Are Travel Tech Companies Safe From Layoffs? These Execs Are Optimistic — For Now

25.08.2023 - 14:39 / skift.com / Justin Dawes

Big Tech companies are laying off tens of thousands of people. 

Most recently Meta announced this week that it is cutting about 11,000 people. And Twitter, of course, has had its own reports. There have been other layoffs by Salesforce, Stripe, Lyft, Coinbase, Shopify and more. 

So, is travel tech next? 

Maybe. But there are no signs yet. Booking.com, for example, reported $6.1 billion in revenue last quarter — its best quarter ever. And the CEO said demand is not slowing down. 

Even so, executives are keeping an eye out, though some have said they’re not too worried — at least not yet. 

That’s also what Ian Brooks is seeing as co-founder of travel tech recruitment firm Gail Kenny. The firm has hired more than 1,000 mid- to senior-level tech employees over the last 15 years, focused mostly in the European market, he said. 

“Yes, there’s a degree of caution,” Brooks said. “But at the same time, I think a lot of travel companies cut back so much during the pandemic … They’ve seen how difficult it has been to rehire people, so they’re not rushing into cutting back again. Not yet.”

The early months of the year are typically a busy time for bookings, so he expects companies will wait for that season before making big decisions. 

Meanwhile, some travel tech execs believe their companies will be sustained by an increased need for industry modernization, and some see the Big Tech layoffs as an opportunity for their own businesses. 

Travel tech companies got a rise in business later in the pandemic as others in the industry needed to accelerate digital transformation. Much of that need has come from an extremely sparse hospitality workforce. 

“Businesses have worked out they’ve got to be more efficient because staff are costing more,” Brooks said. “Wage inflation is 10, 15, 20 percent in some cases. You might have to employ less people to do the same amount of work because you’re going to have to pay them more.”

That need for digital transformation is why HotelKey, a Texas hotel property management system platform, has more than 100 open jobs that need to be filled in the next 12-18 months. The company hired 60 employees globally over the last 12 months, according to Aditya Thyagarajan, co-founder and president of HotelKey. 

“HotelKey has always done well in a tough market. When there is a slow down, our clients get a chance to look at technology options to reduce spend and improve operational efficiency. We thrive in this environment,” Thyagarajan said in an email. “Our cost effective solutions eliminate technical debt and provide our clients opportunities to enhance workflows and processes to reduce cost and overhead.”

He said the company signed a “large global enterprise” during the pandemic. 

And