Global Report on Women in Tourism 2010

       A Joint Report by UNWTO and UN Women 


Summary of Findings

The Global Report provides a much clearer picture of the participation and status of women in the tourism industry than any previously available. It identifies where tourism can provide opportunities for income generation and economic empowerment for women, and other areas in which there are currently significant barriers to women’s success. The Report is divided into five thematic strands – Employment, Entrepreneurship, Education, Leadership and Community - and is based predominantly on ILO data for the Caribbean, Latin America, Asia, Africa and Oceania. The Preliminary Findings offers a summary of the report’s main conclusions.

The key overall findings of the report are:
1. Women make up a large proportion of the formal tourism workforce
2. Women are well represented in service and clerical level jobs but poorly represented at professional levels
3. Women in tourism are typically earning 10% to 15% less than their male counterparts
4. The tourism sector has almost twice as many women employers as other sectors
5. One in five tourism ministers worldwide are women
6. Women make up a much higher proportion of own-account workers in tourism than in other sectors
7. A large amount of unpaid work is being carried out by women in family tourism businesses

In terms of Employment, the report finds that women are well represented but tend to be working at a service or clerical rather than professional or decision-making level. In Entrepreneurship, it found that women are almost twice as likely to be employers in the tourism industry than in other sectors, and often employ more women than men. The results for Education are less promising – there are proportionally fewer women graduates in services than in other fields. Tourism offers the potential for women’s Leadership. However, women still only represent one fifth of all tourism ministers and tourism board chairs. While tourism often contributes to Community development and provides opportunities for women’s self-employment, the report finds that women are contributing a large amount of unpaid work in tourism family businesses, especially when compared to other sectors.

The Report offers a number of basic recommendations for key stakeholders in tourism and gender issues. These are organised both by thematic area and by stakeholder in order to present clear guidelines for a broad range of actors from the public and private sector.


See also:

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