And maybe that’s a good thing – maybe crappy recruiting and retention by the large OTAs is actually the best thing that could happen to the travel industry. If the brightest minds all spent their entire careers in roles that didn’t truly impact anything and were just medium-size fish in a massive pond, that would be unfortunate. The young employees who are truly worth their salt are the ones who aren’t passive enough to stay at a place that doesn’t provide the culture they need or believe makes a company successful. They are forced to put up or shut up, and those who put up usually do so in the way of securing funding their own business.

Heck, Tnooz even today posted an article today of one of the prime examples of this – Traxo.

Anyway, great discussion points. I hope to see more analysis from you and the Tnooz’ers on talent management in the travel industry. Fascinating topic and one of the utmost importance for the future of this industry.

You make some very interesting points and I thank you for bringing them to light.

MBA’s aside, as they do make up a small amount of the OTA workforce, I still think that there is a issue with the big OTA’s and their hiring strategies or lack there of.

Long gone are the days where large companies truly make their employees feel like family and I think this is very sad. Companies like the big three OTA’s are driven by their investors and not the public at large nor their workforce.

The smaller firms will attract a number of MBA’s along with the general work force as they bring a sense of ingenuity, flexibility and family along with listening to their employees input. Not too sure if this is the case within the larger companies.

Finally, in order for any company to remain competitive, they must continue to engage some of the best talent possible in order to maintain the input of fresh, new ideas. I fully understand that there is a cost in doing this but I wonder what the actual cost in not continuing to bring in fresh minds with fresh ideas is.

Having worked most of my life in hospitality technology and distribution and now working on the recruiting side of our industry, I am looking at the business from a different angle. It certainly is an eye opener!

Thanks again for your comments, they are truly appreciated.

I’m certain, Alan, you have much more knowledge than I do on this topic, but to play devil’s advocate, isn’t it possible that Expedia’s move could be the result of a few very uninteresting, explainable events?

For one, HR/recruiting were some of the first budget items to be cut in 2009. Hosting this event isn’t free, and cutting it out of the budget could have just been an easy decision. No brainer.

Second, maybe Expedia decided that in a crappy economic year it didn’t need an MIT MBA (the most expensive in the US) to copy edit its marketing emails and field calls from its ad agency on the new logo design billing codes… Maybe someone from Kellogg or Texas for 100K instead of 120K would suffice?

Third, all of these OTAs have been fat & happy for awhile. This economic collapse was the greatest excuse any CFO ever had to get overhead under control to run their low-margin businesses.

For these small companies you mention who are hiring like crazy right now, I would be curious to see exactly how many are hiring specifically MBAs… my guess is not many. But I’m hoping you have examples that prove me wrong.

Overall, the most opportunities for MBAs in the travel industry exist with the giants. That’s because MBAs started their career at these large companies, learned the business, then left to start these niche companies… they know from personal experience that an MBA isn’t needed to be a middle manager at the company they own. Yet, large companies still believe it is… so ride that gravy train, MBA kiddos, as long as it lasts. And based on your predictions, Alan, that may not be for very long.

This post was mentioned on Twitter by kevinlukemay: Expedia drops MIT graduate day, maybe better chances at smaller agencies http://is.gd/6cnJu [Tnooz via @alaneyoung]…