Reading Between the Lines: What Hotel Companies Do Not Say About Gender Equality – Hospitality Net

Report on Gender Equality in the Hospitality Industry: An SDG Perspective

Introduction: Assessing Alignment with Sustainable Development Goals

An analysis of public documents from sixteen major international hotel chains reveals a significant disconnect between corporate commitments to gender equality and meaningful action. This report evaluates the industry’s performance against the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), primarily focusing on SDG 5 (Gender Equality) and SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth). The findings indicate that the industry’s current approach is largely performative, failing to address the systemic barriers that inhibit progress towards these global targets.

Analysis of Corporate Strategy and SDG Compliance

Symbolic Policies vs. Measurable Impact

While all major hotel companies have established policies on diversity and inclusion, these frameworks often lack the robust mechanisms required for genuine progress on the SDGs. The approach prioritises symbolic compliance over substantive change.

• Lack of Metrics: Most policies, including anti-discrimination and harassment prevention frameworks, are not supported by clear metrics or independent audits. This prevents effective monitoring of progress, a core principle of the SDG agenda.
• Ineffective Training: Companies rarely publish data demonstrating that anti-bias training leads to measurable changes in promotion patterns or retention, rendering these initiatives insufficient for achieving SDG 5.
• Accountability Gap: Without measurement and accountability, corporate policies function as signals of intent rather than as effective solutions for dismantling structural inequality.

Leadership and Representation: A Failure to Meet SDG Target 5.5

The underrepresentation of women in senior leadership roles is a direct failure to meet SDG Target 5.5, which calls for women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership in political, economic, and public life. The industry’s efforts in this area remain superficial.

• Tokenism over Transformation: The promotion of a few women to senior roles is often showcased in corporate reports, but these appointments are isolated examples rather than evidence of systemic changes to succession planning or corporate culture.
• Ignoring Informal Barriers: Corporate documentation consistently fails to address the informal “old boys’ club” networks that perpetuate male dominance in leadership and impede career advancement for women.
• Industry Paradox: A critical disconnect exists where women constitute the majority of the operational workforce but are severely underrepresented at senior and decision-making levels, undermining the principles of both SDG 5 and SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities).

Economic Empowerment: Gaps in SDG 8 and SDG 10

Pay Equity and SDG Target 8.5

The industry’s approach to gender pay equity is opaque and falls short of SDG Target 8.5, which advocates for equal pay for work of equal value. Corporate narratives often mask ongoing inequalities.

• Lack of Transparency: Companies claim to have closed pay gaps, yet detailed audits and granular data are rarely disclosed. This reluctance to provide specific data on base pay, bonuses, and promotion-related compensation prevents a true assessment of pay equity.
• Surface-Level Adjustments: Without systemic changes to job evaluation practices and reward structures that address the historical devaluation of women’s work, claims of pay equity remain unsubstantiated.

Critique of Development and Partnership Initiatives

Corporate interventions, while appearing progressive, often misdiagnose the root causes of gender inequality, thereby failing to create lasting change in line with the SDG framework.

1. The Development Trap: Leadership training and mentoring programmes place the burden of change on women, framing the issue as a deficit in their skills rather than a result of organisational barriers. This “fix the women” approach distracts from the need for structural reform.
2. The Partnership Paradox: Alliances with women’s advocacy organisations are presented as evidence of commitment to SDG 5. However, these partnerships often serve branding purposes more than they drive internal change, as they typically lack transparent evaluation frameworks or outcome reports.

Conclusion and Recommendations for SDG Alignment

Summary of Key Deficiencies

The hospitality industry’s current strategy is insufficient to achieve meaningful progress on gender equality. The core cultural and structural roots of inequality remain unaddressed.

• Cultural Blind Spots: A focus on procedural compliance and legal risk mitigation has led to a neglect of workplace culture, which is the primary battleground for equality.
• Performative Action: The reliance on symbolic gestures, unmeasured policies, and superficial partnerships fails to dismantle the systems that perpetuate gender inequality.

