Tourism: A vehicle for women's empowerment

The tourism industry is pivotal in its ability to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women worldwide. The pandemic’s impact on hospitality, travel, leisure, and all related sectors has offered the industry a unique opportunity to evaluate the importance of diversity and representation in both its workforce and consumer demographics. Now more than ever, travel ventures across genres and geographies are well-positioned to rethink internal frameworks and service offerings that will serve to bridge the gender gap.

Women entrepreneurs, women employees, and women travellers alike represent a significant and growing segment of the market. Pro-women business models will prove to be more resilient, inventive, sustainable, and profitable in the long run. It is, therefore, no surprise that in recent years reports surveying tourism have shown that organisations are adopting unified strategies to ensure inclusivity and the upliftment of women across operations.

According to a study released in 2021 by the United Nations World Tourism Organsation (UNWTO) which spans four world regions - Africa, Asia, and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Europe – and four key tourism industries – digital platforms and technology, hotels and accommodation, tour operators, and community-based tourism: women presently represent 54 per cent of people employed in tourism, 27 per cent of tourism ministers and 20 per cent of government ministers. While these numbers are noteworthy, the study also reveals that women in tourism earn 14.7 per cent less and many continue to occupy low-skill or entry-level positions.

There are several ways in which tourism can implement and advocate for gender equality strategies. This includes:

1. Setting up systems to monitor equal pay structures: As a standard operating procedure businesses should incorporate salary assessments in performance reviews to ensure equal work is met with equal pay across designations. Data that conjoins the evaluation of individual skill sets with execution and incentive to perform can, then, also cohesively inform hiring practices and job descriptions to be more inclusive and innovative.

2. Building human capital through upskilling or cross-training: A human-centric corporate culture is integral to empowering women and a diverse workforce. On the employee level, equal opportunity for skill-building catalyzes both personal and professional growth. On the enterprise level, it reduces attrition, elevates performance across the board, and results in more resilient organisations.

3. Collaborating with local communities and civil societies to lift the social stigma and create integrated local workforces: As beneficiaries of the local landscape and heritage, responsible tourism ventures must uplift women both socially and economically. In India, women are often not encouraged to work by their family or community because of safety concerns including travel/transportation challenges and long hours of work. Managers have to actively work to get family members on board so women can continue their careers. Working closely with local communities can help to abate some of these long-standing social hindrances and also uplift local economies by increasing employment among women. Hiring locally also builds internal knowledge of the local culture which can help to socially and ecologically sensitise service offerings.

4. Participating in ongoing dialogues with public and private sector agents to provide data and insights on inclusive business models: Purpose-driven leaders in tourism must have an active voice in progressing forums that address pressing issues such as gender equality and climate change. Emerging models for sustainable and secure businesses cohesively prioritise people, planet, and profit.

5. Making use of cost-effective tech solutions: The digital divide continues to disproportionately affect women. According to the World Bank: “at 51 per cent  (versus 67 per cent in 2017), South Asia still holds the unfortunate distinction of having the world’s widest gender gap”. Simple and scalable tech tools can, therefore, serve to increase access to information, which will jointly reduce gender disparities through skill-building, improve employee engagement, increase organisational agility and catalyze innovation.

On the consumer level, the market will continue to witness an increase in women-focused travel including agencies that cater to women-only tour groups and solo women travellers. As an added effect, many of the organisations catering to women travellers will be women-owned or operated, building stronger momentum towards gender parity.

The tourism industry, on account of its economic scale and inbuilt layers of human interaction, is uniquely positioned to usher compounding change across various quantitative and qualitative arenas to empower women. Thoughtfully designed practices in tourism will benefit not only our immediate communities and women around the world but will also serve to build a culture of equitable enterprise that is replicable across industries and serves generations to come.