By exploring the role of women labour in the tourism/hospitality industry, critically examine the barriers

They face and the extent to which these might be addressed by employers

The hospitality industry has evolved as one of the fastest-growing industries across the globe, employing a large number of people and generating huge foreign currency, especially in developing countries. Hospitality is often defined as “any and all businesses and devices aiming to serve people outside of their private home” (Barrows, 1999). Hospitality and tourism are sometimes used interchangeably, however, the hospitality industry is a broader term and it includes a number of activities, including lodging, transportation, cruise line, theme parks, event planning, and other fields within the tourism industry. The industry has potential to contribute to socio-economic environment of a country, but it requires to be carried out in a controlled manner otherwise it could lead pollution as well as degradation of the natural environments. Any introduction needs to highlight the question and how it intends to respond – this does not do that

In 2004, more than 763 million international tourists’ arrivals were recorded and there has been no-stopping by ever since. Moreover, the domestic tourist activities are increasingly higher over the years. With such a drastic growth, the employment requirement has increased parallel in order to facilitate it. The hospitality industry has offered equal opportunity for both men and women across the globe really??? This is NOT refelected in the research. Unlike other industries, hospitality industry is not only dominated by male employees, but female employees play a crucial role in the industry not clear, numerically women dominate, but men do in managerialpositions – again USE the literature.The industry is characterised by increasing number of women employees (High Level Group, 1998 very out of date source). The underlying study discusses gender implications of a global career in tourism, with special reference to women. Furthermore, the study will evaluate the challenges faced by women labour in the hospitality industry and to what extent employers are able to cater to their needs.

The characteristics of the hospitality industry indicate the relevance of segregation in terms of occupation do you mean in relation to gender??. Why not first look at the numbers and extent of female employment in the industryMajority of jobs in the industry are considered to be having stigma due to servility factor attached to it, and thus people in many cultures regard it suitable for women, especially in Caribbean countries (Bolles, 1997; Gabriel, 1988). This has resulted in some of the occupations in the industry to be dominated by a single gender i.e. female (Greenlaw and Grubb, 1982). Chant (1997), Jordan (1997), and Sinclair (1997) thinkthat the characteristics associated with the sector are vouched to perpetuate the roles of fair sexes and sustain gender-based occupational segregation this is not clear enough – which jobs for example are mainly done by women??. In fact, this industry tends to belong to a group of gender segregated industries (Hicks, 1990; Bagguley, 1991). Mass tourism tends togenerate occupational structures on the basis of educational levels, which ultimately facilitates incorporation of women with lower educational levels into such kind of tasksis thuis a quote(McLaren, 1998;Gmelch, 2003;Patullo, 1996).

Purcell (1996) has proposed classification of jobs in the hospitality industry which indicates the major reasons behind the segregation in the occupation in the sector. First, although women may perform the jobs in the most of the cases, but the job demand is gender-neutral. Employers strive to get cheap labour, in order to optimise their profits. Traditionally, women are considered to be “family component” instead of “breadwinners”, which makes them available to work on lower wages compared to men. Also, there are many jobs where sexuality as well as other attributes associated with gender are an implicit or explicit part of their specifications; these are called as gender-typified jobs.  Instead of these 2 very unclearparagraphs why not look at the position of women in hospitality and then look at job segregation – also use up to date sources when you are discussing factual detail – why not use Baum as well???

Generally, a cliché in the hospitality industry works that “right kind of personality” is more crucial employment requirement than employees’ formal qualifications. Personality is primarily used in hospitality as a synonym for the sexual attractiveness. Lastly, a number of jobs are categorised patriarchally-prescribed jobs, because conventional practices prescribe the gender appropriate in each case. Due to household division of labour and gender socialisation, the employers see tacit skills of women and consider them to be having “inherent aptitudes” relevant to the job requirements in the hospitality. Therefore, there are primarily three elements that determine or predispose employers to hire particular kinds of work in hospitality industry: sex, gender, and labour price. This all seems like speculation which is not suitable for work at this level – all your work must be based on reliable evidece

Following the very line of reasoning proposed by Purcell (1996), Doherty and Manfredi (2001) came up with interesting conclusions based on a number of interviews with both employees and employers from sample hotels in the UK and Italy.The jobs in restaurants and bars were gendered mainly due to the reason that the employers were intending to hire inexpensive labour no matter what their sex is. Cleaning jobs were specifically considered that women were better off cleaning compared to men. Thus, this job was patriarchally-prescribed job. Generally, women were not considered for night job in Italian hospitality industry due to safety as well as social reasons if this is an example from Italy make that clear and it also needs integrating more efcegtively into the rest of the essay as opposed to throwing in without reference to your other analysis.

