Let’s not just “talk” about it: reflections on women’s career development in hospitality

Although gender issues have received quite a lot of attention in the past few years, I found there is still too little been done in practice. I believe in tackling the issue of gender equality fundamentally, so we need to have a holistic approach and involves multiple stakeholders working together. We have focused on these three elements because we believe the issues can only be fundamentally addressed through educations, listening and inclusive environment, and men’s supports. Each of these dimensions also connects a series of aspects required to make a change ranging from societal opinions of gender roles, labour division at home, organisational culture and leadership traits, as well as policy-making and legislation.What is it about?To bridge the gap between the awareness and discussion of disadvantage of women’s career development and the lack of actions to tackle these issues, our study, from a sociological perspective, proposes framework with actionable recommendations to tackle gender issues in hospitality through three dimensions: organisational culture, men’s involvement, and education. Why is it important?According to a 2019 World Tourism Organization report, women account for more than 50% of the labour workforce but earn 14.7% less than men and hold less than one fifth of leadership roles in the tourism industry – particularly the hospitality sector. This study provides a holistic approach with actionable recommendations to promote gender equality and advance female career development in hospitality. The recommendations include: 1. Create and foster a culture of open #dialogues where issues of gender can be freely discussed by all employees, irrespective of gender, leading to an inclusive and equal organisational culture. 2. The patriarchal norm in organisational practices and culture, as well as traditional masculinity and gender division in society and families should be challenged. Male allies should speak out in workplace and male employees should be encouraged to take on more childcare duties. 3. Hospitality education institutions should integrate the subject of gender into tourism and hospitality curriculums to improve the awareness of gender issues, and inspire female students for leadership positions. The study is significant for various stakeholders such as policymakers, educators, employees and managers in the hospitality sector, as well as general public. We believe all these stakeholders need to work closely together to challenge traditional masculinity and stereotyping gender labour divisions.