How can vocational education contribute to women’s empowerment in hospitality & tourism?

Every­one work­ing in travel & tour­ism and the hos­pit­al­ity sec­tor should be appro­pri­ately val­ued, paid, and recog­nised. With fresh research in hand, Soph­ie Hart­man, Nguyễn Thị Thu Thảo, and Võ Thị Quế Chi from the Asso­ci­ation of South­east Asi­an Social Enter­prises for Train­ing in Hos­pit­al­ity & Cater­ing (ASSET‑H&C) explain how voca­tion­al edu­ca­tion and train­ing can help achieve those out­comes for women. It’s a “Good Tour­ism” Insight.

For the past few dec­ades, the hos­pit­al­ity & tour­ism (H&T) sec­tor has been a major driver of eco­nom­ic growth and employ­ment in the Mekong River region of South­east Asia; Cam­bod­ia, Lao PDR, Myan­mar, Thai­l­and, and Viet­nam. A large pro­por­tion of this growth is con­trib­uted by female work­ers. How­ever, cer­tain chal­lenges are hinder­ing their pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment. In an attempt to empower women to ful­fil their career pro­spects, sev­er­al voca­tion­al train­ing centres have been offer­ing future tour­ism work­ers, espe­cially females, both com­pre­hens­ive train­ing and mar­ket­able skills. This approach has been proven to be effect­ive in help­ing women sus­tain and advance their careers.

Opportunities and challenges for women’s empowerment within H&T

More than half of the tour­ism work­force are women, often young, low-skilled and lack­ing edu­ca­tion. While hos­pit­al­ity & tour­ism has demon­strated its poten­tial to be a vehicle for social mobil­ity, eco­nom­ic empower­ment and inclu­sion for women, chal­lenges remain in cre­at­ing a decent and equal work­ing envir­on­ment for them.

For the Mekong region these are largely rooted in gender norms and ste­reo­types placed on women that bleed into the work­place. It is found that social norms impact the H&T sec­tor to a great­er extent than oth­er sec­tors as women tend to be engaged in ‘fem­in­ised’ roles that extend their pre­scribed house­hold duties, such as clean­ing and serving guests, and which tend to be inform­al and unstable. These gender norms also rein­force pres­sure on women to juggle work and domest­ic responsibilities.

Vocational training opens up sustainable careers for vulnerable women

Access to qual­ity voca­tion­al train­ing with high focus on life skills is a fun­da­ment­al first step to future empower­ment of young women enter­ing the hos­pit­al­ity & tour­ism industry, espe­cially the most vul­ner­able ones.

Clos­ing the edu­ca­tion and skills gap can act as an import­ant ena­bler for empower­ment by both decon­struct­ing gender norms and equip­ping young women with skills that increase their value to busi­nesses and thus make them less ‘expend­able’. By provid­ing stu­dents not just with skills but with high-cal­ibre skills that are val­ued in the upper-end of H&T, voca­tion­al train­ing centres can bet­ter bal­ance the power between employ­ees and employ­ers. This enables female gradu­ates to approach the labour mar­ket with increased value and thus to choose their employ­er with great­er free­dom and seek high­er aver­age salar­ies. As a res­ult, they gain great­er agency and inde­pend­ence in shap­ing their careers.

The mem­bers of the Asso­ci­ation of South­east Asi­an Social Enter­prises for Train­ing in Hos­pit­al­ity & Cater­ing (ASSET‑H&C), a net­work of voca­tion­al schools across the region, provide a path to employ­ment in the hos­pit­al­ity & tour­ism sec­tor for vul­ner­able youth. Each train­ing school oper­ates with a philo­sophy that train­ing young women and men from mar­gin­al­ised back­grounds with in-demand voca­tion­al skills is instru­ment­al in ensur­ing pro­fes­sion­al inclu­sion and lift­ing them out of poverty.

To achieve this, the schools provide a com­pre­hens­ive and hol­ist­ic approach to train­ing with a spe­cial focus on life skills which are highly val­ued by the industry and enable their stu­dents to stand out once in employ­ment. This way, they thrive to accom­mod­ate the spe­cif­ic needs of train­ees, not­ably female students.

At Sala Baï Hotel and Res­taur­ant School, the stu­dents take theatre classes for self-expres­sion and to build con­fid­ence. Since females are often dis­cour­aged from speak­ing up in Cam­bod­i­an soci­ety, and their voices are usu­ally mar­gin­al­ised, this is par­tic­u­larly import­ant for girls and young women.

At EGBOK, the stu­dents, both men and women, under­go com­pre­hens­ive classes on women’s empower­ment and gender equal­ity, going into vari­ous social and gender issues such as mar­riage, love, rela­tion­ships, child rear­ing and fin­an­cial matters.

Hospitality and tourism schools can also challenge gender stereotypes

Fam­il­ies and com­munit­ies in rur­al areas, in par­tic­u­lar, tend to be res­ist­ant to young women enrolling in train­ing pro­grams to work in urb­an hos­pit­al­ity and tour­ism. There­fore, some schools work with suc­cess­ful female alumni as role mod­els to show, rather than tell, both the fam­il­ies and the young women what they can accom­plish with the right train­ing and dis­pel any myths or neg­at­ive ste­reo­types con­cern­ing the industry.

