Who we are
Flight Centre Travel Group (FCTG) is one of the world’s largest travel groups with a vast leisure and corporate travel sales network that extends throughout four major regions: Australia and New Zealand, The Americas (specifically the United States, Canada and Mexico), EMEA (the United Kingdom, South Africa, Ireland, Europe and the United Arab Emirates), and Asia (including India, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Japan).
Purpose
To open up the world for those who want to see.
Irreverence
We take our business seriously but not ourselves. We respect our customers, our partners and each other.
At FCTG we live this value through:
- Continually recognising and celebrating our individual and collective successes
- Acknowledging effort over outcome
- Learning from failures
Egalitarianism
Everyone has the same opportunities, rights and privileges. Self important people don’t fit in. There is no “us and them”.
We live this value through:
- Our simple, lean, flat, and transparent structure (Family, Village, Tribe).
- Our leaders being extremely open and accessible.
- Open-plan offices and stores (you won’t see a fancy mahogany corner office around here).
Vision
To be the world's most exciting and profitable travel retailer, personally delivering amazing experiences to our people, our customers and our partners.
Ownership
We take full responsibility for our business and treat it as our own.
At FCTG we live this value through:
- Outcome-based incentives and profit share
- Our Employee and Leadership Share Plans
- Our Business Ownership Scheme
Our Story
After starting with one shop in the early 1980s, FCTG has enjoyed remarkable ongoing growth under its founder and CEO, Graham “Skroo” Turner. The company now has more than 30 brands, including the flagship Flight Centre leisure travel brand. Key corporate brands include Corporate Traveller and FCM.
In addition, FCTG’s global corporate travel management network, FCM, extends to about 90 other countries through strategic licensing agreements with independent local operators.
Flight Centre Travel Group has been listed on the Australian Securities Exchange since 1995 and currently has a market capitalisation in the order of $AU 4.7 billion.
The company has twice been judged Australia’s best employer, in addition to claiming a number of other employer and travel agency awards in Australia and overseas.
Where We Have Been
We are not an overnight success story. Our success happened over many years of persistence and hard work by a lot of people…many of whom still work with us today after many decades.
A clear set of values and a tried and tested business model are core to the FCTG DNA and have enabled scalable growth, from the original double decker bus in the 70's, to discount airfares in the 80's, through to quadrupling the number of shops and increasing profit from $4.4 M to $43M in the 90's. And then even into the 2000's, a worldwide financial crisis in 2008 could not stop FCTG’s genetic predisposition to continue to grow, with nearly 3000 shops in 14 countries and a cracking $345M in profit by 2016. Fast forward to 2020 and a world-wide pandemic changed the FCTG landscape forever, but we emerged stronger and more resilient than ever before.
The backbone of Flight Centre’s organisational structure is the stone age concept of Family, Village, Tribe. Our structure is simple, lean, flat and transparent, with accessible leaders. Our business model is centred on being one of the world’s best and biggest small business operators. When it was implemented in the mid 1990s, it would become the most significant crossroad for the company’s evolution, providing the framework for Flight Centre to make the transition from small company to big corporation without imploding. It also set the benchmark in corporate excellence and even today, companies look to Flight Centre as a business model for its successful organisational structure.
Where We Are Going
We have big goals and we have a strong track record of meeting them. The success of our leisure model is measured through growth. This includes growth in customer numbers, growth in Total Travel Value (TTV) and growth in market share.
The FCTG strategy has also been to create new specialized brands to allow us to capture and grow key market segments. The FCTG business leisure model despite significant margin and cost pressures has still developed a strong presence in key sectors that include:
- In-destination travel experiences, an area that includes Top Deck, Back-Roads and Discova, our in-destination management joint venture in Asia;
- A travel investment and acceleration hub that allows it to identify and invest in innovative travel-related start-ups;
- Significant growth in the corporate sector;
- Significant growth in the premium travel sector;
- Non-travel businesses; and
- Sustained strong growth in the leisure market.
The next period of growth taking us through to 2025, our goals include an to increase our distribution and supply networks, expand our omni-channel approach and sure up our low cost models. This, coupled with productivity gains in our core consultant model, will see us deliver a global net margin across all our leisure models.
Destination 2035
By 2035, FCTG is driven to become the world’s largest and most successful corporate travel company with operations in more than 50 countries, and 80,000 employees across the globe.
And in the year 2035, the Flight Centre Travel Group will be delivering incredible results across a range of sectors, from travel, bikes, fitness, education, to foreign exchange and finance.
We know where we want to go, and with our strong team of dedicated, driven people, we know we’re going to get there. No other company has had the physical and philosophical capability to copy this strategy.
FCTG will continue to grow to become the world’s most exciting and profitable travel retailer, delivering amazing experiences to all of their people, their partners and their customers. And we will always, have at our core, our purpose – to open up the world for those who want to see.
Our Philosophies
Our Philosophies have been a part of the FCTG DNA since the 80’s. Not only do they shape the way we do business with our customers and our partners, they also shape the working environment for our people. Our philosophies are our beliefs and define us as a company. They are the backbone of our extraordinary culture, supporting our vision, our values and what makes us Flight Centre Travel Group.
Our Values
Our Values are made up of the five philosophies that are our guiding principles around what we hold true as a company.
Our People
Our company is our people. We care for our people’s health and wellbeing, their personal and professional development and their financial security. We believe that work should be challenging and fun for everyone.
Our Customer
Our customers always have a choice and we care about personally delivering amazing travel experiences to them, whatever it takes.
Brightness of Future
Our supportive work community provides an inspiring and challenging careers path for committed people. Promotion and transfers from within will always be our first choice and will give our people the exciting opportunity to move globally across our company.
Taking Responsibility
We take full responsibility for our own successes or failures. We do not externalise. We accept that we have total ownership and responsibility, but not always control.
Egalitarianism and Unity
Everyone has the same opportunities, rights and privileges. Self important people don’t fit in. There is no “us and them”.
Our Business Model
These speak to the way we operate our business. The focuses are core to how our business was built and how we will continue to build our business into the future.
Ownership
We treat the business as our own and have the opportunity to share in our company’s financial success with access to share programs, outcomes based incentives and profit share.
Reward and Recognition
We recognise and celebrate our individual and collective successes with recognition and rewards which are based on measurable outcome based quantitative KPIs. What gets rewarded gets done is our basic principle and we reward outcomes not behaviour.
One Best Way
In each of our businesses there is ‘one best way’ to operate globally. We value common sense over conventional wisdom in running our business. We foster entrepreneurial thinking to continuously find better ways to innovate and improve.
Family, Village, Tribe
Our structure is simple, lean, flat and transparent, with accessible leaders and minimal layers between the customer and the CEO. Everyone belongs to a family (team), which is the most important group at FCTG, who are supported by a ‘self-help’ village, and a tribe.
Profit We Are Proud Of
A fair margin resulting in a business profit we can be proud of is the key measure of whether we really are providing our customers with an amazing experience, amazing product and a caring and respectful service – an experience customer genuinely value.