There’s only one direction for business travel costs at the moment: up. That’s according to the Global Business Travel Forecast 2023, which predicts that airfares will rise 48.5 per cent in the remaining months of 2022 and 8.5 per cent next year. Hotel prices are also expected to increase by 18.5 per cent this year and 8.2 per cent in 2023.

However, for companies concerned about the costs associated with travel and lodging, there are ways to reduce business travel expenses without sacrificing comfort or reliability.

Follow these tips from Bonnie Smith, GM Corporate Traveller, to get the best deals on your business travels:

1. Book tickets in advance…

Plan trips at least 15-20 days in advance. While last-minute travel may be necessary, the best deals are still available well ahead of your travel days.

1. …and be flexible

Do you really need to leave on a Monday? Mid-week flights tend to be cheaper. When booking, try to be flexible when it comes to arrival and departure times. This leeway can give you significant savings on flights and hotels.

1. Schedule meetings outside of peak holiday season

You can cut costs without sacrificing quality by being strategic about scheduling your trips. Always try to plan events and sales trips during the off-peak season to avoid expensive peak holiday times.

1. Work with prices, not stars

Remember that a 3-star hotel can cost just as much as a 4-star hotel. Keep a maximum budget in mind and communicate this to your travel management company. They’ll find the best accommodation to suit your needs.

1. Get access to the best deals

If you want to save on travel costs, one of the best things you can do is get access to a better flight inventory. That’s where a travel professional comes in. A TMC provides a streamlined way to book corporate fares by integrating hundreds of travel networks, helping you find the best deals without spending hours researching online.

1. Stay loyal

It is worth committing to a single hotel chain so you can negotiate a lower price and take advantage of additional benefits. A large TMC usually has access to great negotiated rates with major airlines and hoteliers, so check out what they have to offer. From free upgrades to early check-in and complimentary breakfast, TMCs are often able to negotiate quite a bit on your behalf.

1. Be realistic about your daily costs

Budgeting for a business trip can be tricky. There are many incidentals to consider, from meals to Wi-Fi charges to luggage fees. It’s easy to underestimate something that can add up quickly. Ask your travel expert to calculate appropriate per diems for both the destination and the nature of the trip.

Travelling on the rand is no joke, but it’s definitely not impossible, says Smith. “The best way to save money on your business travels is to work with a professional. They have quite a few tricks up their sleeve – not to mention global buying power – to help you cut costs and keep travel affordable.”

About Corporate Traveller Corporate Traveller is a division of the Flight Centre Travel Group, dedicated to saving businesses across Southern Africa time and money. Corporate Traveller has the benefit of being part of the world’s third-largest travel retailer, leveraging its global negotiating strength. It has access to over 50 of the world’s leading airlines and deals with more than 100 000 hotels around the world to guarantee savings for clients. Corporate Traveller provides clear, consolidated reporting of all its clients’ travel activities, helping them to control travel spend and identify opportunities to save costs.

Africa, to many across the globe, has always been seen as one village. When travelling, especially in the west, one can never cover enough ground before being asked about a Thabo, or Imani, or Ibu. It is, supposedly, convenient to imagine that people who could be based in areas a thousand or more kilometers away from each other, are in one gigantic province. That perhaps, has always been the story of Africa- an ode to community. A celebration of a fusion of culture and rich history.  Perhaps Africa should not look further than the notion of the very thing that it is often misleadingly characterised by a strong sense of community. Misleading because we are more than one community, spread across the length and breadth of the second continent in the world.

South Africa, seen by most as Africa’s proverbial captain of industry and a hub of business sophistication, still has a long way to go in realising a community capable of sustaining the country’s economic growth. The staggering unemployment numbers point fingers at a solution many might not have entertained as they ought to have, albeit it being an open secret. Small and Medium Enterprises- nurtured and supported- have an astronomical chance of creating meaningful employment opportunities. The likes of Bathu, with larger-than-life growth figures, have a nation walking around in what was once only but a dream for a township boy who could afford a pair of shoes. It is now commonplace to see a celebration following the opening of a new store every other week.

For Legend Barbershop’s Sheldon Tatchell, the need to make a difference has always been at the heart and soul of the business. “As long as I can make a contribution to one person at a time, that’s my main goal of cutting hair,” he has commented countless times. His commitment is soon to be witnessed through an establishment of a Legends Barbershop Training Centre, which will enable many other stylists to explore the profitable world of grooming.

Hermosa Flor’s enterprising founder and billboard for African beauty, Mbali Sebapu, has branched out her products’ reach through a partnership with We Are Egg, extending product availability through a platform that will only do well to grow the beauty brand.

