Sky Sports football coverage may be stuck in the 1950s, but business travel appears to have a much better attitude towards gender.
In the same week a sports presenter was sacked, another resigned and a third was suspended for sexist remarks relating to a female referee’s assistant, the GTMC’s first demographic survey showed the sector is dominated by women.
The GTMC 2010 survey, completed by 80% of 34 business travel members, showed 67% of workforces are female and 64% of senior managers are women. A typical business travel employee is female, aged 35 to 44, works full-time, and has been with the same company for at least five years.
GTMC chief executive Anne Godfrey said the type of comments made by football pundits would never be tolerated in travel. “Can you imagine a man behaving like that in this industry?” she said.
Commenting on the survey, she added: “There doesn’t appear to be a glass ceiling and it’s not unusual to have women in senior positions.” She said it was just a “matter of time” before
more women advanced to senior roles in leisure travel.
Despite this, statistics released in November for the hospitality, leisure, travel and tourism industry by skills sector council People 1st showed the proportion of women in that sector had declined steadily from 61% in 2004-05 to 56% now.
Barriers to women advancing to senior roles included a dominant macho culture and difficulties combining work with childcare. Debbee Dale, of the Women 1st leadership council, said: “The more senior women there are, the more aspirational they are for others.”