Despite the heightened awareness around women in leadership and diversity in the travel industry over the past year, “the needle barely moved,” a report from the Castell Project reveals.
The hospitality industry lost 479,000 employees over the past year, according to the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics, which presents an opportunity to reset.
According to the May 2020 McKinsey and Company Diversity Wins report, “there is a substantial performance difference - 48% - between the most and least gender-diverse companies.
“This is critical for the hospitality industry where leading companies also have the most robust diversity initiatives,” says Peggy Berg, chair of the Castell Project.
“As an industry that feels workforce pressure, we need to do better for women who want career advancement in addition to families and for men who want families as well as career advancement. The companies that perform best in the new post‐pandemic market will be companies with diverse leadership.”
Overall, the Castell Project finds that the odds of women reaching the executive leadership level were one woman to 5.9 men at the end of 2019. At the end of 2020, the odds were 5.7 men per woman.
Meanwhile, the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) closed its 2021 Global Summit Tuesday with a commitment to work toward women's equality and boost female representation in leadership roles in the industry.
Gloria Guevara, WTTC president and CEO, says: “As the first female president and CEO of WTTC, it is an honor to champion this important initiative. The pledge made today with the launch of the first women initiative in travel and tourism by a combination of the private, public and academic sectors to work towards women’s equality, marks a significant step forward.
“Globally, women have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic which has exacerbated the pay gap, the opportunity gap and the shocking lack of senior positions and leadership roles across the travel and tourism sector. This needs to be changed, WTTC research shows women play a vital role and represented 54% of travel and tourism’s employment worldwide. Yet while more than half the sector is accounted for by women, all too few occupy any senior or strategic roles.”
For the private sector, the Women Empowerment Initiative has two core elements: developing skills and creating formal sponsorship and mentorship programs for young women in business.
Senior women leaders will also be empowered to become mentors and share their skills and experience with the next generation of female leaders to nurture and develop new talent.
Companies will also be asked to assign a senior executive or board member to be a sponsor for gender diversity and inclusion.
The private sector has pledged to increase female representation of leadership positions by 30 to 50% and aims to increase the representation of women to board levels and C-suites by a third by 2030.