Top international business flight destinations for Q1 2023

The data reveals some surprising shifts in business travel behaviours and business activity in countries and cities across the world.

Ranked by booking volumes, Corporate Traveller compared the data from the first quarter (Q1) in 2023 with bookings in the same quarter of 2022.

Top business countries revealed by Corporate Traveller booking data: 

The USA came out on top as the top business destination country, in both 2023 and 2022. Last quarter, it saw a 54 per cent increase in bookings on 2022 Q1 bookings. Singapore ranked second and the UK ranked third, with a 69 per cent increase in bookings. Out of the three destinations, Singapore has seen the biggest growth percentage, with a 108 per cent increase in business travel bookings.

Singapore is Australia’s largest two-way trading partner and investor in Southeast Asia and is Australia’s fifth largest trading partner in goods and services ($46.8 billion in 2021-22)^[1], which helps to explains why Australian SMEs are so keen to visit.

Tom Walley, Corporate Traveller’s Australian-based Global Managing Director, explains Singapore’s jump to second place in 2023: “This growth in business travel is testament to the business opportunities Singapore offers to Australian businesses, and is something that we hope will continue to flourish as more SMEs recognise the value of visiting Singaporean business partners, stakeholders and investors in person.”

Two new country destinations also have appeared in the top five for Q1 2023, Papua New Guinea and China. Papua New Guinea has received enormous booking growth for business travel, at a 229 per cent increase on last year. This is partially explained by the official opening of the nation’s borders in July 2022. China has seen similar growth (after three years of COVID-19 disruptions, the country reopened its borders in January this year), which has leapt up the table to fifth placement for business travel bookings.
 

Top business cities revealed by Corporate Traveller booking data:

Topping the list of the top five cities for business travel across Q1 2023 is Singapore, overtaking last year’s top spot, London. Honiara, Kuala Lumpur, and Port Moresby are the new additions to the top five business cities for the quarter. Large mining projects are in the Solomon Islands, which may contribute to the growth of business travellers heading to its capital city, Honiara. The same goes for those heading to Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea.

In Kuala Lumpur, the growth of Australian businesses travelling to the city could be attributed to the country’s positive trade relationship (the Malaysia-Australia Free Trade Agreement has now been in effect for 10 years) and the growth of its e-Commerce landscape (supported by the Malaysian Government’s National E-commerce Strategic Roadmap [2]), which Australian businesses can tap into.  

Tom says: “Australia’s continued growth in trade and business development in South-East Asian and Melanesian countries is demonstrated by the rise in bookings to these cities. This also proves how beneficial in-person meetings are to developing international business relations.”

_{[1] Singapore country brief | Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (dfat.gov.au)}

_{[2] Market profile – Malaysia – For Australian exporters - Austrade}

About Flight Centre Travel Group

The Flight Centre Travel Group is one of the world’s largest travel retailers and corporate travel managers. The company, which is headquartered in Brisbane, Australia, has company-owned leisure and corporate travel business in dozens of countries, spanning Australia, New Zealand, the Americas, Europe, the United Kingdom, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, and Asia. ASX listed Flight Centre Travel Group (FLT) also operates the global FCM corporate travel management network, which extends to more than 100 countries through company-owned businesses and independent licensees, along with Corporate Traveller, the flagship business specific to the small-to-medium-sized enterprise sector. For more information, visit fctgl.com.