In 2010, employees of German companies have taken significantly more business trips to South Africa than they took last year. In the first half of the year, flights taken by German businesspeople to the country hosting the Soccer World Cup were up by 23 percent. Thus, the number of business travelers to South Africa almost reached the level of the record year 2008. The most frequented destination was Johannesburg where 62 percent of all German business travelers flew, followed by Cape Town with 24 percent.

Demonstrable increases were also recorded for expenses made in South Africa. In the first six months, German business travelers spent approximately 47 percent more than in the same period last year. The surge in expenses was particularly high for rental cars (plus 84 percent), followed by hotels (plus 27 percent) and food (plus 12 percent). Compared with the pre-crisis year 2008, current figures are still 18 percent higher. These are the results of the latest AirPlus Business Travel Index, gathered from the latest business-travel figures by AirPlus, the leading international provider of solutions for business-travel management.

A remarkable change was recorded for the year 2010 in terms of travel-booking times: the closer the bookings were to the beginning of the Soccer World Cup, the more trips were booked on short notice. Travelers who booked their flights to South Africa in January took the flights 32 days later on average. In June 2010, there were only 23 days between the bookings and the actual flights.

Moreover, the most recent AirPlus International Travel Management Study 2010 shows that the increase in business flights is not in one direction only: 49 percent of South African travel managers anticipate growth in business flights for the next twelve months. This estimate was the most optimistic among the travel managers of 20 business-travel markets surveyed.

The AirPlus Business Travel Index is based on the evaluation of more than 100 million business-travel bookings per year made by more than 33,000 companies worldwide.