New polling released this week by Flight Centre Travel Group (FCTG) has revealed more than 80% of respondents are in favour of a vaccine passport as a way to get the country travelling again.
The pent-up demand for a return to face-to-face meetings was the impetus behind the FCTG polling, which drew 1,750 responses across the LinkedIn channels of four of the company’s brands including FCM, Corporate Traveller, Flight Centre Business Travel and Stage and Screen.
Fewer than 10% of those polled were against the idea of introducing a vaccine passport. The polling builds on market research conducted by YouGov earlier this year, which polled both business and leisure travellers across 17 countries and yielded a similar result, with 79% of Australians in favour. In this research, travellers in Indonesia (86) and India (85%) ranked highest in favour of a vaccine passport to be carried by visitors.
“Companies large and small form the backbone of the Australian economy and it’s clear that people overwhelmingly want a form of vaccine passport for business travel to really take off again,” said James Kavanagh, Flight Centre Travel Group Managing Director for Australia.
“We know there is a huge amount of pent-up demand for business travel and the desire to have face-to-face meetings is growing day-by-day. Virtual meetings still have their place and serve a purpose, but nothing beats that human interaction at a corporate and everyday level.
“Travel is critical for companies of all sizes as they look to win and retain new business, and for the retention of their staff. What they crave most is having that certainty to travel if their staff has done the right thing by being vaccinated.”
Kavanagh said the results showed support was higher for a vaccine passport to enable international travel, with little to no support for its use across domestic travel.
“You just have to look at other nations across the globe to see how business travel volumes come storming back when you are either vaccinated of have a form of vaccination passport,” he added.