There are enough of evidence that suggest that the employment of women in hospitality industry is segregated both vertically and horizontally – yes this could be a usful way to start your second paragraph. The occupational segregation of women is done based on their “feminine” characteristics and domestic skills, as shown in the works of Kinnaird, Kothari and Hall (1994), Enloe (1989), and Adkins (1992). According to Burrell et al. (1997), reception and cleaning in the hotel industry in the France, Spain, UK, and Italy are the occupational areas dominated by women. However, there is an obstacle for women on reception job in the small hotels, mainly due to security reasonsas the job involves carrying suitcases. It was found that majority of jobs in the bar in the UK, France, and Spain are dominated by men, but it is somewhat even in Italy. These studies found that women are more likely to be in cleaning and washing than cooking. However, cooking is also a domestic work, it is dominated by men in the hospitality industry.

Church and Frost (2004), Hicks (1990), and Kattara (2005) have shown that women tend to have jobs with the lower status to their male counterparts, which indicates that there is a vertical segregation in the industry. Richter (1995) and Walsh (1990) show that women are employed at worst paid subordinate positions. Burrell et al. (1997) found that women are in slight majority in supervision and management jobs in the UK. McKenzie-Gentry (2007)reported that there were just 3% women managers of the total staff in Belize, and this percentage is even lower in other kinds of companies.

Despite the importance of women in the hospitality industry, women are primarily considered for lower jobs in hospitality industry. They are employed based on their domestic and feminine characteristics as they are considered to be better off doing compared to men. However, most of the employers are looking to hire staff with lower salary and they find women to be the most suitable for the job. Women are primarily provided with the safe jobs and their involvement is avoided with unsafe and requiring heavy duty job in the hospitality industry.It is also seen that women are employed in the industry for their sexual attractiveness. Much of this paragraph is unreferenced and therefore loses credibilityThere is a general perception among the employers in the hospitality industry is that customers respond well to the women staff as they feel more comfortable and safe.

Again how does this section fit in with the rest of your essay – try and plan all of your essay not just sub sections – this quote is also thrown in without any context or reference to other sections in your essay“Women play a crucial role across the industry whether as employees, suppliers, or consumers. Therefore, empowering them is a big part of our duty. Women’s empowerment means activating a sustained change in protecting, growing and improving the livelihoods of thousands of women in the communities in which we operate. We are very proud to be presenting this important conference, as it allows us to contribute towards making an impact that is sustainable into the future, and inevitably make a difference in an issue that is far more important than our own business and supply chain,”. These were the words said by Gilbert Ghostine, President, Diageo Asia Pacific.

Far too much of this and the next paragraph  is speculation and again has no role in a Masters level essayIn any organization everyone talks about development, profits and women empowerment, but do they really mean about it? Profits and development have been the first priority in organization leaving much focus on the external factors ignoring the fact that the base of an organization is strong only if it is well maintained internally.  Although, dedication, good communication and problem solving skills may make a woman equal to a man, but the ‘luck’ factor remains stronger to the male domain side. Women today are facing numerous problems at work which leads to lack in development in their careers. They lack in opportunities, no mobility in the service, their hard work and dedication goes unnoticed and so on.  The other factors include job characteristics, mentoring, and gender issue, balancing personal and professional life, relationships at work, family concerns, work atmosphere and long work hours. With such unending factors it is bond to affect women labours physically as well as mentally (Bolles, 1997).Analysing the survey it is has been studied that the levels of stress and job satisfaction influences in their marital, parental and managerial status. The women usually hired for a non-managerial post and mostly hired as hostess, house-keeping and labourer. They are mostly noticeable in guest relations’ and human resource departments. Managerial positions are taken by them in housekeeping, considering them as a female forte.  Thou the managing post is a pride post, the high price to pay for this lifestyle is stress, tension and work/life balance with women mind resulting in stressed-out individuals. Due to this, women are not able to fulfil the demand on their jobs and clasp under pressure. Stress brings a crash of failure which invites more stress making it evil cycle, resulting in a falling performance (Burgess, 2003).

