Business travel in the second quarter saw "incremental growth", according to FCM Consulting's Global Quarterly Trend Report, and the sector is set to experience ¡°moderated growth¡± for the rest of 2024.
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The Flight Centre-owned TMC¡¯s report, which is based on its corporate booking data, also found that average airfares throughout the world have mostly increased in 2024.
Globally, economy airfares for the first five months of 2024 rose by 15 per cent compared with the same period of 2023, which worked out at an average increase of $65. Business class airfares, meanwhile, increased by 11 per cent or by around $209 per flight over same period.
But there were pockets of ¡°pricing softness¡±, with FCM noting an 8.8 per cent drop in the prices of international economy fares from the US during the second quarter. The biggest year-on-year drop in fares from the US was on flights to France, where prices fell by 20 per cent, and to the UK, down by 18 per cent compared with Q2 of 2023.
The report found that the share of NDC transactions in June 2024 represented 21.5 per cent of total airline bookings through ARC (Airline Reporting Corporation). This compares to an average of 10 per cent for NDC bookings in the first half of 2023 and an 18 per cent share in December 2023.
FCM said that the average daily hotel room rate fell in most global regions during the first half of 2024. This included Europe where prices fell by 6 per cent or $11 year-on-year to reach an average of $180. Hotel occupancy in Europe reached 68 per cent during H1 of this year, up by one percentage point on the same period of 2023.
Overall, the first-half average room rate in FCM's top 100 corporate cities was $182, which was down by $5 on the same period of 2023.
FCM added that business demand for air and accommodation remained solid during the second quarter of this year.
Meanwhile, average daily rate for car rental globally was $54 in the first half of 2024, which represented a drop of 26 per cent compared with the same period of 2023, showing that prices were ¡°falling back to 2019 levels¡±.