Phil Hoffmann Travel’s Peter Williams on the rise in corporate travel

Improving international trade and a desire to re-engage in face-to-face meetings are fuelling a surge in corporate travel, according to Phil Hoffmann Travel.

Phil Hoffmann Travel chief executive Peter Williams. Picture: Tom Huntley

Improving international trade relationships and a strong desire to re-engage in face-to-face meetings are fuelling a surge in corporate travel, according to Phil Hoffmann Travel (PHT) boss Peter Williams.

The travel agency, which is backed by ASX-listed Helloworld Travel, has offered travel management services to corporates for more than 30 years, with brands including Coopers, Yalumba, Beerenberg and Flinders University among its top tier clients.

And while many expected the adoption of virtual meetings during the pandemic to fill the need for face-to-face meetings with colleagues and customers, Mr Williams said corporate travel had in fact emerged as one of the company’s fastest growing service offerings.

“We probably thought the same as what everyone else was thinking - that Teams and Zoom and virtual meetings may really impact on the corporate market,” he said.

“But our corporate market is up year-on-year - it’s up nearly 22 per cent.

“What we’re seeing is the education sector being really important again for international students, we’re seeing the food and beverage industries in particular, and now that wine is opening up with the tariffs that we had in China being lifted, we’re actually seeing a huge influx of travel back to China, into Hong Kong, and places like that.

“And the same with our food - we’re filling the belly of the plane with fresh seafoods again - and clients can’t just send this stock overseas without having those relationships, so to build those relationships they’re doing it personally and that’s why we’re up 22 per cent.”

Mr Williams said management of incentive travel arrangements - where employers reward their high-performing employees trips paid for by the company - had also emerged as PHT’s fastest growing segment, up 50 per cent last year.

Helloworld paid PHT founder Phil Hoffmann $4.4m in cash and shares for a 40 per cent stake in the company last August, with an additional $800,000 contingent on the company meeting certain earnings targets.

It also has the option of acquiring Mr Hoffmann’s remaining 10 per cent stake, while Mr Williams retains a 50 per cent interest in the company he joined in 1993.

The company is back up to around 180 employees across nine offices in South Australia, from its peak of more than 200 before the pandemic, and with the financial muscle of Helloworld behind it, Mr Williams is looking to fast-track the brand’s expansion into new markets across the country.

Part of that strategy came to fruition last September when PHT partnered with Brisbane’s Clean Cruising and Newcastle’s Hunter Travel Group to establish a new invitation-only Platinum Cruise Club, which curates exclusive cruise and land packages for members and promotes offers from cruise line partners.

“As a minority but very important shareholder in Phil Hoffmann travel, what they’ve (Helloworld) been able to do is give us global buying power,” Mr Williams said.

“Certainly our growth strategy has been brought forward and we’ve got some very exciting plans ... which will allow us to tap into the national audience to a greater capacity, and effectively fish in a bigger pond.”

Mr Williams said PHT’s specialty in luxury and cruise travel was also benefiting from huge demand from cashed up baby boomers looking to spend up on overseas travel while they’re fit and healthy.

“There’s huge pent up demand ... and also the other one is, especially in that baby boomer market, we’re seeing the cruise market in particular just take off - it is at its highest levels ever,” he said.

“And we’re seeing a push into luxury where people are spoiling themselves. A lot of these travellers, the baby boomer market in particular, probably aren’t impacted by the cost of living because they might be mortgage free, and they might be doing better because they’re actually getting better returns from the bank.

“So the push for luxury is huge and the other trend is multi-generational travel, where we’ve got the grandparents, the parents and the kids travelling together.

“One thing that was taken away from us during that pandemic period was our ability to get together, and now I think we’re putting more value on family and friend connections, and travelling in small groups.”