TMCs and business travel suppliers are concerned about the difficulty of hiring qualified people when they start to ramp up recruitment for the travel restart.
According to a GBTA poll, the majority of supplier and travel management respondents (62%) expect staffing at their company to increase moderately or significantly in the next six months.
But of those, 48% are concerned it will be difficult to find qualified candidates as many have left the travel industry and 54% feel it will be difficult to hire qualified candidates due to competition with other companies who are also re-staffing.
The global poll, carried out on May 10-15 with 529 responses, found 77% of suppliers and travel management respondents say their staff size is ‘much less’ or ‘less’ today compared to before the pandemic.
Only 6% say their staff size is larger today and 15% say their company is the same size today.
Just under half of supplier and travel management employee respondents agree their company will likely face difficulties hiring staff due to a shortage of qualified candidates or due to a hesitancy among perspective employees to work in the travel industry.
Other anticipated obstacles of note include candidates wanting to work remotely (35%) or vaccination verification (15%).
One in four (27%) expect staffing to remain the same, while only 8% expect staffing to decrease.
