Richard Taylor has spent the past few years listening to the travel industry talk about recovery, pressure, people and the stubborn problem of finding the right talent at the right time. Now he is turning those conversations into a business.
Taylor has launched Talent for Travel, a recruitment agency built specifically for the travel industry, after his time at the Australian Travel Industry Association (ATIA) and his work with the Travel Community Hub. The aim, he says, is to bring a more focused and industry-literate approach to recruitment at a time when travel businesses are still rebuilding teams, reshaping roles and trying to hold on to good people.
“To put it simply, I believe the industry needed a recruitment partner who is solely focused on our industry and our people,” Taylor told Karryon.
“Travel companies have very specific needs that must be talked through and understood by someone interested and involved in their world, and individuals searching for roles need a trusted partner who has their career journey at the front of mind.”
A recruitment reset
Taylor says his time at ATIA gave him an unusually broad view of the pressures sitting across the sector.
“I’ve been really fortunate and privileged to have been speaking to people for quite a few years on an entirely unbiased basis,” he said.
“Indeed, a large function of my role at ATIA was to dig deeper in conversations to find out what this industry needed during its continued recovery, whether from a business or personal perspective.”
Those conversations, he says, shaped the thinking behind Talent for Travel.
“All this experience has armed me with several key principles that I think the industry needs into the future,” he said.
“One of those areas to tackle is the recruitment experience – on both sides of the fence. This means a more methodical approach to putting the right people in the right situations.”
The fit factor
Travel recruitment is rarely only about filling a seat. The same candidate can thrive in one business and stall in another, depending on the team, the pace, the pressure and the way the role is actually lived day to day.
That is where Taylor sees the gap.
Talent for Travel is not launching into an industry short on people with opinions about recruitment. The sector has spent years talking about talent shortages, retention, flexibility, pay, progression and the difficulty of bringing new people into travel after the shock of the pandemic years.
Taylor’s view is that the recruitment experience itself needs more care.
The candidate needs someone who understands where they have been, where they want to go and what kind of business will actually suit them. The employer needs someone who understands the difference between a travel background on paper and the person who will work in that particular team, under those particular pressures, with those particular clients.
What travel can offer now
Taylor is not buying the idea that travel has stood still. The industry has its pressure points, but he says the shape of work has changed, and that creates more room for better matches.
“While I think most of us will agree that we work in a complex industry that is carried out in the company of others, which means an office, it’s true that company workplaces are now much more flexible that they were a decade ago. And this is a good thing for everyone.”
For a candidate, flexibility can decide whether travel remains possible at all. A five-day office role may be exactly what one person wants and the thing that pushes another out of the industry. A hybrid structure may keep someone in travel who would otherwise leave. A business with no obvious next step may lose someone who could flourish elsewhere in the sector.
That is the part a job ad rarely captures. A candidate may have the right experience and still be wrong for the room. Or they may look like an unlikely fit on paper, then walk into the right business and stay for years.
A resignation does not always mean travel has failed. Sometimes it means one business has run out of runway for that person, and another business has the room they need. Taylor says that is one area where the industry should give itself more credit.
“For career progression, I think that this is something that travel can rightly be proud of. Most people leaving a role for career progression are only leaving their company because that organisation’s size doesn’t allow for it.
“We have an enviable amount of prominent female leaders, too.”
Selling travel better
The bigger problem, Taylor suggests, is not only what happens once someone applies for a job. It is whether enough people know travel is a serious, varied and viable career in the first place.
“It’s a tough one for individual businesses, and I think that at least part of the answer is more innovation in how we promote the travel industry as a whole,” he said.
“As an example, I know countless people who would be keen to ‘give back’ to the industry and would jump at the chance to talk to young people at schools and colleges. What if we all had talking points that we could use for this, rather than just dropping in and talking about our own careers?”
That is one of the sharper points in Taylor’s argument. Travel is full of people who can explain why they love the industry. Fewer are armed with a clear, shared way to explain why it makes sense as a career.
He also sees a role for younger voices in selling the sector to their own generation.
“We should also be using influencers that reach younger people. Or, better still, creating our own influencers in-house,” he said.
“What if we identified 10-12 younger people working in travel who are skilled at social media and gave them genuine backing to produce brilliant content that explains our industry and why it’s so brilliant to be involved with?”
The benefit, he says, would be shared.
“Every travel business would directly or indirectly benefit from greater public awareness.”
More than the next placement
Taylor is not pretending one recruitment agency can solve the industry’s workforce challenge. But he is betting that a more deliberate approach to recruitment can help travel businesses make better calls, and help candidates make better moves.
“I will state that at least 98% of people reading this are passionate about the industry wellbeing and want to give back,” he said.
“There are so many industry people out there who are keen to ‘give back’, and I’m just one of them. With a bit of organisation we can become a really powerful force, and I’d like to be involved in how that’s created. Watch this space!”
For Taylor, recruitment is the starting point. The bigger ambition is to help the industry think more carefully about who it brings in, how it supports them and how it tells the story of travel as a career worth choosing.