Role mod­els are also influ­en­tial in show­ing young female stu­dents that women can be suc­cess­ful in their career. As female super­visors and man­agers are not often seen in the sec­tor, young women do not con­ceive of them­selves in a lead­er­ship role. Once they encounter a woman in such pos­i­tions, their per­cep­tions of the industry change sig­ni­fic­antly, and they are inspired to pur­sue a career in the industry. Bear­ing this in mind, the ped­ago­gic­al team at Ecole d’Hôtellerie et de Tour­isme Paul Dubrule brings in female guest lec­tur­ers into both the classroom and career fairs.

Inle Her­it­age Hos­pit­al­ity Voca­tion­al Train­ing Cen­ter fur­ther serves as an excel­lent example of women’s empower­ment in that it was foun­ded and is run by a woman hail­ing from Inle Lake itself. Tak­ing advant­age of the poten­tial of tour­ism in the Inle Lake region, the school was set up to address the need for ‘altern­at­ive edu­ca­tion’ for youth in Myan­mar. As a busi­ness, Inle Her­it­age fosters an empower­ing work­ing envir­on­ment for women and sup­ports work-life bal­ance for work­ing moth­ers, provid­ing a school spe­cific­ally for the chil­dren of staff.

Exploring initiatives promoting women’s empowerment in Mekong H&T

With COVID-19, trav­el­lers are becom­ing more impact-con­scious and hos­pit­al­ity & tour­ism is urged to rein­vent itself to emerge stronger and more sus­tain­able. This includes ensur­ing that no one is left behind in the recov­ery process.

While skills train­ing cer­tainly boosts women’s pos­i­tion and con­fid­ence to unlock career path­ways, pro­gres­sion on gender equal­ity and women’s well-being requires sig­ni­fic­ant, hol­ist­ic, and col­lab­or­at­ive inter­ven­tions. To truly include and bene­fit women at the same level as men, it calls for pro­act­ive actions and great­er ded­ic­a­tion to cre­at­ing social impacts from private entit­ies in the H&T sec­tor in the Mekong region. Mean­while, guid­ance from gov­ern­ment and sup­port from non-profit organ­isa­tions are also required to ensure that bar­ri­ers are lif­ted and oppor­tun­it­ies more accessible.

Plan Inter­na­tion­al and ASSET‑H&C have recently co-pub­lished “Val­ued. Paid. Recog­nized.” [PDF, hos­ted off­s­ite], a study provid­ing an over­view of good and emer­ging prac­tices among employ­ers that sup­port women’s empower­ment in the H&T sector.

The research draws upon key pub­lic­a­tions on women’s empower­ment, gender equal­ity and women’s pos­i­tion in the hos­pit­al­ity and tour­ism sec­tor, espe­cially in the Mekong region. It also show­cases the best prac­tices to pro­mote the per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment of dis­ad­vant­aged young women and men from five ASSET‑H&C mem­ber schools — Ecole d’Hôtellerie et de Tour­isme Paul Dubrule, EGBOK and Sala Baï Hotel and Res­taur­ant School in Cam­bod­ia, Inle Her­it­age Hos­pit­al­ity Voca­tion Train­ing Cen­ter in Myan­mar and KOTO in Viet Nam.

What do you think? Share a short anec­dote or com­ment below. Or write a deep­er “GT” Insight. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog wel­comes diversity of opin­ion and per­spect­ive about travel & tour­ism because travel & tour­ism is everyone’s business.

Fea­tured image (top of post): “At EGBOK, the stu­dents, both men and women, under­go com­pre­hens­ive classes on women’s empower­ment and gender equal­ity, going into vari­ous social and gender issues such as mar­riage, love, rela­tion­ships, child rear­ing and fin­an­cial mat­ters.” Image © 2017 Chris RJ Ander­son Pho­to­graphy. Sup­plied by ASSET‑H&C.

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This art­icle was adap­ted from “Val­ued. Paid. Recog­nized.”, a Desk Review of Busi­ness Efforts in Pro­mot­ing Women’s Empower­ment in the Mekong Hos­pit­al­ity and Tour­ism Sec­tor (PDF, hos­ted off­s­ite) by Plan Inter­na­tion­al and ASSET‑H&C.

About the authors

Soph­ie Hart­man, Nguyễn Thị Thu Thảo, and Võ Thị Quế Chi com­prise the co-ordin­a­tion team of the Asso­ci­ation of South­east Asi­an Social Enter­prises for Train­ing in Hos­pit­al­ity & Cater­ing (ASSET‑H&C). ASSET‑H&C is a region­al net­work of voca­tion­al train­ing centres that pro­mote the social and eco­nom­ic inclu­sion of vul­ner­able people in South­east Asia. ASSET‑H&C mem­bers work togeth­er on their com­mon mis­sion to make a pos­it­ive impact on the lives of dis­ad­vant­aged youths and adults.