Slowly, surely women within the hospitality ranks are making strides. More is needed
The May/June issue of HOTELS Magazine featured a special report focused on women in hospitality. The idea of a piece devoted to underscoring the achievements of women is in and of itself a cynical pursuit: It’s 2024 and we are still penning stories and posting Q&As that illustrate the inequity that still exists, particularly in the corporate ranks. Here’s the reason we still do: If we stopped, it means the gap has not just closed but been sealed. And that’s not the case: According to gender wage gap statistics, put out recently by Forbes, women earn an average of 16% less than men. For every dollar earned by men, women earned 84 cents.
Dollar and cents aside, there is also the notion of women not holding the highest of leadership positions. It’s true: Many women in hospitality are CFOs, COOs, CTOs, CMOs, to name several. Not one, however, is CEO among the large lodging companies. Not yet.
Over the next week, we will roll out our Women in Hospitality feature, where we asked a cross-section of women in hospitality questions pertaining not only to the plight of women in the industry, but, also, there speciality within it. Because, one day, there will no longer need to be a women in hospitality panel at a conference discussing women in hospitality matters. Rather, it will be a women-only panel talking, solely, about hotel development, hotel investment, hotel branding, hotel marketing, hotel technology, hotel finance—everything and anything, just not why women don’t have positions in those fields. Because those days will be over.
Rachel Humphrey has championed women in hospitality before it was even a thing. She graciously agreed to write the introduction for our Women in Hospitality feature, which you can read below. As always, she is on point. People ask her: When will features written specifically about women not be needed anymore because we’ll have reached a point of gender equilibrium? It’s a fair question, she says, and she hopes it will come someday. When it happens, she says, “I hope we never stop celebrating one another across the industry—regardless of gender.”
Every March, the hospitality industry celebrates its female leaders as part of Women’s History Month. On LinkedIn and other channels, stories and photos feature extraordinary women. If only for March, one might conclude that women have achieved the goal of gender parity in the hospitality industry. Though recognizing overall hospitality industry advancements is important, March is not reflective of the realities in the industry today.
Still, there is much to celebrate. Women are advancing across all segments of the industry, including many places where they have traditionally been underrepresented. Many companies are evaluating the composition of their leadership teams and boards and setting benchmarks for achieving greater diversity.
Those truly dedicated are creating programs that prove their commitment. Conference organizers, likewise, are setting out to intentionally achieve greater diversity across panels and keynotes. Importantly, many of these speaking opportunities now showcase women, as the subject-matter experts that they are.
