Higher interest rates may be making big-ticket holidays less affordable for Australian families, but overall leisure travel is continuing to perform well, a leading travel business says.
Flight Centre Travel Group chief executive and founder Graham “Skroo” Turner told the company’s annual general meeting on Wednesday that independent retirees and those that were mortgage-free were prioritising travel, particularly to the UK and USA.
“Travel is resilient,” Mr Turner said.
Value destinations such as Vietnam and Bali were also seeing solid growth and the group’s new points program, World360 Rewards, seems to be working.
Cruise sales are also growing strongly as Flight Centre focuses on what Mr Turner described as a highly attractive sector.
The company’s cruise division, My Cruises, has chartered a small luxury cruise ship that set sail from Rome in September on a 12-month cruise.
“I think they’re in Norway at the moment,” Mr Turner told the meeting.
About 85 per cent of the cruise’s year one itineraries are now sold, along with 35 per cent of year two.
Flight Centre Group booked $12.6 billion in leisure travel in 2025/26, up 7.4 per cent from a year ago.
This financial year the company is on track to eclipse its 2018/19 milestone of $13.1 billion in leisure travel bookings.
But the group’s first-half profit from corporate travel is tracking below its strong result from 2025/26, Mr Turner said.
The company was set to narrowly receive a “first strike” on executive pay after proxy advisor ISS recommended a vote against its remuneration report.
Chairman Gary Smith said that concerns about the report seemed to relate not to the level of compensation but rather how incentive payments were structured.
“We have listened,” he said. “We’ll take the feedback on board, and we’ll report back on how we have responded in next year’s remuneration report.”
Flight Centre shares were changing hands early Wednesday afternoon at $12.54, down 0.4 per cent from Tuesday and down 16.4 per cent for the year.
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