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| Photo by Freeimages.com/Carlos Chavez |
Hot Travel Jobs is predicting a strong job market for travel agents in 2016. According to a recent analysis on its blog, Hot Travel Jobs said that a tighter supply of qualified travel agents means more opportunity for agents to change jobs and demand higher salaries.
Hot Travel Jobs surveyed 477 travel agents and found that more than 80 percent of respondents had spent eight or more years in the travel industry, with most (59.6%) being with their current employer for more than five years. Also notable: 48.6 percent of respondents said they would be "willing" to leave their current position if an opportunity arose, with 23.7 percent and 10.3 percent saying they would leave if they pay and benefits, respectively, were better.
“That blew me away,” said Hot Travel Jobs Owner Douglas Walsh. “It just shows people are jumping around for better pay and what’s happened, we feel, is the pay is starting to come up the ladder a bit.”
Walsh also said that demand for qualified travel agents is still high. “There’s a large demand and not a lot of supply,” Walsh said. “We’ve gone from business basically stopping post-9/11 to now it’s starting to boom again.”