Finding and retaining IT talent were cited by more than half (54%) of hospitality/travel IT leaders as leading business challenges, second only to the 61% who mentioned supply chain management as most concerning, in a Rackspace Technology-sponsored survey of 1,420 IT executives, many of whom were in the hospitality/travel industry. Other worrisome business issues included price inflation (45%), product shortages (33%), wage inflation (23%) and chip shortages (24%).
A majority of 66% of hospitality/travel IT executives said their staff had experienced burn out and that 63% of IT projects had been delayed due to staffing issues. Most (71%) of them said their employees preferred working at home, despite the fact that 68% of them work longer hours when they are remote.
What do hospitality/travel IT executives do to attract and retain new talent?
- 42% offer additional training/development opportunities to attract 30% to retain
- 32% offer moderate salary increases to attract/35% to retain
- 29% allow hybrid or flexible home/office work, 33% to retain
Cloud 2.0 has become a must for hospitality/travel
Survey respondents indicated cloud 2.0 technology has become such a priority that 59% of hospitality/travel IT executives don’t envision owning a corporate data center in five years. Moreover, an increased appetite for risk among some can be seen in their enthusiasm for exploring edge technologies (40%) and containers (27% public, 22% private).
“The cloud is no longer a shiny new object—it is a nearly universally accepted technology, and there is almost no hospitality/travel organization that is not currently in the process of transforming itself via the cloud,” said Jeff DeVerter, chief technology evangelist, Rackspace Technology. “At the same time, there are a number of barriers in the way of that transformation, most notably a dearth of IT talent. More than ever, hospitality/travel professionals will need to rely on external expertise to achieve their cloud goals, as they continue to shed legacy infrastructure and ask the cloud to do more.”
When asked how the cloud is aiding innovation for the hospitality/travel industry:
- 50% say it is improving customer experience and ease of use
- 46% say is enabling faster testing and deployment of new products and services
Security is a concern causing the need for outside expertise
A total of 40% of hospitality/travel organizations cited security as the most important factor to consider when choosing a cloud environment with 58% saying security is the biggest barrier to serverless computing followed by 44% of those saying they don’t have enough internal skills to implement cloud technology and 43% saying they have a steep learning curve. Half said security is the reason hospitality/travel organizations use external partners.