The hospitality and tourism (H&T) sector is a major driver of economic growth and employment in the Mekong Region, with pre-COVID-19annual international arrivals
totalling around 50million, expenditure up to $67billion and jobs provided to around 10million people.
More than half of those working in the H&T sector in the region are women, often young, low-skilled and lacking in education. The H&T sector, despite being a major employer of women, is characterized by deep-rooted gender inequities, stereotypes, and discrimination, detracting womenʼs opportunities for decent work, equal pay,
and representation in decision-making roles. Globally, the sector is not immune to gendered divisions of quality work, however, each region has varying levels of success and progress in ensuring equal outcomes for women.
Progress and empowerment for women in the H&T sector in the Mekong region are held back by entrenched social norms, unequal economic development and lack of government support or pressure. It has been widely demonstrated that investing in women and taking strides to ensure their equal participation in the economy and job market not only brings great returns on investment but recoups the lost potential economic contribution of women Beyond this, there is a clear moral imperative that women should be able to enjoy the same opportunities of men, free from discrimination, unequal treatment, and
exploitative work.
The objective of this review is to contribute to the knowledge garnered under the Girls Advocacy Alliance project conducted by Plan International on womenʼs empowerment in different industries in Asia. Specifically, this review aims to provide an overview of the state of business efforts to promote womenʼs empowerment in the H&T sector in the Mekong region. The review itself reflects a major knowledge gap on the private sectorsʼwork to enact change for women. There has been a sheer lack of publicly available data of businesses pro-actively pursuing policies to promote womenʼsempowerment or well-being in the workplace. From the literature that exists, discussions focus on either the challenges or positive practices found globally and for those contextualized in Asia-Pacific, challenges are well-documented but good practices are not.
For the Mekong region, as in other regions, the challengesforwomenʼsempowerment in the H&T sector largely lies with the social constraints placed upon women by harmful gender norms and stereotypes that bleed into the workplace. It is found that social norms impact theH&T sector to a greater extent than other sectors as occupations are increasingly assigned with gendered attributes. The similarities to womenʼsprescribed household and domestic duties and the demand for allegedly ʻfeminineʼtraitsrelating to hospitableness are referenced alongside the ease with which young and ʻunskilledʼ workers can enter into jobs in the industry.
