Julia Lo Bue-Said is chief executive officer of the Advantage Travel Partnership, a consortium of independent business and leisure travel agencies.
While the travel industry is starting to recover from the devastating disruption of the past two years, one legacy that no lifting of restrictions can quickly fix is the dire labour shortage across all sectors of the industry, including business travel.
It is impacting the entire supply chain from travel management companies and hotels, to airports, airlines and ground transportation. The issue isn’t just confined to the UK either – it’s a global problem. Unfortunately, there's no quick fix. Investing in our people and attracting new talent isn’t just about pay awards.
While the desire to catch up on business travel is delivering strong recovery, the sudden demand for international travel is contributing to disruption across the ecosystem. As well as the impact of the war in the Ukraine, staff shortages are slowing down airport operations – leading in some instances to cancellations and flight delays – as well as leaving hotel rooms left unserviced and phones unanswered, with a knock-on effect across the entire supply chain.
Last month in a bid to manage the impact of disruptions to its customers, easyJet announced it was stripping out seats to meet crew ratios. In addition, it was having to cancel in advance a small proportion of its Gatwick flights to improve reliability of its services due to a range of issues that continue to have an ongoing impact. For example, air traffic control restrictions, runway works and airport handling delays, which in some cases can contribute to pushing crew outside of their maximum working hours.
With travel budgets hit hard, finding alternative flights and keeping within policy restrictions could make a trip too expensive for business travellers, disrupt planned meetings and, for the TMC, further increase their costs due to the number of human touchpoints required when a flight change is required.
It's not difficult to work out how we find ourselves in this situation. The two-year global shutdown of international travel forced many experienced staff to leave the industry, including an estimated 200,000 redundancies.
Experienced long-standing staff, after maybe a year of virtually no business, decided enough was enough and retired, changed professions or accepted redundancy packages. The travel industry leads in employing a high percentage of women and for those caring for enforced stay-at-home children the challenges of the pandemic led to a mass exodus.
Our experienced workforce sought employment elsewhere and, now that
travel has resumed, many appear to have no desire to re-join the sector,
which may still be perceived to carry too much uncertainty to deal
with.
Recruitment in the travel industry was more or less halted for two years
while training and promotions, along with pay awards, were put on hold.
And of course we lost many of our valued European colleagues due to
Brexit and work visa issues.
Restaffing the industry
The younger generation might not yet have the experience or skills to make the step up, and are school leavers really going to consider a career in travel at this moment in time with so much negative press coverage? Do they even know what career paths are available within the outbound travel sector of which business travel plays a significant role?
Financial incentives, higher salaries and flexi-working might help recruit. Again, looking at easyJet in its battle to recruit, the airline is exploring innovative incentives including the dangling of a £1,000 bonus to be paid at the end of the summer season to new and existing cabin crew.
So, what is the solution? Investing in technology could be one part of the answer, including enabling traditionally office-based TMC consultants to flexiwork or even adopting AI to help ease the phone lines.
But the real answer has to revolve around elevating the industry in a positive light and showcasing what it has to offer, investing in people to attract the next generation of travel consultants, and luring back staff who moved on during the pandemic.
We also need to attract a new wave of talent – school, college and university leavers – and work harder to showcase the types of careers available and the progression and opportunities that this brings both personally and professionally.
I’d go as far as to say I’d like to call on the government to help the industry address its current staffing crisis through investment in graduate programmes and apprenticeships in the sector as well as helping to build the overall profile and positive image for the sector.
The BTA and ITT Future You are already active in this area, visiting universities around the country promoting the industry as a career choice, for tomorrow’s talent.
But it’s not just about the younger generation. For some of our experienced people who may have retired early or left the industry, the novelty might be wearing off. Could they be encouraged to return with attractive part-time contracts and more fluid working conditions, to help us rebuild?
As we rebuild our businesses, successful travel leaders will realise that to get over this hurdle, it’s our people we must invest in, with training, promotion opportunities, flexibility and enhanced benefits.
This is a real draw for many in a talent pool of choices. If we keep on doing the same, and not learning from the past two years, we are going to continue getting the same results.
As we know, travel is a very special industry, but those outside of it don't necessarily appreciate that. With high employment rates and a shortage of talent right now, it's imperative we showcase the value – and joy – of our sector if we are to rebuild an improved ecosystem.
We must learn to think creatively and do things differently. We must positively engage with government so they understand the economic and social contribution that business travel within the outbound travel industry can achieve.
To have a career within an exciting industry that literally changes lives is incredible. We’ve seen the devastating impact that global travel restrictions have on people, communities and businesses. Investing in future talent and retaining a skilled workforce is imperative for today. The opportunity to travel abroad, broaden our horizons, establish new relationships and have a bit of fun along the way makes it an industry worth pursuing.