The other problem faced by the women in hospitality is humiliation.  They have to go through various humiliations a lack respects from the management, it especially happens with the housekeeping staff. This results in lack of performance level. Since the performance is the key for trek in salary and rewards, under performance by the employee leads to down fall of self-esteem and job satisfaction (Church, and Frost, 2004).

What you need to go through is an understanding of why segregation, both horizontal and vertical exists to then identify how managers might address some of these inequalities and the next few paragraphs do not really do that. Also again far too much appears based on speculation OR just one referenceat the end of a paragraphSomeof the common problems faced by married women roll on higher level of domestic stress.  Married women find difficult to handle their domestic and professional life. Their responsibilities are merged in such a way that they cannot escape it without any stress compared to unmarried women where they face less domestic stress and responsibilities confronting domestic and professional commitments. They are even less affected by work and life conflict. The degree of stress seen in married women workers is higher in evaluating to unmarried women workers(Gmelch, 2003).

Another problems faced by the women is that they have loads of work load. Majority of the women find it difficult to face the challenges of their hotel job and house responsibilities because of the heavy workload at both the fronts simultaneously .they may be very few women who face such a contradictory situation. But majority of the women agree that their efficiency at work could be more if they can get full support from their home.  The work pressure affects personal life too and the symptoms can be clearly seen in them (Kattara, 2005).

Due to the lots of competitors around women face a low esteem too. Women workers experience low level of self-esteem and job satisfaction too.  According to a survey, most of the unmarried women workers in star hotels have registered negative responses regarding low level of job satisfaction and very few workers agreed their high level of job satisfaction and high level of self-esteem too (Richter, 1995).

Hospitality business in today’s world is widely spread with huge multinational companies employing numerous employees world-wide. The business is not just a hotel but it includes casinos, restaurant chains, clubs, airlines and cruise line companies. As these organizations jumble in the world spreading globalization the problem it faces everywhere and all the regions of countries is the management. It is a big issue as how to increase standardization, service level and staff growth. Qualified well behaved staff is necessary and the problems women face in hospitality sector it is difficult to make the ends meet (Bagguley, 1991).

The industry provides employment for 74.2 million people, or 2.8% of total world employment. Looking at employment statistics might be more appropriate at the start of the essay, also why the sudden focus on Turkey. It may be that women’s employment experience is not consistent across countries and therefore you give a number of different examples, but you8 do  not make that clearAnd in a data collected via survey states that, 571 women work in five-star hotels in Turkey. They are well organized and skilled. They been given trained and educated with high interest in the industry, let them work for hours. But in a study findings it is revealed that it results in low wages, lack of enough time for friends and family, and difficulty of getting a promotion and bonus even after slogging hard (McKenzie-Gentry, 2007).

Women face much more problems as housekeeping. While hotel workers are hurt physically, the rate of getting hurt is 25% that too only in women workers. 91% of women have suffered work-related pains and injuries reference???. While sexual assault is rare, they reveal that invasive of harassment is unsafe during the working conditions for the women who work in this industry. Women routinely endure indecent exposure and shame from the guests. The managements act as stone and silent. They instead tell the women employers that the guest is always right. It becomes difficult for the women to raise their voice and ask for their safety and a secure workplace (Katz, and Tanzi, 2013).

Over the past decades, women have become a superior proportion for the workforce have they???. Till now the number of women’s growth has made them reach to higher positions. However, women have been still under signified in their positions compared to the overall employment. They are also unevenly hired, rewarded and promoted. In much hospitality management the executives usually argue that women are under qualified, have a low educational Background, no skills or proper work experience which makes them slow in any significant progress. Although men and women are rated based on their performances, gender gap but still subsist during the time of promotions and perks. They feel hiring women employers for a higher post would be a disadvantage as she would not be able to handle faultlessly (Nga, and Pine, 2003).

Every woman feels to be positioned in a good post. Wearing her uniform with her name-tagged on it and she is surrounded guests asking her for assistance will make any women feel proud. What is the relevance of this???There is an inherent value which is emotionally loud, that they get from being of assistance to other people (Sparrowe, and Iverson, 1999).

