The UN’s World Tourism Organization and UN Women have marked International Women’s Day by reaffirming a commitment to keep women’s empowerment at the core of tourism development.
The UN bodies’ ‘Centre Stage’ model, which was launched in 2021, aims to address an imbalance which sees women make up 54% of the global tourism workforce but with a concentration in “lower-paid, precarious and often informal work”.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, they said: “UNWTO research has previously shown the enormous potential of the tourism sector to empower women of all backgrounds. Fifty-four per cent of the global tourism workforce is female, the gender-wage gap is lower in tourism, and the proportion of women in leadership roles is higher than in other sectors.
“However, much progress is still to be made. Women are still concentrated in lower-paid, precarious and often informal work. Furthermore, UNWTO research has revealed that the Covid-19 pandemic hit women in tourism harder than men.
“For instance, women were more likely to lose their job, have their hours or pay reduced and to shoulder more care responsibilities in all of the countries surveyed.”
UNWTO secretary-general Zurab Pololikashvili said “UNWTO has worked with our partners to study and document the huge contribution women make to tourism. Now it is time for tourism to give back.
“With the ‘Centre Stage’ model we can help the sector work for women and we will not stop until the girls of tomorrow have the same opportunities as the men of today.”
Centre Stage was created by UNWTO, BMZ and UN Women and is “geared towards creating a people-centred model for tourism development that puts the needs of women at its heart”.
The UNWTO said: “In bringing together the public sector with tourism businesses and civil society organisation, the project directly trained 1,800 people, saw 2,826 women get a promotion, surveyed 27,000 people and reached over 20 million in a global awareness raising campaign.”