In a bid to build Africa, global giant Google has thrown its weight behind providing inclusive growth opportunities for all, enabled by internet connectivity, SMME support and funding initiatives. By addressing the pressing matters of funding and simplified stable access to the internet, it hopes to give local merchants a leg up in digitising their businesses, growing both reach and accessibility in a bid to grow and stabilise such enterprises.

This cocktail of bustling entrepreneurial activity and support from enabling arms of society will go a long way towards creating a sustainable and self-sufficient economy worthy of the community it seeks to serve.

During this month (October), Farmsol celebrates its 6th anniversary of being at the forefront of supporting black farmers to become more sustainable commercial producers, which coincided with World Food Day celebrated last week on the 16th of October. The significance of World Food Day lies in the awareness it creates on the global food problem and the strengthening of solidarity in the fight against hunger, malnutrition, and poverty – something at the heart of what Farmsol does.

Over the past six years, FarmSol has paid over R100 million in profits to smallholder and emerging farmers participating in its programs, bringing about significant improvements in poverty alleviation, raising incomes, and improving food security. FarmSol supports thousands of smallholders and emerging farmers by providing them access to the market, innovative funding, extension services and mechanisation solutions.

Farmsol as an implementing partner of SAB (South African Breweries) emerging farmer support programme has provided production loans, access to markets, and mentorship to farmers in all 9 provinces covering about 53 000 hectares of maize, barley, and sunflower crops. These products are taken up by giant companies like South African Breweries and Siqalo Foods, through the Siqalo Grower Empowerment Programme. As a result of the two programs, smallholder farmers have direct access to the supply chains of these two major processing companies – thus having their products in the production of famous beer brands and household food brands such as Rama, Stork Margarine, and Rondo.

Zoleka Lisa, Vice President of Corporate Affairs for SAB, says the company is proud of these achievements and will continue to support local farmers. Lisa says the Farmsol programme forms an integral part of the company’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) strategy which focuses on ensuring climate resilience, effective partnerships for water stewardship, and an inclusive economic recovery through entrepreneurship. “It’s imperative to us to have a sustainable company. Beer is reliant on a thriving agricultural sector and a healthy natural environment. Our operations and products are therefore intricately linked to nature which is why this is so crucial to us,” says Zoleka.

Aron Kole, Farmsol MD says the challenge in transformation is not the farmers, nor the market, but often a way of connecting these two with one another. FarmSol will continue to play this critical role as part of our contribution to alleviating hunger and poverty and building a stronger – better South Africa. “This is of extreme importance in a country with approximately 11% (6.5 million) of its population suffering from hunger and food insecurity and an unemployment rate of 34%,” says Kole.

Through innovative programmes, Farmsol is working towards a vision of achieving efficient and responsible agriculture to provide the country with food that is nutritious and accessible for everyone. “For agriculture to be sustainable, it must meet the needs of current and future generations as well as ensure profitability, environmental health, and social equity. Over time, sustainable agriculture can contribute to all four pillars of food security – availability, access, utilization, and stability,” concludes Kole.

The South African economy- much like the global economy, has entered into a period of persistently high inflation and weaker economic growth. Producer price increases continue to pass-through to wages and consumer prices, placing immense strain on households and businesses likewise .

Furthermore, the South African government is battling a challenging macroeconomic environment, making its ability to raise tax revenue even more challenging as it contends with a fading commodity boom, pressure on other economic sectors, a weak labour market, higher interest rates and ongoing power supply constraints.

As we stagger through the last quarter of the year, more of our attention has shifted towards what the future holds, and the tabling of the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) will begin to show this for the country, through three-year projections for inflation, economic growth, unemployment, and balance of trade. These projections will set the groundwork for the next national budget.

Not in the very least, part of that discussion will lead us to a conversation around revenue performance and the tax outlook of the country. Talks around strong and sustained economic growth, coupled with greater efficiency in revenue collection, and the need to raise the tax-to-GDP ratio over the medium term, are more than likely to form part of that picture.

Part of enabling strong economic growth would be to create enough tax predictability for businesses to invest and plan effectively into the future. Nowhere has this been more of a necessity than in an excise tax adjustment that has had a long-standing history of being above inflation and unpredictable- although the guidelines set out in the excise policy are clear and transparent as to how the adjustment should take place.

