After increasing its market share by 10% in the 2021 fiscal year, Flight Centre South Africa has reported that it is building on this with “fun and savvy” new branding and a growing ITC workforce to complement its remaining high-street store network. The group’s confidence has been cemented by an uptick in bookings for its Corporate Traveller brand and better premium, e-commerce and luxury demand worldwide.
In South Africa, Sue Garrett, GM Supply, Pricing and Marketing, said: “We have introduced ‘Phil’ as our captain for Flight Centre in South Africa. This was a bold and historic change as the business shifted away from a single synonymous ‘Captain’ globally to allow for local market representation. Our aim is to re-invent what could be perceived as a ‘tired’ brand to one that is more fun and savvy.”
Flight Centre will showcase its brand ‘experts’, or ‘co-captains’, as the real heroes of the brand and product offerings, according to Garrett. “Over the past year, we used the downtime wisely to push the reset button by investing in technology platforms allowing for productivity gains across our online and offline offering.”
Flight Centre’s ITC network in South Africa has grown to 169 branded and unbranded members, 141 of whom are currently trading.
Group FY21 snapshot
Flight Centre Travel Group Limited (FLT) said its recovery was gaining momentum and had its eye on a return to profitability.
The entire group recorded a ‘COVID-period’ record month in June 2021. Total transaction value was expected to be 40% of pre-COVID levels by year-end. Trading conditions had generally improved in the 2021 fiscal year, the group said. It is investing to win market share and gain further competitive advantages. FLT is targeting a return to monthly profitability in both its corporate and leisure business during the 2022 fiscal year.
The group posted a loss of AUD507,1 million (R5,69bn) before tax for FY21. Losses for the leisure division were in the region of AUD353 million (R3,96bn) according to a results summary, attributed to challenging market conditions and heavy restrictions that applied to discretionary travel throughout the year.
Signs of recovery
“Changing customer needs post-COVID will lead to increased demand for travel management companies’ services and away from unmanaged and supplier-direct bookings,” the company said.
The group also anticipated more corporate business in the Americas and EMEA regions in FY22, and said customer activity had escalated in July. Bookings in the Corporate Traveller brand (for SME/start-ups) in the US and South Africa, and those in the FCM brand (for larger enterprises) in South Africa, the UAE and Mexico, had shone.
FLT is expecting more leisure sales through new and emerging channels, but said its smaller shop network was still highly accessible. There are now around 1 400 ITCs across New Zealand, Australia, Canada and South Africa, with about half currently trading.
CEO, Graham Turner, concluded that, as an organisation, the group had “learned a lot during the past 18 months, particularly about being resilient, consistent and as optimistic as possible during tough times… but with significantly reduced ongoing operating costs”.
He said: “Travel will inevitably be more complex in the post-COVID world and customers will require more assistance as they navigate new requirements and try to understand any restrictions that may still apply. In this type of environment, our people’s knowledge and our enhanced systems will prove invaluable at every step of the customer journey.”
