New research shows a quarter of travel companies have no female board members, while there is only one chief executive who is a woman.
The study looked at the boards of 28 travel firms, including operators, airlines and cruise lines and found only 20% of board members were female.
There were no female sales or finance directors or chairs.
It comes after figures showed only a quarter of board members of all FTSE-350 companies were women.
BeyondAnalysis chief executive Paul Alexander, who shared the research with delegates at the ITT Conference, said he “fully expected” to find the numbers in travel to be better.
“Of those 28, seven, quite big organisations, don’t have any board representation from women at all,” he said. “That was a huge shock.
“We found female representation falls into a few key areas, legal, HR and strategy rather than the commercial operations.
“Of the large corporates which have more than 12 members they have no more than two women on those boards.”
Commenting on the FTSE board figures, Alexander said: “A lot of excuses are made for not appointing women. You’re either not looking in the right places or you don’t know where to look.
“Some of the comments last were cultural and that starts at the top. If it changes from the top it will trickle down the company.”
He said companies which had made asserted changes were more profitable and said it was vital businesses look at underlying figures, such as pay and how long women stay at a company to create gender balance.
Speaking on a panel discussing the gender pay gap, Karen Gill, owner of female business network Everywoman, said technology companies were undermining traditional power structures.
“Companies have got to open up and be much more inclusive because there isn’t just this group of people up there holding on to power,” she said. “That’s why enlightened companies are embracing change.”
But Shearings Leisure Group chief executive Richard Calvert said the industry should not “beat itself up” over inequality and named a list of women who held senior roles across the sector. However, he acknowledged the industry must not be “complacent”.
Only two out of 27 candidates put forward for a chief financial officer role at the company were women, which Calvert said he was disappointed by.
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