But to make every dream true one has to face many challenges and as we see the women in today’s industry are facing numerous problems related at their workplace. But what could be done to avoid such type of problems and deal with them? The first important factor to know about the problems is to ‘speak’. Unless and until the employers won’t be able to convey their problems the management itself would not understand.  Addressing the issues will enable the organization to help the employees to develop their abilities and create a supportive environment for the women in long term basis (Zhong, Couch, and Blum, 2011). While few women opt to remain silent during certain times; there are yet other set of women who show courage especially if they have been a victim of harassment. It is important that they need to come forward, share their stories make other people aware too. Misconduct of behaviour should not be tolerated. Launching a campaign is always a better start. Things would definitely change, never fast but slow. If a woman is facing problem of lack of knowledge and understanding she can ask for assistance and training programs so that she can take responsibilities in the administrative. There are many barriers before them but it depends on how you act on it (Katz, and Tanzi, 2013).

Problem of male dominance can be spoken to the management stating for equal treatment same as the male employees. Make them know that they should be more understanding towards the female employees, you can even discuss this issues by organizing a meeting. There are various issues at work and so only women can take up a stand for her and rise the problems such as how they have been treated unequally during promotions, payments and rewards.  If an employee is married she has to make sure that she keeps her priorities straight and tell the management that workload is unacceptable and it is hard to manage your professional and domestic life together. This will result in making others understand your work table and how work is allotted (Adib, and Guerrier, 2003).

Many women are concerned about their securities where is your evidence??. The best way to solve the problem is by making yourself secured by using various facilities available in your hotels. For example you can ask for panic buttons which are worn around you in case of any event of attacks. If you are at night shift make sure you tell the security where you have been located. These types of small steps will make hospitality management realize your importance as a woman (Richter, 1995).

Inequality is on both the sides of the workplace which leaves an effect on the health/ safety of women at work. European Risk Observatory says that “examining the specific challenges in terms of health and safety posed by the more extensive integration of women in the labour market”. There research included issues faced by younger, middle aged and older women too. They also included how women lacks in the growth of service sector, harassment, diversified working time patterns and increasingly violence     ?????

One of the problems faced by women is competition. Competition among each other for higher post is seen common among the women employees. They carry an attitude for job assignments that often develops among them who want to be in “glamorous positions” which ends up developing harmful and unfortunate attitude making a grunt position. Glamorous position includes Hostess, Desk Clerk, and Server. These wrong views and missed opportunity to learn about their profession is rarely reversed and never overcome (Church, and Frost, 2004).

The next problem addressed should be communication. With the lack of communication goals women face misunderstanding among guest and management. This problem can be related to countless reasons, including the pattern, notions and bias. Miscommunications can be developed only when there is lack of understanding which leads to negativity in the organization (Nga, and Pine, 2003).You seem to be guessing at the barriers rather than using sound literature to guide you

It is renowned that the biggest source of working knowledge takes to create a triumphant hospitality environment is through the staff workers. But the level of information goes unrewarded by the management which results in all the losses in a big way. This is the major problem which needs to be addressed, but intently demoted to the human resources department to address and handle (Sparrowe, and Iverson, 1999).

Few employers intently fear of losing their job, or do not understand what decision to be taken in a particular situation if they are facing problems. Sometimes they are lost and don’t get any way of doing something, and so they prefer to remain quiet and hog to their given tasks which results in workload, stress and mental disturbance. This type of unwieldy is unproductive, risky and even hazardous sometimes. The staff thus goes untapped because of their managers or the management who are enable and insensitive towards their staff. Understanding women workers is a duty of the management but very few ask them for help and if not, the staff member chooses to simply stay quiet (Kattara, 2005).

Evidently, occupation segregation lies to a great extent in the hospitality industry. While womenare mainly associated with lower jobs and the jobs that call for their domestic and feminine characteristics.The employers need to avoid biasness based on gender and keep it all fair and square so that women labour in the industry can feel rightly paid and rightly treated. Governments also need to come up with stricter rules and laws in order to check this disparity and ensure the more participation of women.

We live in an era where women are doing wonders in every field and they are at the top positions. Considering them only apt for lower jobs shows the patriarchal mentality. Moreover, women face a lot of challenges working in the industry and it requires a great deal of effort from the employers to solve their problems. Women labour in the hospitality industry generally faces those problems and challenges which are addressable by the employers to a large extent.

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