Booking.com, Hilton, Emirates and Etihad - World’s Most In-demand Employers: LinkedIn

LinkedIn recently announced the 100 most attractive employers its members would like to work for, and a few renowned companies from the Hospitality business, online Travel & Tourism, and Aviation industry made it to this list.

LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network on the Internet, announced the rankings at its 2014 Talent Connect conference held recently in San Francisco. Booking.com was ranked as the 68th most in-demand employer among other notable companies, including Google, Apple and Unilever.

The companies on the list represent 17 countries, 59 cities and 33 industries. While the top 3 represented industries on this list were Tech, Telecom and Media, Retail & Consumer Products, and Oil & Energy.

Among the Travel and Tourism industries that make the top 100 list are booking.com (68^th), Airbnb (60^th) and Expedia (65^th).

Booking.com was one of the top tech disruptors to enter the attractive employers list as they were not featured in the 2013 list. Booking.com is owned by Priceline and the parent company (Priceline) has acknowledged that retaining Booking.com’s motivated and capable management allowing the brand to operate independently and offering Booking.com’s breadth of hotel supply have contributed to its phenomenal growth. The tech developers at booking.com make decisions based on real time data by analyzing the behavioral patterns of consumers and by using these search results they tailor their offering to the consumers. Employees at booking.com work hard and play harder. The work environment at booking.com is friendly, supportive and casual. They have a dynamic task force that contributes towards their success which makes it a very popular employer in the online travel and tourism category. 

Among the hospitality business, Hilton Worldwide came in 55th place, while Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts came in close behind in 59th place.

The UAE’s two major airlines, Emirates (52) and Etihad (82), also made it to the Linkedin rankings.

The ranking is based on the analysis over 35 billion interactions between companies and members on LinkedIn. The way companies are ranked boils down to LinkedIn member awareness of a company (e.g. how many people have viewed an employees’ profiles within the past year) and engagement on LinkedIn (e.g., how many members have followed a company’s Company or Career Page within the past year). Higher talent brand awareness and engagement among members on LinkedIn equal a more effective talent brand and a higher InDemand ranking.

Dubai ranked 5th most popular destination in the World

Dubai has been recognized as the 5th most popular city in the World according to Master Card Global Destination Cities Index released on 9th July 2014. London retained its position on number one for the third time in four years followed by Bangkok, Paris, Singapore and Dubai. Dubai was ranked ahead of New York and Istanbul - both of which were ranked higher last year. This index provides a ranking of the 132 most travelled cities from around the world.

The increasing popularity of Dubai is due to the increasing international travel due to the expanding middle class income, the innovation in travel and the availability of Dubai international airport as the Middle East airline hub. The Real Estate boom in the region has opened up the gateway for companies to set up their MENA headquarters in the emirate, which in turn has facilitated increasing business travel. Dubai’s global strategic location, investment friendly economy and rising infrastructure will play a great role in driving visitors to the emirate. Dubai is doing its best to attract both leisure and business tourists which has fuelled the need for more hotel rooms in the country.

According to the study, Dubai is projected to receive 12.47 million visitors, an increase of 7.5 percent since 2013. Dubai is one of the fastest growing cities in the world and is expected to overtake Paris and Singapore within 5 years. Dubai also generates more international visitor expenditure per resident than any other city. It was also ranked as the fourth air hub in the world by international connectivity. In fact, Dubai is only city among from Middle East and Africa to be ranked among the top ten air hubs lists.

The MasterCard index ranks cities based on the total international visitor’s arrivals and cross-border spending by a visitor in each of the 132 destination cities using custom made algorithms.

Picture credit: Copyright Jan Michael Pfeiffer (Creative Commons)