Less than half of Australia’s travel agencies plan to take on any new staff in 2018, according to a new snapshot of the industry, which also shows that older people predominate in agencies.
Almost a quarter (24%) of Australian travel agency staff are older than 57, while only 17% are aged under 31.
Well over half (54%) of people employed in travel agencies are aged over 46. The median age of the Australian population (the age at which half the population is older and half is younger) is 37.
The snapshot, newly released by the Australian Federation of Travel Agents (AFTA) reveals that only 43% of travel agencies plan to look for new staff this year. Of those agencies, 88% will seek frontline travel consultants, 12% will seek business development or sales staff and 11% will seek administrative staff.
The snapshot says 58% of employees are full-time and the rest are part-time.
Australian travel agencies employ 32,590 people on an FTE (full-time equivalent) basis, almost three quarters of them being female. This workforce includes 21,404 travel consultants.
The snapshot indicates 72% of employees are male and the remaining 28% are male. The gender ‘X’ (indeterminate, intersex or unspecified) is now recognised on the Australian passport but nobody in the travel industry surveyed came into that category, apparently.
New South Wales enjoys overwhelming dominance as a travel industry base, employing 13,024 people, compared to the nearest contender, Victoria, which employed 7526 people.
Another finding: travel agencies say the most important attributes for their frontline staff are:
- Team player
- Destination knowledge
- Willingness to learn
- Travel qualification (preferred cert III)
The information is available on the Travel Trends section of the AFTA website. AFTA says its insight factsheets provide “important information about AFTA, ATAS members and the industry at large”.
On the age side, Australian travel agents seem younger on average than their US counterparts, with a recent American report showing that 51% of US travel agents surveyed were 55 years of age or older. That’s an astonishing demographic. (See: Are travel agents approaching their use-by date?)
Written by Peter Needham
.jpg){kind=tracking}
At 59, and with over 40yrs in the industry, I certainly qualify as part of this older brigade, but why is it on the occasions I attend an industry function they always seem to be full of 20-somethings from Flight Centre and Helloworld? Maybe its because we oldies actually know what we’re doing and don’t need free drinks and gimmicks to learn our job.
At 59, and with over 40yrs in the industry, I certainly qualify as part of this older brigade, but why is it on the occasions I attend an industry function they always seem to be full of 20-somethings from Flight Centre and Helloworld? Maybe its because we oldies actually know what we’re doing and don’t need free drinks and gimmicks to learn our job.