Plans to retire are on the rise for travel agents, but leisure travel has the highest incidence of new travel agents entering the industry, according to the 2016 survey from Hot Travel Jobs.
According to the report 7.2 percent of leisure travel agents had one to five years of experience in 2016, as compared to 1.6 percent of corporate travel agents. That trend continued in more experienced agents interviewed in the study:
| Years in the Travel Industry | Corporate | Leisure |
| 6 - 10 | 2.01% | 9.9% |
| 11 - 16 | 6.45% | 11.7% |
| 17+ | 89.9% | 71.17% |
At the same time, the vast majority of travel agents in the survey had over 17 years of experience: 89.9 percent for corporate travel and 71.7 percent for leisure travel.
The report also showed that plans to retire had increased for both corporate and leisure travel agents from 2015 to 2016. While 89 percent of respondents had answered that they had no plans to retire or leave the travel industry in 2015, that number decreased by 19 percent to 69 percent in the 2016 survey. In 2015, 7 percent of respondents said they planned to retire in three to five years; 3 percent in one to three years; and two percent in one year. By contrast, in 2016 20 percent said they planned to retire in six to 10 years; 10 percent said they planned to retire in two to five years; and two percent said they planned to retire in one year.
The 2016 survey interviewed over 700 travel professionals in all sectors of the travel industry.
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