Women entrepreneurs in tourism

Why do we need to highlight women in tourism?

In 2004, women accounted for 46 percent of the tourism industry’s workforce. Reporting from 2019 showed they had become the majority: 54 percent. Yet the industry doesn’t give them a fair deal. Across the world, women are more likely to find themselves in lower paying roles, or in unpaid support roles.

According to stats by Equality In Tourism International, women hold fewer than 40 percent of managerial positions in the industry, hold fewer than eight percent of board positions, and comprise just 23 percent of tourism ministers. Women earn 14.7 percent less than their male counterparts. Whilst this is better than the average wage gap in other professions (16.8 percent), in the quest for equality, any gap is too high.

New challenges

Globally, gender equality has had some concerning setbacks over the last few years. The Covid pandemic meant that many people – and women in particular – could take advantage of more flexible approaches to working, including remote working. But women were more likely than men to be forced back into unpaid carer roles, hampering their ability to succeed in business.

Some of our entrepreneurs don’t think we are closer to equality. “Sadly, no it’s not got better,” says Saadia Baber, founder and director of our UK-based partner Xperience Pakistan. She has recently set up a second business in the UK and finds herself talking to female entrepreneurs from all walks of life, “I’d like to think it’s changing but when I hear stories of younger women I think that they sound so familiar… It’s so frustrating that in this day and age there are still glass ceilings.”

The challenges continue: for all the hype around the rising interest in community-based tourism and ecotourism, these newer tourism trends can inadvertently exploit or exclude women.

Ecotourism projects might inadvertently encourage women to continue traditional roles in homestays, or keep women doing traditional jobs in rural areas rather than seeking more beneficial and lucrative opportunities.

Women can find themselves excluded from community-based tourism projects. Take Kenya, where a conservancy model means land is leased from Maasai people by vacation companies. Women, who are very rarely landowners, miss out on funds cannot participate in decision making.

To counteract this, it’s important that women hold jobs across the spectrum of roles in the industry – especially positions of responsibility and power, where they can have a say in how tourism is run, and can advocate for good practice that benefits women.

Perhaps wrongly, the feminist movement and the green movement are considered to be philosophically aligned – ecotourism, the argument goes, appeals to a female, nurturing spirit. What’s perhaps more likely is that the women who we see succeeding in modern eco tourism projects are doing so because they are finally capitalising on the opportunity, having been traditionally excluded from business. They are finding success as the green movement finds its feet, and are running smaller, more agile businesses that can make positive changes.

New opportunities

“Tech savvy women are on the rise [in India],” says Ridhi Patel, founder of our partner Volunteering Journeys, speaking from her Kerala office. Technology has improved the lives of many women, who can now work from home. “It has increased employability,” says Ridhi, “women could be sitting here but working for a company in the US – a call center job but sitting at home. It’s really helped women a lot.”