Agency consortium GlobalStar Travel Management is expanding in Europe, after boosting its presence across North America and Asia.
25.08.2023 - 14:30 / skift.com / Matthew Parsons
The situation on the ground in China isn’t ideal as the country readies to remove its travel restrictions this weekend.
The head of one major corporate travel agency, based in Shanghai, has warned that companies wanting to restart business trips will face delays because employees will struggle to secure the right travel documents.
“China has suspended passport renewals in the past three years, so now travelers are rushing to have their new passports issued,” said Jonathan Kao, managing director, Greater China at BCD Travel.
“Visas are also an issue as most have expired and some of the major embassies, like the U.S., Germany and Japan, were closed in the last few weeks due to increasing cases of Covid in China leading to staffing issues,” he added.
Corporate travel agency CWT also said many embassies were not operating and processing at pre-pandemic levels, causing significant delays with visa applications.
It looks set to hamper travel to and from China, compounded by other countries requiring pre-arrival PCR tests, and company travel managers are wary despite the doors being flung open.
“Some of our buyer members have issued a company-wide travel advisory as of Jan. 5 restricting travel to and from China to business critical only, and with the approval of their company’s China crisis management team,” said Scott Davies, CEO of the UK’s Institute of Travel Management. “Other buyers are continually evaluating the situation and will make adjustments as necessary in conjunction with their business risk and compliance departments.”
However, he said the overall lifting of Covid restrictions for international travel to China, and the fast-changing Covid-19 test regulations for inbound travelers from China to Europe, had not really presented any major challenges for most travel managers as they became used to similar complexities during the pandemic.
Yet while many countries faced severe airline capacity and staffing issues after easing their own border restrictions last year, China is taking a more measured approach with the aviation regulator aiming to gradually reach 75 percent of pre-pandemic traffic in 2023.
“Airlines have been adding new flights in the past few weeks, so this is becoming less of a problem,” BCD Travel’s Kao said. “The prices have actually come down somewhat compared to the month before due to the increase in flights.”
He also pointed to the removal of the country’s “circuit breaker” mechanism, meaning no flights have been forced to be cancelled due to large number of confirmed Covid cases. However, he said average international ticket price continued to be three times more than in 2019.
The prognosis is different at American Express Global Business Travel.
“We expect international
Agency consortium GlobalStar Travel Management is expanding in Europe, after boosting its presence across North America and Asia.
Travel prices across Europe have started to decline, following months of continuous hikes in air fares and hotel rates. However, they’re expected to remain highly volatile for several years as the market undergoes a correction.
China’s Trip.com has struck two new partnerships, covering the UK and Asia Pacific, to give customers the opportunity to delay or spread out payments for their purchases.
If you’d thought Silicon Valley’s TripActions was running out of steam as we head towards the year’s end, after its acquisitions and extensive fundraising, think again.
Despite recession risks and inflation impacts, the travel industry has in fact plenty of significant upsides.
American Airlines is no longer accepting new or renewal contracts for AirPass, its VIP-corporate membership scheme. However, “program functionality” will end by March 31, 2024.
There’s still something vital missing from the global tourism economy, and that’s the presence of Chinese tourists.
When a company as large as Shopify, circa 10,000 employees, declares it is banning meetings that involve more than two people, change is afoot.
Good morning from Skift. It’s Thursday, January 5, and here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.
It was the news everyone was waiting for. Finally the U.S. government set a date, Nov 8. 2021, to reopen its borders.
The recent relaxation of zero-Covid policies in China offered great hope to a corporate travel industry stymied by those rules and one waiting to bring China back into the fold to speed up its recovery. But the ensuing testing requirements being put in place now by countries will be a major setback and dent much-needed confidence, industry associations warn.
A laboratory study has cast doubt on the effectiveness of the UK’s travel restrictions last year.