Empowering Women in Tourism: Challenges and Opportunities

The tourism industry is a major engine for women’s livelihoods worldwide. From front-desk roles in hotels to artisans selling crafts at heritage sites, women keep the wheels of hospitality turning. Yet behind this visible participation lies a complex story of low wages, glass ceilings, seasonal work, and the troubling use of women’s images in destination marketing. Understanding the position of women in tourism means looking honestly at both the doors that have opened and the barriers that remain.

Why tourism matters for women’s employment 🔗

Tourism is one of the largest employers of women globally. According to UN Women, more than half of the entire global workforce in tourism is female, yet within this multi-trillion dollar industry women are often in the background, making things work but rarely visible . The sector’s flexibility, low entry barriers in many roles, and proximity to home-based work make it especially attractive for women who balance care responsibilities with paid work.

The opportunity is significant. The UN Tourism Global Report notes that women make up 54% of those employed in tourism compared with 39% in the broader economy, and tourism offers women greater opportunities for leadership, with 23% of tourism Ministers being female compared with 20.7% of Ministers overall . In simple terms, tourism gives women more entry points than most other sectors-but entry is not the same as equity.

The promise of empowerment 🔗

Tourism can deliver more than a paycheck. It can help build confidence, financial independence, and community standing. In states like Sikkim, women’s participation in tourism-linked enterprises has translated into real decision-making power within households and panchayats. Community-based homestays, handicraft cooperatives, and guided heritage walks have helped many women generate stable income while preserving cultural heritage. UN Women observes that when women take on leadership and decision-making roles in local tourism, the entire perception of a destination changes-female tourists report feeling safer, and community attitudes toward women in public spaces begin to shift .

Where women actually work in tourism 🔗

The pattern of women’s employment in tourism is uneven. Most are concentrated at the operational level-housekeeping, food service, front office, retail at souvenir outlets, spa therapy, and customer-facing hospitality jobs. Far fewer reach senior management, executive chef positions, general manager roles, or board-level leadership.

A study cited on women employees in travel and tourism found that women’s participation in managerial positions stood at just 31%, compared with 69% at the operative level, and about 75% of employed women were only moderately satisfied with their working environment . The phrase “glass ceiling” applies sharply here-talent enters the industry, but very few rise to the top.

Roles that are still hard to break into 🔗

Some sub-sectors remain especially male-dominated. Tour leading, adventure guiding, transport (rickshaw drivers, taxi services, coach captains), and senior chef positions have historically been considered “men’s work.” This is changing, but slowly. Initiatives like Jaipur’s all-women rickshaw service have shown that demand exists when women are given training, vehicles, and protective infrastructure. Reports from the field still highlight that low pay, safety concerns, job insecurity, and gender stereotypes continue to influence everything from who gets hired to what jobs women feel comfortable pursuing .

The core challenges women face 🔗

Low wages and the gender pay gap 🔗

Pay parity remains elusive. The UN Tourism Global Report on Women in Tourism records that women in tourism earn 14.7 per cent less than men . While this gap is narrower than the broader economy, tourism is also a sector where overall wages tend to be lower. Women therefore face a double squeeze-employed in a low-paying industry, and then paid less than male colleagues within it.

Long and irregular working hours 🔗

Hospitality runs around the clock. Hotels, restaurants, airports, and tourist transport operate on shift systems that include nights, weekends, and public holidays. For women-especially in contexts where they shoulder most domestic and care work-this rhythm creates serious friction. Late shifts also raise commuting and safety concerns, particularly in destinations without reliable public transport after dark.

Seasonal and informal employment 🔗

Many tourism jobs are tied to peak seasons. Beach destinations swell in winter, hill stations in summer, and pilgrimage circuits around festivals. Off-season, contracts end and incomes vanish. Women are over-represented in this seasonal, informal, and contractual workforce, which means little or no social security, no maternity protection, no paid leave, and weak legal recourse if they are dismissed unfairly.

Workplace harassment and safety 🔗

Sexual harassment is a persistent risk in customer-facing roles. Women working alone with guests in hotel rooms, on tours, or in late-night service settings are especially vulnerable. While India has the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, enforcement in small hotels, guesthouses, and informal tourism enterprises remains weak. UN Tourism notes that gender-based violence affects women in tourism-those working in the sector, those participating in tourism, and women in local communities where tourism takes place .

Limited access to training and finance 🔗

Career progression in tourism increasingly depends on certifications, language skills, digital tools, and networks. Women, especially from rural and marginalized backgrounds, often have fewer opportunities to access these. Family obligations, transport limitations, and social norms can keep women out of residential training programmes that male peers attend freely.

Sexual imagery and the commodification of women in tourism marketing 🔗

Beyond the workplace, the way destinations are marketed has its own gender problem. For decades, tourism advertising has leaned on the image of women-often young, smiling, exoticized, or scantily clad-to sell sun, sand, and “experience.” This is sometimes called the commodification of women’s images: women, or stylized representations of them, become part of the product being sold.