Currently the scope of the MTBPS is limited to providing the macroeconomic and fiscal outlook of the country and possible revisions to the expenditure framework. Unlike the national budget, the medium-term budget is not expected to propose major taxes changes or allow for any tax proposals to be tabled. This is a missed opportunity in the legislative framework of the MTBPS, by not allowing for the medium-term outlook to include tax proposals. The fixing of the excise adjustment, in line with (forecasted) inflation in the medium-term budget would solve for its unpredictable nature. The excise adjustment  is in need of a consistent application given its (historical) large variability away from inflation. Nowhere will this certainty be more critical than in a year where cost-push inflation has been difficult for businesses to manage.

On matters related to the efficiencies of tax collection, the excise policy framework falls short of preventing tax leakages by its limited design. In the four-year period  between 2018 to 2021, a review of national government tax collection data suggests that the South African fiscus lost approximately R12 billion  in excise revenue, as a result of the decision to not tax all alcohol categories on an alcohol-content based excise system.

Currently, it is only beer and spirits that are taxed on an alcohol-based system, leaving wine on a per litre system. Not only has National Treasury missed an opportunity to streamline the excise system, but more importantly, they have lost a revenue-raising opportunity by not creating consistency in the way in which excise is levied across alcohol categories.

Enshrined in South Africa’s legislation on the Fiscal Framework and the Money Bills is the opportunity for the public and tax stakeholders in particular to participate in the budget cycle through a well-established consultative process. As the South African Breweries we  continue to prioritise making rigorous inputs into this process with the hope that improvements may happen in the effectiveness and efficiency of the excise tax system.

So, what could be said about a fiscus that has more expenditure commitments than it does revenue? It certainly could do with an additional R12 billion by taxing all alcohol categories on the same alcohol content basis, and could easily create the tax certainty needed by keeping the excise adjustment in line with inflation into the medium-term, to allow for the South Africa economy to benefit from the economic multipliers attached to investments. There indeed seems to be nothing to lose, but more (revenue and investments) to gain, as we look forward to the MTBPS.

New research from Vodafone Group, Vodacom Group, Safaricom, and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) indicates that the successful deployment and adoption of mobile financial services is associated with a positive impact on GDP growth in developing markets as it helps businesses to reduce cost, access credit to invest, and to connect with consumers that were previously excluded from financial services.

The econometric modelling research1 – which examined 49 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America – found that countries with successful mobile money services had an annual GDP per capita growth rate up to 1 percentage point higher than countries where mobile money platforms had not been successful or not introduced.

Based on previous World Bank research on the relationship between economic growth and reductions in the number of people living in poverty2, this GDP per capita growth implies that countries with successful mobile money adoption could reduce poverty by around 2.6%.

The analysis was conducted as part of the companies’ Africa.Connected campaign, an initiative to drive sustainable development through collaboration and help close the divides that prevent progress in Africa’s key economic sectors. The findings are part of a new research paper, Digital Finance Platforms to Empower All, the fourth research paper developed and released under the Africa.Connected umbrella.

Sitoyo Lopokoiyit, CEO of M-Pesa Africa and Chief Financial Services Officer at Safaricom, said:

“Mobile financial services platforms like M-Pesa are vital drivers of financial inclusion in society which can improve individual life chances and enable enterprises to launch and expand, bringing wealth and jobs into developing economies. There remains though barriers both to accessing platforms – including digital literacy and smartphone accessibility – and to developing them – with an un-level regulatory playing field for non-traditional financial services providers in many countries.”

As part of the Africa.Connected research, consumer surveys were conducted focusing on users of M-Pesa in Kenya and Tanzania, and results were extrapolated to Ghana and Mozambique. A business survey was also conducted in Kenya. The resulting research underpinned the continuing importance of the world’s first mobile money service 15 years after it launched in 2007. The researchers estimated that:

• 17.6 million current users in the four countries did not have access to any formal financial services before using M-Pesa;
• 98% of businesses surveyed said that M-Pesa helps them to do business, with the main benefits of M-Pesa being its facilitation of faster and safer payments and enabling the sale of goods and services online; and
• 95% of businesses surveyed indicated that they use M-Pesa for at least half of their business transactions.

Ulrika Modeer, UN Assistant Secretary-General and Director of the Bureau of External Relations and Advocacy at UNDP, said:

“Financial inclusion is both a pre-condition and a key enabler for meeting many of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, including reducing poverty, boosting economic growth, promoting market access and championing investment in key sectors like education, agriculture, and healthcare. But more importantly, it is about putting people at the center, empowering them with more agency over their money and increasing their resilience. Eliminating financial exclusion in Africa, and across the globe, must be a priority if we are to deliver on inclusive, sustainable prosperity for all on a healthy planet.”