The Truth Behind the Tweets: Tourism Companies, International Women’s Day and Purple-Washing
How tourism companies and organisations celebrated International Women’s Day through purple-washing their claims of gender equality This International Women’s Day (IWD), the world of business came together as it does every year, to celebrate women’s achievements and raise awareness for gender equality across sectors. However, just like any internationally recognised day for the celebration of […]
The Domari Community of Jerusalem: Amoun Steel
Words: Elisa Spampinato, Equality in Tourism associate, Founder at Travel Storyteller Amoun Steel is a proud gypsy woman of the Domari ethnic group and a charismatic leader. She is a self-empowered woman and a brave role model for the women of her community. The Dom People On 27 January I was invited by Marveh Farhoodi […]
Leadership and Technology: The double gender gap in the tourism industry
By Helen Merrick The role of technology in the tourism industry is increasingly important to keep up with global markets, address consumer needs and develop industry-wide data analysis. While the underrepresentation of women in decision-making positions in tourism industry and organisations has been widely researched, recent research from Figueroa-Domecq et al. sets out to explore […]
Albasud Report: Gender inequalities in the Tourism Labour Market
Written by Helen Merrick This new report from Nuria Abellan Calvet, Carla Izcara Conde, Alejandra Lopez Ballart and Marta Salvador Almela explores the issue of the tourism labour market from a gender perspective. With a focus on the feminisation of the tourism labour market, the report considers fifteen forms of gender inequality through examples from […]
Gendered scripts in airline documentation: how corporate literature shapes and reshapes gender subjectivities in the aviation industry
This week’s Insight considers new research by Smith, Cohen, Kimbu and Jong, published in the Annals of Tourism Research, which chiefly concerns how gendered meanings are crafted through airline texts, signs and gestures. Whilst on the face of it this may sound abstract, the importance of symbolism to reify gender roles was brought into sharp relief as I, […]
New study suggests women are yet to find their voices within the Egyptian tourism industry
Travel and tourism are pivotal to the Egyptian economy, contributing 12% to the country’s GDP in 2019. Within this industry, travel agencies play a key role, and so the Egyptian government has a keen interest in facilitating their growth. The hospitality and tourism industry globally is hampered by high levels of employee turnover, and Egyptian […]
Meet the trailblazing female guides of the Tanzanian tourism industry: advancing gender equality through outdoor pursuits on Mount Kilimanjaro
Every year, tourists from across the globe visit the mountainous Kilimanjaro region in Tanzania to participate in the hiking, biking and trekking that the dramatic landscape is known for. Businesses selling tours have become an important aspect of the Tanzanian tourism economy: a report by the World Bank in 2013 estimated that they generated 400 […]
Tourism and Women’s Livelihoods in Victoria Falls
This blog was written by Tariro Sibanda and Joseph M. Cheer. It is based upon research presented in their recent book chapter ‘Impacts of tourism on livelihoods of women in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe’, which can be found in Tourism, Change and the Global South, edited by Jarkko Saarinen and Jane Rogerson. We have all heard […]
New modelling indicates that culture is still the key driver of gender inequality in Asia
For over 30 years now, sociologists have explored how tourism could advance gender equality in global contexts. However, more recently it has been argued that the methods used in studies have stagnated the development of knowledge. Research has tended towards focusing on the micro-politics of gendered interactions in the tourism industry, and predominantly has been […]
Sustainable tourism: a route to women’s empowerment, or a stagnation of progress? The contradictory relationship between sustainability and SDG#5 in Turkish tourism
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a group of 17 global aims which embody a commitment by United Nations member states to address global issues such as poverty, health and gender equality. Notwithstanding, new research conducted by one of Equality in Tourism’s own Associates, Professor Hazel Tucker (The Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 2020), considers the […]
Origin: AirBnb, destination: women’s empowerment? Tracking the effects of network hospitality on gender equality in Kuala Lumpar
AirBnb has nowadays grown from a fringe choice for holiday accommodation to the default option for many tourists. The boom in popularity of network hospitality- the umbrella term for platforms like Airbnb, which facilitate tourists connecting digitally with hosts to rent accommodation and form social networks- is no less true in South East Asia. Indeed, […]
In the North American hotel industry, work-life balance for mothers still needs calibrating
Female employees in the North American tourism and hospitality industry far outstrip males in terms of numbers. However, they remain vastly underrepresented in the most senior levels of management: in 2016, only 5% of CEOs and 9% of presidents in the US hotel industry were female. Government policy provides a partial explanation of this gender […]
Latest UNWTO recommendations for tourism’s Covid-19 recovery repackage the old as new for women
Since the onset of the pandemic, the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) has published a series of Inclusive Recovery Guides. These aim at outlining the sociocultural impacts of Covid-19 on the tourism industry, as well as making a number of recommendations that stakeholders should implement in order to rebuild the industry in a more […]
White women volunteering in the global South- the ghost of colonialism’s past?
Volunteer tourism, or ‘voluntourism’ as it is more commonly known, comprises the practice of travelling abroad to undertake voluntary work in humanitarian and development projects. For young people in the global North, and particularly young White women, it has become an increasingly popular way to travel, as it combines international adventure with Generation Z’s much-discussed […]
