HOLLYWOOD, Fla. -- The women attending the Women’s
Leadership Initiative breakfast at the Phocuswright Conference here were up
early in order to lean in.
The room was packed by 7:30 a.m. when analyst Claudia Unger
took the stage to talk about new Phocuswright research on gender equality in
the workplace.
But from the research and subsequent discussions in the
room, it seemed that gender parity -- and men’s and women’s perceptions of it
-- mirrored the conference’s theme, “Are we there yet?”
The fact that the answer came up “not yet” didn’t dampen the
enthusiasm at the breakfast, where more than a dozen tables of 10 were chaired
by at least one “leadHER,” a female manager at a travel company selected by
Phocuswright to lead group discussions and act as a potential mentor.
While women have long been a force in the travel agency
community, particularly on the front lines, much of the rest of the industry is
still struggling to get more females in its executive ranks. That struggle is
even more pronounced in fields like travel tech, where jobs have historically
been held by men.
Several speakers asserted that creating and maintaining a
diverse workforce were the results of deliberate decisions.
Bringing women into leadership roles takes a “conscious and
persistent effort,” said Traci Mercer, senior vice president of global lodging,
ground and sea, for Sabre Travel Network and one of the event’s four panelists.
The audience was primarily women, but men in attendance
included Richard Harris, the CEO of travel-data firm Intent and another
panelist, who said that companies wanting to diversify their teams need to make
a concerted effort to expand the hiring pool.
“If you just take the easiest path in building your culture
and your company -- in our case, in New York, in tech, data
science -- you’ll end up with a bunch of white dudes
working at the company, running the company,” he said. “When it comes to
recruiting, you have to demand a diverse slate of candidates when you’re
recruiting. ... You have to put effort into it.”
Gender diversity also received a powerful endorsement
earlier in the month from Lisa Lutoff-Perlo, CEO of Celebrity Cruises, which
will operate a cruise next year with an all-female bridge and officer team.
Lutoff-Perlo said the line has been working hard to bring
more women onto the ships.
The Phocuswright conference was the first of three major
travel events this season that incorporated a panel about women in the travel
industry.
At the U.S. Tour Operators Association annual conference in Orlando this month, CEO
Terry Dale received a hearty round of applause when he said it was a priority
to have more women represented in USTOA leadership.
USTOA’s chairwoman, Dana Santucci, also vice president of EF
Education First, said one of the issues women face in the travel industry is
that many of the jobs require travel, which can be difficult when starting a
family.
“The challenge in this industry is not related to being a
woman, but is about finding ways to balance the work and family
responsibilities when the role can require significant travel,” she said.
Meanwhile, female leaders in the luxury travel space
gathered at the International Luxury Travel Market (ILTM) in Cannes, France,
for a breakfast and panel discussion on achieving greater gender parity.
Tina Edmundson, global brand leader and head of the luxury
portfolio for Marriott International, said one of the best ways to fix the
gender gap is to hire women, “because women hire women.”
At Marriott, she said, 50% of CEO Arne Sorenson’s direct
reports are women. Likewise, 50% of those reporting to her boss are female, and
50% of her direct reports are women.
Colliding perceptions
The Phocuswright research, which was fielded in September
and focused on travel company employees, primarily in manager roles and higher,
highlighted some interesting differences between how men and women view
advancement in the workplace.
For example, more than 50% of male respondents in the survey
said they agreed that leadership opportunities are equally available to all
employees, but fewer than 40% of female respondents agreed.
And only 25% of female respondents agreed that there was a
clear, available path for leadership cultivation in the workplace, compared
with more than 40% of male respondents.
“It’s a matter of perception,” said Unger, the lead
Phocuswright analyst on the study.
The study also showed a schism between what managers think
they offer and what employees feel they receive. The data revealed that 72% of
managers said they give team members opportunities to manage people and
projects but that only 45% of men and 41% of women said managers did this.
Sixty percent of managers said they helped team members
navigate organizational politics, but only 29% of men and 28% of women agreed.
“There’s a difference between what you think you’re doing
and what people think you’re doing,” Unger warned.
More than 55% of women said “bias among management” was an
obstacle to advancing to a leadership position, compared with fewer than 40% of
men.
To the point voiced by Santucci at the USTOA conference,
more women respondents than men said that lack of work-life balance was an
obstacle. As Phocuswright attendees warmed to that topic, several women spoke
about jokingly being asked by a manager to delay or schedule their pregnancies
around work projects.
The breakfast ended just before 9 a.m., but the conversation
wasn’t over. Phocuswright and news site PhocusWire are starting a women’s
mentorship initiative, and the final presentation slide was of travel companies
whose CEOs have signed on to the CEO Action on Diversity and Inclusion
initiative, launched by the leaders of several Fortune 500 companies in 2017,
under which business leaders pledge to create a culture of inclusivity and set
best practices for diversity. (Northstar Travel Group, owner of Phocuswright
and Travel Weekly, is a signatory on the pledge.)
Expedia Group also is a signatory on the pledge. But later,
during a main-stage interview with then-CEO Mark Okerstrom, Phocuswright
analyst Maggie Rauch admitted that “the focus on women always makes me a little
uncomfortable, because ultimately it kind of means white women, and there’s so
much more,” and she asked Okerstrom why companies are so focused on this one
area.
“We focused on gender, initially ... we’re focusing on
inclusion for everyone,” Okerstrom said. “We wanted to pick an area where we
felt we could make a real difference, and we have made a real difference over
the course of the last five to seven years.”
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Jeri Clausing contributed reporting from the ILTM in Cannes
and Johanna Jainchill from the USTOA conference in Orlando.