Skift Travel News Blog

As the global hospitality industry continues to bounce-back post pandemic, Hilton has launched a new brand campaign to boost hiring inspired by the very individuals that make your stay happen – Hilton team members.

The campaign, which has been designed to showcase ‘the jobs, the people, and – most importantly – the impact and joy that hospitality jobs offer’, features real Hilton employees and takes inspiration from what the team love about their jobs.

Far more than just their front-line job titles, when employees were asked about their roles they saw themselves as ‘Flavor Maestros’, ‘Date Night Directors’ and ‘Cocktail Creation Artists’, with these playful titles cleverly integrated into the campaign imagery and supporting video, which you can take a look at below.

“What makes Hilton such an amazing place to work is the passion and dedication of our people, and we’re continuing to build on that through our new ‘Every Job Makes the Stay’ campaign,” said Laura Fuentes, executive vice president and chief human resources officer, Hilton.

“We chose to make team members the stars of this campaign because who better than them to speak authentically about what’s it’s like to work at Hilton. They are the heart of our business and the best ambassadors to help us find talent for our growing teams.”

Hilton have also released a Q&A with Fuentes regarding the campaign.

The campaign was created in partnership with advertising agency TBWA\Chiat\Day\New York, which also assisted in developing the “Hilton. For The Stay” platform, which we previously reported on here.

At the 2023 Skift IDEA Awards, we are looking for advertising campaigns that have been created with the intent to drive action.

Do you have a marketing campaign that deserves to be celebrated? Head to the Skift IDEA Awards and start your submission today.

The leisure and hospitality sector was among the largest job gainers in the U.S. in April, but the 31,000 jobs it added amounted to a deceleration from March, when it added 40,000 positions to the workforce.

The vast majority of the additions in April were not in hotels, but in food service and drinking establishments, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics‘ monthly jobs report Friday.

“The average wage in the industry now averages $20 an hour, well above minimum wage — a key indicator that the H-2B program, on which many travel businesses rely, does not take jobs from U.S. workers,” said Tori Emerson Barnes, executive vice president of Public Affairs and Policy, U.S. Travel Association. 

Leisure and hospitality, which employed 2.4 percent fewer workers in the U.S. in April than it did in pre-pandemic February 2020, grew at a considerably faster pace during the prior six months when it added 73,000 jobs per month on average.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported all of these figures in its April jobs report on Friday.

There were 16.54 million people employed in leisure and hospitality in April. The unemployment rate in the sector was 5 percent, higher than the the 3.4 percent nationally for non-farm employees.

The air transportation sector in the U.S. added a modest 3,300 jobs, bringing its ranks to 537,400, the report found.

Travel arrangement and reservations services boosted its workforce by 800 jobs, bringing the entire roster of travel agents and similar roles to 179,400.

Travel arrangement and reservation services increased by 10,400 over the previous 12 months, and increased from 178,600 in March 2023 to 179,400 in April 2023.  

Skift’s Dennis Schaal contributed to this report.

Hotels added more than 5,000 new jobs in the United States in March, a big drop from the previous month’s increase, and a possible sign the sector’s job growth is slowing.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed, in its monthly jobs report released on Friday, that leisure and hospitality — which includes hotels — added 72,000 jobs in November, representing roughly 31 percent of total jobs created in the U.S. Leisure and hospitality had added 105,000 jobs in February — 14,000 came from hotels. Overall employment in leisure and hospitality is 2.2 percent, or 368,000 jobs, below February 2020 levels.

The U.S. added 236,000 new jobs in March, a slight decrease from what economists had projected. The U.S. unemployment rate dropped slightly from 3.6 percent in February to 3.5 percent.

Airbnb reduced its recruiting staff by 30 percent — affecting perhaps a couple of dozen jobs — even as the company plans on increasing its overall workforce in 2023.

A spokesperson told Bloomberg that the layoffs came this week to align the size of Airbnb’s recruiting staff with the scale of projected hiring this year.

The firings impacted 0.4 percent of Airbnb’s roughly 6,800 workers, meaning there were roughly 27 job cuts.

In 2023, Airbnb expects to pump up its workforce 2 to 4 percent, compared with an 11 percent jump in 2022, according to Bloomberg.

Airbnb lopped off 25 percent of its workforce in early 2020 as the pandemic briefly shut down the vast majority of its business.

Under different circumstances, property manager Sonder announced this week it laid off 14 percent of its corporate staff, a move that reflect the uncertain state of the company, the company said.

The U.S. air transportation sector added 6,800 jobs in July as the airline industry continues to staff up from Covid-19 pandemic lows.

The pace of hiring slowed from June when the sector, which includes airlines as well as others, added 11,000 new employees, according to new data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released Friday. Air transportation companies employed 567,900 people at the end of July, an 8 percent increase from July 2019, before the pandemic hit.

Airlines have struggled with staffing, from pilots on down to airport ground crews, as travel has rebounded dramatically in the U.S. While most carriers say they now have the staff they need, onboarding new employees has created its own challenges.

“The chief issue we’re working through is not hiring but a training and experience bubble,” Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said in July. At the time, the airline had “thousands in some phase of hiring and training process.”

Training bottlenecks aside, U.S. airlines are still struggling with hiring skilled staff — particularly pilots and maintenance technicians. The pilot shortage is primarily hitting smaller airlines, like Republic Airways and SkyWest Airlines, with few expecting the situation to completely ease for several years due to the long lead time training and certifying new cockpit crew members.