Travel & Tourism

20-January-2010

As brighter skies loom into view for Britain’s travel sector, travel firms are busy filling both permanent and temporary posts. But while jobseeker numbers swell, the war for talent rages on with quality candidates remaining in short supply.

“The last quarter of last year showed a significant improvement in confidence,” says Julia Feuell, managing director at New Frontiers. “Up until Christmas week, companies were registering vacancies and making placements, wanting temps between Christmas and new year.”

As travel firms emerge from the recession and candidates regain confidence in the jobs market, firms have had to replace depleted staffing levels, causing them to concentrate on critical hires, says Feuell.

She adds that temporary staff are now in demand. “We have contracts for HR, PR, reservations, admin and contracts. Temp recruitment was dead until halfway through last year. It really is motoring along now.”

And with such an emphasis on critical hires, Gail Kenny, managing director at Gail Kenny Recruitment, told Recruiter that time-to-hire is being cut down as firms seek to bring start dates forward so they can get new talent and resources in to their business as soon as possible.

However, resourcing professionals remain under pressure to cut cost-per-hire, says Sue Chatfield, head of resourcing & HR services, TUI UK & Ireland.
“At TUI UK & Ireland, we are still recruiting for customer-facing roles such as overseas staff, retail and call centre staff. We are lowering our costs-per-hire by building the strength of our brand as a recruiter and directing applicants straight to our website rather than using agencies, although their specialist skills are still required to recruit some roles.”

Ferry operator P&O favours a combined approach of looking to its own employees and agency use. A spokesperson told Recruiter: “We have several thousand employees so can fulfil most of our core needs by engaging our own colleagues to flag up opportunities as they arise. Agencies clearly have a role in helping with the flexibility often required due to seasonal fluctuations in the travel sector.”

But finding entry levels with the necessary numeracy and literacy skills can be difficult, the spokesperson says, adding that often communication, numeracy and literacy skills are too weak to consider some candidates for employment.

It’s not just numeracy and literacy skills that are lacking, says Ulrike Geissler, HR manager at travel information online resource Travelzoo. “We see candidates from Continental Europe and Asia who speak at least two languages. The government could do a better job in language development - not just French and German, but Chinese and Japanese.”

Chatfield adds that the government should concentrate on training for outbound travel professionals.

“At the moment the government is concentrating their investment on inbound travel to the UK rather then outbound travel. This means there is less funding for qualifications in our sector, and less motivation to create better academic training programmes affecting the quality of candidates.”

And while a return to pre-recession recruitment levels seem some way off, Angus Chisholm, managing director at C&M Recruitment, is cautiously optimistic on fortunes in 2010. “We certainly have more vacancies than this time last year. I don’t think we will get back to pre-recession levels this year but I think there will be ample opportunity to do well.”

Stakeholder comment:
Julia Feuell, managing director, New Frontiers

“We are now on the climb back up. Business is way up on last year. Confidence is improving and vacancies are no longer on hold. People are not in redundancy consultation periods. All of the bad stuff that was happening has reversed but it has not reversed to the point we were at before the recession.”

Alex Merrylees, head of HR resourcing, learning and development at Virgin Atlantic
‘The market is far too crowded. A good agency really understands your business and the nuances, and how this affects what you look for when hiring people. A good agency also has competitive pricing and delivers great service to the candidate and really cares about them — not just blindly cold-calling firms.”

Gail Kenny, managing director, Gail Kenny Recruitment

“The travel recruitment market is saturated with agencies operating at the lower level. We would have thought with the recession some would have fallen by the way side. However, all managed to survive so I see perhaps some consolidation in that market. Executive travel recruitment is the most positive it has looked for the past three years.”