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.”

-ENDS-

The FCM Consulting Insights Report 2026: Global & Regional Hotel Strategies Ahead of the 2026 RFP Season is available here: https://www.fcmtravel.com/en-za/guides/fcm-consulting-insights-report-hotel-edition-2026. The report covers global hotel market trends, regional analysis across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific, a case study in global hotel programme transformation, and strategic recommendations for the upcoming RFP season.

Media contact

Sonnette Fourie, Account Director at Big Ambitions (on behalf of the Flight Centre Travel Group)

sonnette@bigambitions.co.za

+27 81 072 2869

Table of Contents

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.”

ENDS

The FCM Consulting Insights Report 2026: Global & Regional Hotel Strategies Ahead of the 2026 RFP Season is available here: https://www.fcmtravel.com/en-za/guides/fcm-consulting-insights-report-hotel-edition-2026. The report covers global hotel market trends, regional analysis across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific, a case study in global hotel programme transformation, and strategic recommendations for the upcoming RFP season.

Media contact

Sonnette Fourie, Account Director at Big Ambitions (on behalf of the Flight Centre Travel Group)

sonnette@bigambitions.co.za

+27 81 072 2869

The launch comes amid wider uncertainty and material change across the managed travel sector.

Though travel manager confidence remains high (recent Institute of Travel Management research found that 84 per cent of business travel professionals feel their roles are secure), many are facing increasing pressure to explain the value of travel in business terms.

Change in corporate travel is being driven by advances in AI and automation, as well as ongoing economic and geopolitical pressures. Senior leaders are therefore applying greater scrutiny to costs, risks and measurable returns.

“Automation and accessible data can give the impression that managed travel is straightforward and easily reduced to price,” said Jo Lloyd, Global Head of Customer Management and Consulting at FCM.

“The real value lies in the oversight, risk management and judgments that sit behind the transactions.”

The Travel Impact Index is designed to move the conversation beyond operational reporting and cost alone. It provides a practical framework for assessing programme strength across governance, risk management, data visibility, supplier strategy and stakeholder engagement.

The underlying assessment framework is built around structured questions that explore how programmes support business priorities, manage exposure, influence behaviour and enable outcomes.

Rather than focusing solely on savings, the Index encourages organisations to examine:

• What risk and corporate liabilities have been avoided
• What traveller friction has been removed
• What behaviour has changed
• What business outcomes travel has enabled.

Many travel leaders recognise the importance of demonstrating programme value, yet cost remains a dominant metric in board-level conversations. FCM Consulting believes this reflects a lack of practical tools and language rather than a lack of value.

“If the business understands the value of the travel programme, it will invest in it,” Lloyd added. If it does not, it will not. The Travel Impact Index helps travel leaders present their programme in terms that senior decision-makers recognise.”

The Travel Impact Index is available globally. More information can be found at: https://www.fcmtravel.com/en-za/travel-impact-index

ENDS

Media contact

Sonnette Fourie

Account Director – Big Ambitions on behalf of the Flight Centre Travel Group – Corporate Brands

sonnette@bigambitions.co.za

+27 81 072 2869 (South Africa)