Unwto-Un Women Report

Developed by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and UN Women, the Global Report on Women in Tourism 2010 is the first attempt to map the participation of women in the tourism industry worldwide.

The report presents a detailed picture of the active participation of women in tourism focusing

on five main areas: Employment, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Education and Community. In

the context of responsible tourism and local development, this study seeks to demonstrate that tourism can act as a vehicle for the empowerment of women.

The main findings of the report are that women make up a large proportion of the tourism sector worldwide and that the industry offers a wide range of opportunities for women’s economic empowerment. However, looking in more detail it can be seen that women are concentrated in low-skill, low-paid and precarious work in tourism. In the business world in general, gender equality has proven to be profitable. This fact opens up new and interesting opportunities in the tourism sector, where the enormous potential of women has not been fully harnessed. Women with higher levels of training and greater opportunities to develop their businesses contribute to exponential quality improvements in all areas of tourism activity.

The Global Report on Women in Tourism 2010 provides recommendations for the tourism

industry, national tourism administrations and the international community on how to move

forward with this pressing issue.