The Women in Hospitality, Travel and Leisure 2020 report adds that gender diversity and female progression is being held back by a limited focus on the issue plus a lack of flexible working and inadequate support for women returning from career breaks.

The review is led by Tea Colaianni, chair of the Woman in Hospitality 2020 working group, an independent cross-industry body that includes accountants PwC, recruitment firm Korn Ferry, training specialist People 1st and Oxford Brookes University.

The review is based on interviews with more than 100 hospitality, travel and leisure company chairs, chief executives, HR Directors, recruiters and recent graduate recruits. The study examined diversity, inclusion and leadership of 26 industry organisations.

The research found that women currently make up 26% of senior management positions in the hospitality, travel and leisure sector, but that this falls to only 20% when human resources roles are excluded.

Travel companies were the best performers in terms of gender diversity, with 30% of women in senior management roles, compared to airlines with just 21%. The report adds: “Women are well represented in junior and middle management roles. However, a gap begins to emerge in the gender balance of middle management roles upwards.”

The report identified a number of steps needed. These include:

* Offering more support for women returning from career breaks
* Promoting and advocating shared parental leave
* Setting up and establishing mentoring programmes
* Making better use of technology to improve flexible working

Colaianni said: “While there are good examples of hospitality, travel and leisure organisations making progress to balance gender diversity, there is a real opportunity for the industry as a whole to rise to the challenge and lead the way.

“Given the diversity of customers and staff, ensuring that all levels of an organisation are representative is mission-critical for the continued success of the industry.”

Sarah Lim, managing director and head of UK consumer at Korn Ferry, added:
“There is a critical need for the industry to build an effective talent pipeline of senior female executives.

“With only one female chairperson and five female CEOs across the entire UK travel, hospitality and leisure industry today, there is significant work to be done to create the culture, career pathways and working environment to enable our most talented women to progress to become chairs and CEOs of the industry over the next five years.”