Guest Writer

Diluting the disparity

Imtiaz Muqbil

According to the International Labour Organisation, women today comprise 60 to 70 per cent of the global tourism workforce compared to only a third of this segment in the early 1980s. In catering/accommodation, women make up over 90 per cent of all employees. If this is true, some long overdue respect may finally be heading their way to recognise their importance in, and contribution to, the multi-billion dollar global travel and tourism industry.

In a move that will go down well in India as well as throughout Asia Pacific, where many of the tourism ministers, heads of national tourism organisations and corporate chiefs are women, the UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) is finalising a broad-based action plan designed to highlight and uplift the role of women as employers, employees and travellers.

Part of a special UNWTO Women in Tourism initiative, the plan is designed to raise and maintain awareness about the social and economic opportunities that tourism can offer to women, stress the need for appropriate policy frameworks to promote women's empowerment and protect women's rights in tourism and encourage the public and private sectors to facilitate the achievement of gender equality in tourism development.

Walking through the door

At a forum convened at ITB Berlin last month to finalise the plan, UNWTO deputy secretary general Dr Taleb Rifai, a former tourism minister of Jordan, noted that it falls within the framework of the UNWTO global code of ethics for tourism and is in line with the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), particularly goal number three - gender, equality and empowerment.

The framework of the plan was put together last year at a think tank organised on World Tourism Day in Sri Lanka on the theme of 'Tourism Opening Doors For Women' and its inter-relationship with the MDGs. Chaired by Nilofar Bakhtiar, a former tourism minister of Pakistan, a group made up mostly of women who have played prominent roles in tourism, discussed the need to create more awareness about the opportunities for women and address their concerns amongst general policy makers and amongst women themselves.

According to Bakhtiar, the requirement is not only to open doors, but to make it possible for women to go through them, with the help of good training facilities, development programmes, targeted information, decent and equal pay, good career development, family support structures and frameworks for ensuring self-respect. This includes everything from focusing on specific opportunities presented by agro-tourism, eco-tourism, health and wellness, and the creative sector, as well as the fundamental requirement for the public sector to put in place and implement legislation for equal opportunity and fair working conditions, especially the need to address unreasonable working hours.

The plan, soon to be made public, will seek to put in place a data collection system, covering desk research and case studies on women's employment including occupations and positions held by women in the tourism industry, their access to tourism training and capacity-building via e-learning and training for self-employment.

The data collection will also cover direct access to credit facilities for women entrepreneurs in tourism, including micro-credit, women-run tourism businesses, and the number of women directly benefiting from development assistance schemes in tourism. It will also gather sex-disaggregated statistics on international female tourist arrivals and overnight stays.

A forum for women

The plan also calls for a focus on initiating a biennial 'UNWTO-UN Development Fund for Women' report on the situation of women in tourism (in collaboration with Griffith University in Australia) to identify women's current and potential roles in the tourism industry and the potential of tourism to enhance women's lives and livelihoods.

The plan will expand the website www.tourismgender.com into a portal to serve as a global knowledge sharing e-network and launch a global campaign aimed at governments, industry and media. It suggests organising annual fora at international tourism fairs aimed at exchanging experiences, disseminating good practices and acknowledging outstanding achievements of women leaders as example and motivation for other women.

It will also appeal to tourism workers unions and non-governmental organisations to denounce gender-related exploitative practices by businesses operating in the tourism sector. A network of activists, ambassadors, advocates and experts in gender issues will also be put together. According to Bakhtiar, societies where women are more equal stand a much greater chance of achieving the MDGs by 2015. "Every single goal is directly related to women's rights. Societies where women are not afforded equal rights as men can never achieve development in a sustained manner. In Asia, Latin America, and Africa, where women have been given a chance to succeed through small business loans or increased educational opportunities, families are stronger, economies are stronger, and societies are flourishing," she said.

On the dark side

The scope of the initiative and its accompanying action plan is extremely wide and well worth probing further, especially since the picture is not always a positive one. During discussions in Sri Lanka, the group highlighted the "danger of self-delusion in considering primarily the beneficial aspects of tourism and women while ignoring the darker side of exploitation, harassment, abuse and marginalisation."

There is also concern about the blatant and arguably exploitative use of female imagery, often in skimpy beachwear, in advertising campaigns for "sun-and-sand" holidays. As travellers, women are also exposed to a greater level of security risk, as indicated by the recent attacks in Goa. This is a global problem and will play a major role in determining not just where the growing legions of young female travellers choose to go on a holiday but also the image of that destination itself. Although this initiative is late and long overdue, it is still well worth taking forward at every level of the global travel and tourism industry, especially in order to address some of the wider gender issues affecting society at large. A more equitable, well-balanced industry that gives high priority to women as employees, employers and travellers is clearly in the interest of the local communities, the industry and the society at large. Giving it more prominence on policy agendas should therefore be the logical next step.

The author is the executive editor of Bangkok-based Travel Impact Newswire