We reveal the best days to travel over Christmas –  and top holiday hacks for 2025

For corporates seeking to maximise opportunities for ‘bleisure’ trips next year, there are a slew of Monday public holidays throughout the year that offer opportunities to extend business trips into mini getaways. 

While Sydney is generally Australia’s busiest airport for corporate travellers, advance bookings already show Brisbane overtaking Sydney this Christmas among this traveller segment.

Over the two-week Christmas and January holiday period, we found that the busiest day for business travellers in 2023-24 was Friday 15 December. This holiday period (2024-25), it’s looking to be Friday 13 and Friday 20 December.

Conversely, the quietest days for travel during the two-week period last year (13 December 2023–8 January 2024) were 28-30 December and 3-5 and 8 January. This year, Corporate Traveller expects those dates to be 26-28 December, and 2-4 January.  This Christmas, the most popular international destinations among businesses holidaying are looking to be (in order of ranking): Japan, Canada, Thailand, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, United Kingdom, Vanuatu.

Who wins and loses across the states and territories?

By crunching the numbers, we found that Australian employees can more than double their annual leave next year. There are between 8-10 national public holidays in Australia each year, with some states and territories boasting an extra one or two public holidays.

By strategically booking holidays around key public holidays, employees in certain Australian states can come out on top when it comes to maximising their annual leave between this Christmas and next Christmas. Workers in Victoria lead the states: they can turn 21 days of leave into an impressive 57 days off by strategically booking around public holidays. In the ACT, employees can enjoy up to 56 days of total leave, while workers in Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania, and the Northern Territory can stretch their 20 days of annual leave to 53 days.

Meanwhile, NSW drops to the end of the list: employees can strategically transform their 20 days of leave into 50 days off — fewer than their counterparts in most other states.

While Sydney is generally Australia’s busiest airport for corporate travellers, advance bookings already show Brisbane overtaking Sydney this Christmas among this traveller segment.

More opportunities to leverage national public holidays in 2025 than this year

Savvy employees can ease into 2025 with a 16-day break this Christmas (between 21 December and 6 January 2025) by combining seven days of annual leave with the 25 December, 26 December and 1 January public holidays. And by choosing to fly on either Christmas Eve, Christmas Day or New Year’s Day, employees can avoid the busiest projected flight days, according to our historic booking data.

Beyond January, April is the next prime time workers can nab a long break with strategically booked leave. That’s thanks to three days of Easter and ANZAC public holidays just four days apart.

Employees can more than double their leave by taking just seven days of annual leave on 14-17 and 22-24 April, for a 16-day break spanning Saturday 12 to Sunday 27 April.

Tom Walley, our Australia-based Global Managing Director, says that 2025 offers better holiday opportunities than 2024, based on where the public holidays fall. He emphasises that with thoughtful planning, these holidays can provide substantial benefits for travellers and businesses alike.

Tom says: “Next year’s alignment of public holidays is a win-win for employees and businesses. Our analysis shows that by strategically leveraging these days in conjunction with annual leave, employees can spend up to 50 days away from the office or site, without businesses feeling that they’ve lost their employees in the workplace for that length of time. 
“Given Australia is the global leader in bleisure travel, the placement of public holidays in 2025 can also help businesses to encourage this practice, enabling Australians to tack leisure breaks onto their work trips, and ultimately planning for international trips more effectively.

“Additionally, the rise in direct flights to key destinations like New Zealand, Bali, and Japan enhances travel accessibility.”

Discover how to leverage national public holidays to extend your annual leave using our holiday planning hacks:

Our hacks on how to maximise State- and Territory-specific public holidays

Some states and territories have additional opportunities to take extended holidays – which is good news for employees who have accumulated more than four weeks of annual leave.

Employees in Brisbane, Western Australia, Tasmania, South Australia and the Northern Territory are gifted one more public holiday than NSW employees, while ACT and Victorian workers enjoy an additional two days’ public holidays – enabling them to maximise their total holiday days to 56 and 57, respectively.

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.