Academic content analyses make the pattern clear. A study on gender images in state tourism brochures found that women are depicted in traditional stereotypical poses-subordinate, submissive, dependent-disproportionately more often than men, and tourism advertisers and destination promoters need to be aware of both subtle and blatant visual cues that depict the relationship between men and women . Other research highlighted by Frontiers in Communication shows that women are often sexualized and exoticized in tourism marketing -a pattern visible across many destinations globally.

Why this matters beyond aesthetics 🔗

This is not only about taste. When marketing reduces women to ornamental figures-dancing, posing, serving drinks, looking inviting-it sends two damaging signals. First, it tells potential travellers that local women are part of the “experience” on offer, which contributes to harassment, unwanted attention, and in extreme cases, sex tourism. Second, it tells local women and girls that their value lies in being looked at rather than in being skilled professionals shaping the industry.

Module materials from the International Labour Organization on tourism marketing explicitly flag key actors such as women, youth, and migrant labour, and key issues including sexual harassment and sex tourism as central to responsible destination marketing-not as side concerns.

Pathways forward: from challenges to opportunities 🔗

Equal pay and decent work 🔗

Closing the wage gap requires transparent pay structures, written employment contracts, and active enforcement of minimum wage laws across all tourism enterprises-including small guesthouses and tour operators. The UN Tourism report’s key recommendations include targeted interventions such as promoting equal pay, tackling sexual harassment, and recruiting women into high-level employment .

Safe and supportive workplaces 🔗

Internal Complaints Committees under the 2013 POSH Act must function in practice, not just on paper. Hotels and tour companies can also invest in safe transport for late-shift staff, well-lit premises, dormitory accommodation for migrant women workers, and clear anti-harassment training for managers and guests.

Skills, leadership, and entrepreneurship 🔗

The Government of India runs several capacity-building programmes through the Ministry of Tourism and the Indian Institutes of Hotel Management. Schemes that focus on women guides, homestay operators, and small tourism entrepreneurs-linked with credit access through SHGs and Mudra loans-can shift women from operative to ownership roles. Mentorship and visible role models matter; representation at industry conferences, awards, and panels helps normalize women in leadership.

Responsible destination marketing 🔗

Destination Marketing Organizations need internal guidelines that audit gender representation in every campaign. That means asking simple questions before publishing an advertisement: Are women shown as active agents-travellers, guides, chefs, entrepreneurs-or only as decorative figures? Are local women’s images used with consent? Does the imagery promote dignity or fantasy? Replacing exoticized stock photos with authentic stories of women working in the industry is a small change with large cultural impact.

Better data, better policy 🔗

One quiet but critical gap is data. Without sex-disaggregated employment statistics by sub-sector, wage band, and seniority, it is hard to design targeted interventions or measure progress. UN Tourism advocates that collection of sex-disaggregated tourism employment data, alongside training programmes and measures to promote female career progression , should sit at the heart of national gender-mainstreaming strategies for the sector.

The bigger picture 🔗

The position of women in tourism is, in many ways, a mirror of the position of women in the wider economy-amplified by the industry’s specific features of seasonality, customer-facing exposure, and image-driven marketing. The good news is that tourism’s labour intensity, low entry barriers, and direct link to local communities make it an unusually powerful platform for change. When women drive the rickshaws, lead the heritage walks, run the homestays, and sit on the boards of tourism companies, the industry does not just become more equitable-it becomes more resilient, more authentic, and more attractive to a growing segment of conscious travellers.

What do you think? Have you noticed how women are portrayed in the tourism advertisements around you-as professionals, or as part of the scenery? And in your own travels, what would change for you if every guesthouse, guide service, and tour operator you booked actively employed and promoted women into leadership roles?

References

1. https://www.unwomen.org/en/news-stories/feature-story/2025/07/how-women-are-transforming-tourism-in-india
2. https://www.untourism.int/tourism-leading-other-global-sectors-in-advancing-gender-equality
3. https://www.academia.edu/35814945/Women_at_work_exploring_the_issues_and_challenges_of_women_employees_in_travel_and_tourism
4. https://adventure.com/india-rajasthan-womens-only-expeditions/
5. https://www.untourism.int/publication/global-report-women-tourism-2-edition
6. https://wcd.gov.in/sites/default/files/Sexual%20Harassment%20at%20Workplace%20Act.pdf
7. https://www.untourism.int/gender-and-tourism
8. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249701065_Gender_Images_in_State_Tourism_Brochures_An_Overlooked_Area_in_Socially_Responsible_Tourism_Marketing
9. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/communication/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2025.1596789/full
10. https://www.ilo.org/sites/default/files/wcmsp5/groups/public/@ed_dialogue/@sector/documents/instructionalmaterial/wcms_218329.pdf
11. https://www.womenintourism.xyz/inclusive-recovery
12. https://tourism.gov.in/