By Abby Lombardi on April 5, 2012 in Travel and Hospitality.

Travel and accommodation companies probably look forward to your summer vacation as much as you do. But, to get ready for your arrival during peak season, they need to hire more people. This year, it seems that travel companies may be more optimistic about what the summer will bring. In the past 60 days, more than 24,000 jobs were advertised online by travel agencies, hotels, casinos, airlines, and other travel industries. This is a 22% increase compared to the same 60-day time period in 2011 and the highest volume of online job ads seen in this industry since 2008. Hotels posted the majority of ads, with about 18,000 unique listings in the past 60 days. Travel agencies followed with about 3,000 job ads, and casino hotels rounded out the top 3 industries with 1,200 ads.

Hiring Demand in the Travel & Accommodation Industries – 4 Year Hiring Trend

Source: WANTED Analytics

Below are the 10 most demanded occupations within the travel and accommodations industries. 8 of the 10 occupations experienced year-over-year increases in hiring, with only Sales Managers and Marketing Managers seeing a decline in demand. Hotel Desk Clerks are most demanded with almost 2,500 job ads posted online in the past 60 days. The hiring demand for these workers has grown 77% compared to the same time period in 2011, the highest increase of the below jobs.

Most In-Demand Occupations in the Travel & Accommodation Industries – Past 60 Days

Source: WANTED Analytics

The metropolitan area that saw the highest volume of jobs in this industry was Washington, DC. Other cities with the most hiring demand were New York, Las Vegas, Miami, and Los Angeles. Of these 5 cities, only Las Vegas has seen a year over year decline in hiring.

Metro Areas with Most Job Listings in the Travel & Accommodation Industries – Past 60 Days

Source: WANTED Analytics

We also looked at the skills that are most demanded by the travel industry, listed below. Since most of the in-demand jobs are hotel staff, many of the required skills are for using hotel amenities.

1. Microsoft Office
2. Apex Business Software iHR
3. Microsoft PowerPoint
4. Microsoft Word
5. Yahoo Flickr
6. Coffee makers
7. Modems
8. Microsoft Excel
9. Cash registers
10. Treadmills

Are you recruiting for job openings in the travel and accommodation industries? Try our free, online Hiring Scale™ to see how hard-to-fill any job is, average salary information, who you are competing with for talent, and where to find hidden talent pools.