Pros
I think working at GTA gives great exposure to how the travel industry works, especially if you are in the sales or sourcing side of the business. Technology is a big factor and GTA is investing a lot of resource into this, although not always successfully (more on that in Cons). There are loads of great people who work at GTA at all levels and departments, from leadership to client/hotel facing and support. The regional conferences which happen once a year give you a great chance to network as well as have some fun, and you build a lot of relationships with colleagues you might otherwise never meet or see. There is still a great vibe within the company despite what some old school GTA people (current and former) might say. GTA is also still considered as one of the major distribution platforms in travel, for now. On top of this, I was being compensated really well in the city I worked in.
Cons
The business GTA is in is under huge pressure and threat from within the industry. The model of being the middle man on high margins is not achievable anymore and technology is opening the door for smaller more nimble businesses to operate like GTA but at much lower margins and therefor undercutting constantly. Even if those are regional and not global, 10 regional players in various parts of the world is going to hurt you on your global numbers. Besides this major hotel chains are catching on how the distribution landscape fits together and are targeting the business model of GTA and others as well as that of the major OTAs by pushing the direct model. Acquisitions and partnerships which are recently being announced in the travel wholesale space can only go so far to secure future growth. The value proposition is too heavily weighted on the service and expertise element right now for GTA. There are not that many USP anymore for GTA with which to approach the supply and demand side of the travel industry. One of the reasons Hotelbeds stormed past GTA in terms of global room night performance is that they just did the same but with much lower margins. Besides these outside factors, internally GTA has a lot of issues. Leadership is desperately trying to push new company values into the business which should make it a better place to work, but these are not being lived by for many front line staff nor managers. On the surface there are things like people being sent for training and cross exposures (selectively and "in-group" only) and staff parties etc, but realistically there are a lot of loose parts. There is probably too much focus on internal progression to make it good for the business. There is very little vertical maneuverability for employees once they reach senior market manager or BDM level, which results in promotions of people who don't have the right skills to be people managers, or who are great people managers but don't have the detailed knowledge of what is really required at ground level to make things work. I think people would value a lot more being trained to broaden their skillset which might even be useful for them outside of GTA then just purely the focus on being promoted internally. The recruitment cycle also greatly varies across the world in terms of who is doing the actual assessment, it's very much open to interpretation of the individual at the other side of the table for a candidate. My observation of years in GTA (5+) is that too many times conversations are had about strategy and what to focus on without actually digging deep in finding what is causing issues for front line people on day to day basis. There are a lot of big IT, sourcing or sales projects and focus points, but simple things which frustrate and annoy and limit people in their work on day to day basis remain unchallenged for years. False hopes are given with internal idea gathering competitions like "GTA Star" where people come up with great ideas for new business or improvements, but then these ideas fall into a backlog of other IT items to do and it doesn't see the light of day. So again, great stuff on the surface, but execution is poor. The sad reality I think is that some of the best people in GTA would leave quickly if they got the opportunity to join a bigger or faster growing company. I never felt that newcomers (which I considered myself one of when there) would or will ever have the same dedication to the company as some people within GTA who have been around for 15+ years. The internal people issues are not unique to GTA, every large company probably has some of this. One last thing. Despite that GTA has great collaboration tools like zoom video calling, communicator on desktop and chatter in salesforce, GTA is still a very email dominant work environment. Nothing is decided upon without an email. You therefor have way too much conversation and projects flowing via inboxes with dozens of people in CC, and people get swamped which hurts work life balance a lot as people end up replying from home in stead of the office.