A Path Forward: Structural Interventions for the 2030 Agenda

To move beyond symbolic compliance, hotel companies must embed SDG 5 and SDG 8 into their core business strategies through concrete, measurable actions. For an industry reliant on human capital, achieving gender equality is not only a moral imperative but a competitive advantage aligned with global sustainability targets.

1. Adopt Measurable Targets: Establish and publish explicit, time-bound targets for gender parity at all levels, particularly in leadership.
2. Ensure Transparency: Implement robust and transparent pay gap reporting, verified by independent audits.
3. Drive Structural Change: Move beyond policy checklists to actively dismantle cultural barriers, reform succession planning, and co-design development programmes with women’s networks.
4. Integrate Equity: Embed gender equity considerations into all business functions, including supplier diversity programmes and talent management systems.

Analysis of Sustainable Development Goals in the Article

1. Which SDGs are addressed or connected to the issues highlighted in the article?

• SDG 5: Gender Equality

  This is the central theme of the article. The text directly addresses the disparity between men and women in the hotel industry, focusing on issues like the underrepresentation of women in leadership roles (“women…remain significantly underrepresented at senior levels”), the gender pay gap, and the need for systemic changes to achieve genuine equality.

• SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth

  The article is set within the context of the workplace and employment in the hospitality industry. It discusses key elements of decent work, including equal pay for work of equal value (“On gender pay, the story becomes even murkier”), non-discrimination policies, harassment prevention, and opportunities for career advancement (“how men and women advance their careers, get promoted”).

• SDG 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

  The article critiques the lack of effective, accountable, and transparent institutions within the corporate structure of hotel chains. It highlights that policies are often “performative” and lack enforcement, measurement, or accountability (“Without measurement or accountability, ‘policies become signals rather than solutions'”). This connects to the goal of building strong and transparent institutions.

2. What specific targets under those SDGs can be identified based on the article’s content?

• Target 5.5: Ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life.

  The article’s core argument revolves around this target. The section “Leadership: Still a Mirage” explicitly details how women are underrepresented in senior management and board positions, and that their presence is often “symbolic rather than transformative.”

• Target 8.5: By 2030, achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men… and equal pay for work of equal value.

  The section “Pay Equity: Playing the Numbers Game” directly addresses this target. It critiques hotel companies’ claims of closing pay gaps, noting that “detailed audits are rare and granular data even rarer,” and points to inequalities in performance bonuses and career advancement that affect overall pay.

• Target 5.1: End all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere.

  The article mentions that “Every major chain analysed in the study has anti-discrimination policies, harassment prevention frameworks, and diversity training programmes,” which are corporate mechanisms designed to address this target, even if their effectiveness is questioned.

• Target 16.6: Develop effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels.

  The article criticizes the lack of accountability in the hotel industry’s gender equality initiatives. It states that policies are not enforced with “clear metrics or independent audits” and that partnerships with advocacy groups “rarely include evaluation frameworks or transparent outcome reports,” pointing to a failure in creating accountable corporate institutions.

3. Are there any indicators mentioned or implied in the article that can be used to measure progress towards the identified targets?

• Proportion of women in managerial/leadership positions (Indicator 5.5.2).

  This is explicitly discussed. The article analyzes the “senior leadership representation” and notes that “women…remain significantly underrepresented at senior levels,” making this a key metric of the industry’s failure.

• Gender pay gap data (Relates to Indicator 8.5.1).

  The article directly refers to the measurement of pay equity. It criticizes the lack of “detailed audits” and “granular data” on pay, implying that transparent reporting on the gender pay gap is a crucial indicator of progress.

• Existence and enforcement of non-discrimination and anti-harassment policies.

  The article mentions that all companies have such policies but questions their impact. An implied indicator is the presence of enforcement mechanisms, such as “clear metrics or independent audits,” to measure if these policies are effective.

• Promotion and retention rates of women.

  The article implies these as key indicators when it questions “whether their anti-bias training changes promotion patterns or whether flexible work leads to greater retention of women in leadership.”

• Publication of explicit gender parity targets.

  The article mentions that some leading brands “publish explicit gender parity targets” as part of a more comprehensive approach. The existence and publication of such targets can serve as an indicator of a company’s commitment.

4. Table of SDGs, Targets, and Indicators

Source: hospitalitynet.org