Hiring finally pays a visit to travel industry

India’s travel and tourism industry is seeing a revival of hiring by some firms after millions of job losses and huge revenue erosion over the past 15 months amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Following a pickup in leisure as well as business travel in the past six to eight weeks, travel platforms such as Makemytrip, Cleartrip, EaseMyTrip and ixigo are recruiting talent across functions, said industry executives.

The development comes in the wake of a sharper demand recovery after the second wave of the pandemic than after the first wave, as a result of the vaccination drive and the fact that travellers today are more used to the new ways of travelling. Travel trends such as staycations and workations, coupled with massive pent-up demand and revenge travel in the luxury segment, are also driving the need for more talent.

“We are aggressively acquiring talent at all levels for technology, product, design and revenue management,” said a MakeMyTrip spokesperson. “We continue to hire for growth areas and new business segments that were introduced during the pandemic such as myPartner platform for travel agents, myBiz solution for corporate travel, etc.”

The company has 200 open positions and more are in the pipeline.

Business recovery across segments including flights, hotels, cabs, trains and holidays since June is fuelling hiring. “Domestic travel continues to drive recovery. However, as international travel opens up to new countries, we are expecting business recovery in this segment too… we are looking at hiring across multiple domains,” said the MakeMyTrip spokesperson.

Cleartrip is looking at hiring “aggressively”. "This is predominantly for building capabilities in the engineering and product space. We also have key hires in marketing and business," the company said.

ixigo, which acquired train booking platform Confirmtkt and bus ticketing platform AbhiBus, is hiring across product, technology, and customer experience roles. “We are continuously adding roles in line with our evolving business plans,” said Nupur Jain, vice president, human resources. The company has recently made some key leadership hires, including chief financial officer Ravi Gupta.

EaseMyTrip, which employs 390 people, is planning to increase its staff strength by 50% in the next one year, said people aware of the matter.

EaseMyTrip declined to comment.

Industry insiders said while many positions that have opened up due to the pickup in travel will recruit fresh hires, companies are also looking at reinstating some of the people who lost their jobs.

Job portals and staffing companies too are witnessing a hiring resurgence. TeamLease Services saw 15% increase in mandates in July while Naukri.com reported 36% month-on-month growth in hiring in hospitality and travel.

“The industry has started to show momentum from July as some people have resumed travelling… we are seeing a very modest demand,” said Rituparna Chakraborty, executive vice president, TeamLease Services.

However, whether the momentum strengthens in the months ahead will depend on any further Covid-19 waves. The hiring numbers will not be big unless there are signs of things opening up further.

In the hospitality sector, hiring is still mostly need-based, though a revival in leisure travel led to a month-on-month increase in occupancies towards the end of the first quarter, showed a report by HVS Anarock.

“Hotel workforce is getting leaner… Whatever hiring is happening is at a niche level to replace the exits of key professionals,” said a hotelier, who did not wish to be identified.

Industry experts said though the number of jobs regained will not immediately be anywhere close to the jobs lost in the past one year, the fact that there is some resurgence in hiring is a positive sign.

“These industries may be preparing for more opening up in the future,” Madan Sabnavis, chief economist at Care Ratings, told ET recently. “This may be based on the assumption that even if there is a third wave, we won’t see major clampdowns on economic activities and things may not be that bad.”