Flight Centre has increased its global corporate travel sales by 9 per cent as the group continues to expand.
The Australia-based company, which owns several TMC brands including FCM Travel Solutions and Corporate Traveller, had overall business travel sales of around £4 billion for the financial year ending in June 2017.
Corporate travel now accounts for around one-third of Flight Centre’s overall total transaction value (TTV) of around £12 billion per year across all of its global operations.
The company said it had seen “solid corporate growth globally and in all major geographies”. Flight Centre expanded into eight new business travel markets during the year.
“In corporate travel, Flight Centre has continued to consolidate its position as one of the world's largest and most successful travel management companies,” said the company in its annual financial results.
Despite record-breaking sales, Flight Centre as a company saw pre-tax profit fall by 6 per cent year-on-year to £200 million, mainly due to “record low airfares” during the year.
Managing director Graham Turner said: “In a challenging trading cycle, characterised by record low airfares, we achieved our major sales targets of topping Aus$20billion in TTV for the first time and growing online leisure TTV beyond Aus$1billion.”
Flight Centre’s UK business made a pre-tax profit of £27.6 million, which was up by 9 per cent on the previous year.
The company is predicting that airfares will return to “a more normal environment” during the next financial year with “modest fare decreases or increases, rather than steep discounting across the board”.