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Have spending habits on the African continent changed? Does cash remain ‘king’? Regardless of your opinion, few will deny that the continent’s business travel industry has evolved, and with that has come a host of developments in the foreign exchange card space, all of which have made travel payments and the resulting reconciliation process a lot more seamless.

The second annual Business Traveller Africa Awards ceremony was held at the Maslow in Sandton, with the Sun International property playing host to a successful South African travel trade industry event, where relationships were strengthened and the country’s national carrier walked away with a bucket-load of awards.

Lagos, Nigeria

Birchwood Hotel & OR Tambo Conference has already built a reputation as one of South Africa’s biggest and most comprehensive meeting and conferencing facilities, with a host of different options, over 660 accommodation rooms, a quality food and beverage offering, convenient location and complementary leisure facilities to round off the package. Now it’s brought to market a new corporate travel offering – Silverbirch @ Birchwood – with a related package geared towards efficient and enjoyable business travel.

The entire planet spins a little faster now, and travel management companies have had to keep up, smoothing the way for their clients’ businesses to keep spinning along with the pace of the globe. This is the view of Lola Adefope, General Manager at HRG Nigeria, who took the time to answer Business Traveller Africa’s questions.

It might be a small, landlocked monarchy, but Swaziland has a lot of appeal. From its peaceful, friendly softly-spoken people to its many conference venues and wide array of leisure activities, this little country has more to it than some may think. Kate Kennedy spent five days discovering what Swaziland has to offer.

There is so much tourists can learn, and should know, about Africa before they leave home. Afro Tourism is an information hub and content provider based in Lagos, helping travellers uncover facts about the continent’s people, cultures, festivals and events and unravelling ‘off the beaten path’ attractions. Kelechi Ordu, Lead Marketing Representative at Afro Tourism, took some time to explain what the company is all about.

Travelport is a distribution services and e-commerce provider to the global travel industry. The company operates a global distribution system (GDS) business, its Airline IT Solutions business, and a joint venture ownership of eNett. The GDS business provides aggregation, search and transaction processing services to travel providers and agencies, allowing travel agencies to search, compare, process and book itinerary and pricing options across multiple travel providers. Former ASATA CEO Robyn Christie heads up the company’s South African office.

Sierra Leone has been officially declared Ebola free, with no new cases reported for 42 days at the time of printing. Indeed a cause for celebration, and the famous Cotton Tree in the centre of Freetown was the scene of all-night rejoicing at the beginning of November.

Travellers are getting bigger, but Economy class cabins are becoming tighter. Alex McWhirter of Business Traveller UK reports on the decline in standards at the back of the aircraft.