UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Penn State School of Hospitality Management has released the 2023 Women in Hospitality research report. The report assesses the state of women’s representation in leadership in the hotel industry. Findings show women’s advancement to executive level roles in 2022 was steady, yet slow.
A team of doctoral students supervised by Phil Jolly, assistant professor of hospitality management at Penn State, reviewed publicly available data spanning more than 6,000 individuals from 701 companies and more than 7,000 hotel-investment-conference attendees.
Key findings include:
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Representation of women at the top levels of hospitality leadership continues to increase, with women making modest gains at the CEO and president levels.
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Women now hold one in four of all chief-level positions at hotel companies, concentrated primarily in human resources and sales/marketing roles.
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At the director level, women and men now occupy an equal number of positions.
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Women held 24% of the podium spots at hotel investment conferences, up from 16% in 2017. On the main stage, 37% of prime speaking spots in 2022 went to women — up from 22% in 2021.
“This report indicates that gender diversity is increasing at lower levels of hotel leadership, which creates a pipeline of leaders who are likely to continue diversifying the upper ranks of leadership in the industry in years to come,” said Jolly.
View the full 2023 Women in Hospitality research report at this link.
2023 Women in Hospitality is the sixth annual benchmark report funded by the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) Foundation, a philanthropic organization that aims to inspire, support and advance the hospitality workforce.
“We want to see equity for women at the leadership level and across the hotel industry, and this progress is encouraging,” said AHLA Foundation President Anna Blue. “Representation is only the first step. We see growing efforts by our members to prioritize intersectional leadership, inclusion, and belonging for women in the industry.”
AHLA and the AHLA Foundation are also part of the Women in Hospitality Leadership Alliance.
For more information about Penn State’s School of Hospitality Management, contact Donna Quadri-Felitti, the Marvin Ashner Endowed Director, at dlq3@psu.edu.