel spend in South Africa right now, you’ve felt the pressure. Trips are longer. Hotel bills are higher. The jet-fuel surcharge moves overnight. And suddenly, those “quick” trips are stretching to five days, and your board’s left asking, “Where is all that budget going?”
But here’s the good news: while travel costs are doing cartwheels and policy leakages quietly drain 8–12% of spend, you can take control. With the right travel information, the right policy framework, and the right Travel Management Company partner, your travel spend can generate measurable ROI.
Download the guide and change the way you think about business travel spend in 2026.
Here's what you'll walk away with:
What's inside: The data your travel budget has been missing
Right now, your budget is either:
- Absorbing inflation, currency volatility and supplier price creep, or
- Being actively managed with scenario planning, policy enforcement and supplier strategy.
The difference is visibility.
Inside the guide, you’ll find:
- South Africa’s position within global corporate travel trends 2026
- The real airfare trend story before and after February’s jet‑fuel escalation
- Why hotel inflation compounded by longer trips is driving sustained cost pressure
- Behavioural signals finance leaders should be tracking: batching, earlier booking, reduced premium cabins
- A practical framework for base‑case and stress‑case modelling in volatile conditions
With ideas and commentary from Juliette Da Silva, CFO of Flight Centre Travel Group South Africa, this is your playbook for data-backed decisions in a market that rarely sits still.
This is local travel data. Local context. Local pressure points.
If you’re responsible for a travel spending, this is essential reading.
Who this is for
This guide is for the finance leader who:
- Is seeing average business travel cost creep upward
- Suspects policy leakage but can’t quantify it
- Is exposed to jet‑fuel surcharge spikes on key routes
- Needs to explain travel ROI in the boardroom
- Knows business travel matters … but wants it managed properly
You’ll learn how to:
- Align travel policy with current booking behaviour
- Strengthen supplier and corridor strategy
- Build volatility into your forecasts, before it hits your P&L
- Measure ROI in a way your board will respect
