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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 “Companies relying on unmanaged travel or outdated hotel lists are still spooked because they couldn’t locate their people during the February chaos.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.”
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)
+27 81 072 2869
