Women in tourism mapped

While tourism provides better opportunities for women than many other sectors in terms of participation in the work force, entrepreneurship and corporate leadership, much can still be done to close the wealth and skills gap between men and women employed in this industry, a United Nations study has shown.

Preliminary results of the "Global Report on Women in Tourism 2010," commissioned jointly by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women and conducted by Dr. Louise Twining-Ward, noted that women make up a significant percentage of the tourism work force in developing markets.

Findings

The report, launched in Berlin last Friday, is the first survey to map women’s participation in the tourism sector in developing regions, an official statement said.

"Women are almost twice as likely to be employers in tourism as compared to other sectors. Tourism also offers leadership possibilities, with women accounting for one in five tourism ministers worldwide -- more than in any other branch of government," the statement read.

Nevertheless, women are often "concentrated in low-skill, low-paid and precarious jobs," usually performing jobs like cooking, cleaning and hospitality work, it noted.

A summary of results of the study showed that:

* Women make up a large proportion of the formal tourism work force;

* The tourism sector has almost twice as many women employers than other sectors;

* Tourism has more female business owners than other sectors; and

* One in five tourism ministers worldwide are women.

At the same time, however, the study noted that:

* Women are well-represented in clerical level jobs, but poorly represented at professional levels.

* Women in tourism are still underpaid, underutilized, and undereducated;

* Women in tourism typically earn 10%-15% less than their male counterparts; and

* A large amount of unpaid work in family-owned tourism businesses is carried out by women.

Better than many?

The report noted that the Philippines has a high level of female graduates from courses in services, under which tourism is classified.

Specifically, 82.1% of such graduates in the Philippines are women, compared to an Asian average of 46.3% and 45.3% for the regions covered by the study, namely: Asia, Africa, the Carribean, Latin America and Oceania.It noted further that while Latin America has the highest proportion of female employers in tourism, "the data for Asia vary substantially."

Specifically, while "more than half of tourism businesses" in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand are run by women, there was "virtually none" of such ventures in Pakistan, Iran and the Maldives.

The report relied largely on International Labour Organization data on the hotel, catering and tourism sector spanning 1999-2008.It focused on five areas, namely: employment, entrepreneurship, leadership, education and community.

Recommendations

The statement quoted UNWTO Secretary-General Taleb Rifai as saying that while the report "highlights the crucial role tourism plays in empowering women politically, socially and economically...it makes it very clear that more must be done to close the gender gap, in particular ensuring equal pay for men and women for equal work, raising employment quality and ending all discrimination."

The report pushed governments, companies and organizations to adopt gender-sensitive policies, to integrate gender equality into corporate decisions, to strengthen legal protection of women in tourism jobs, to provide training for higher-level occupations and to offer more opportunities for women to develop businesses.

"Greater gender equality will contribute to the overall quality of the tourist experience, with a considerable impact on profitability and quality across all aspects of the industry," the report said.It noted that tourism is one of the world’s largest, fastest-growing industries.

Tourism, it added, contributes 5% to global economic output and accounts for 7% of jobs worldwide.It also accounts for 6% of the world’s exports and, specifically, 30% of the global export of services.In developing countries, tourism generates 45% of service exports, the report noted further.

‘Engine for development’

"In many countries it acts as an engine for development through foreign exchange earnings and the creation of direct and indirect employment," it added.

The Philippine Tourism department noted in 2009 that this industry accounted for about 6% of gross domestic product and the current administration has said it is counting on this sector to provide more jobs as part of government efforts to reduce poverty by 2016, when its term ends.

Source = gmanews.tv