The wide gap between female and male leadership within the travel technology industry is shrinking - at a snail's pace - but becoming smaller still.
Over the past few years, there have been a number of appointments of women in leadership roles across the travel industry - with a notable uptick in the airline space.
In May Ariane Gorin became CEO at Expedia Group. And there are now multiple airlines with women at the helm. Joanna Geraghty took over at JetBlue this year and Vanessa Hudson became CEO at Qantas last year. And in 2022, Marjan Rintel took the reins at KLM and Güliz Öztürk became CEO at Pegasus Airlines.
Efforts are also being made to help bolster the visibility of women in the space. In August, for example, Women in Hospitality Leadership Alliance launched a speaker directory to boost the presence of diverse voices at industry events.
“I think we're on the right path. But it also feels like it's a slow path forward,” said Nina Kleaveland, the founder and CEO of Lanyard who also created the group Female Founders in Hospitality.
New data underscores the slow shift. The results of a July analysis by Belvera Partners, a public relations firm that represents numerous brands across the industry, show that 15.6% of leadership members - “CEOs of the top companies and most visible individuals” - across the B2B travel technology industry are women. The statistic marks a very minor uptick from a similar collection the firm did in 2021 as it continues to seek to bolster conversation and progress in the gender equality arena.
The group keeps a regularly updated subway-style “map” featuring more than 400 “stops” - or B2B travel technology players including travel management companies and technology providers for aviation, accommodation distribution, car rentals, experiences and short-term rentals as well as journalists, lobby groups and personalities.
“When we first created the map it seemed like a lighthearted way to explain our industry, but over time we’ve begun to realize that actually it’s a serious exercise,” said Roman Townsend, managing director of Belvera Partners.
Townsend said when used to assess the industry, the map can provide a snapshot - one that can be illuminating.
“I hope [this is] something to make us all take stock of just how woeful a lack of diversity there is in our industry,” said Townsend of the result.
Industry experts believe the data point is worth paying attention to.
“It's one of the first stats we have for the industry - this industry specifically,” said Kleaveland.
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The result, she said, is low - and she wishes it was higher. And while she acknowledged that it may not be an “all encompassing” statistic, she said it's important to have the data as a starting point. “I do feel like it's something and I think it's a good benchmark.”
What does the new data tell us?
Belvera used its map in combination with LinkedIn, which it used to establish gender identification, to reach its conclusion that 15.6% of leaders in the space are women.
The map doesn’t include every company in the industry, Townsend clarified, but he believes it’s an accurate representation.
Inclusion is based on companies it considers leaders - “a mixture of those that are so big you can’t deny their importance and smaller ones that we think innovative or at the very least we see mentioned regularly by media and at conferences,” said Townsend, noting larger online travel agencies and consumer travel tech agencies are included too, though the majority are B2B companies due to the nature of the travel tech industry.
When breaking the industry down by sector, Belvera found that lobby groups had the most female leaders, coming in at 36%, with car rental companies coming up in the rear at 10%.
This is the second time the firm has conducted research like this. Theoretically, July’s results show a level of improvement.
In 2021, Belvera found that 12.4% of CEOs were women. But given that the map has evolved since that time - the sample size is larger and the landscape has evolved, changing the companies and players listed - that statistic isn't optimal for direct comparison.
Townsend added he sees the map as representative of the larger travel technology industry - not just the B2B space.
“Can we extrapolate from that that the whole of the travel tech industry has the same level of female representation at a leadership level?" Townsend said. "That’s impossible to say for sure, but my sense is that, yes, the figures would be broadly the same. These results match my experience of 15 years in the industry meeting with people from all around the world.”
The map also now includes short-term rental and fintech sectors - which weren’t included before, though some of the companies now present were incorporated into other areas.
Regardless, there’s an obvious discrepancy in the gender breakdown of travel tech leadership in the B2B space. It’s a problem that exists across the business continuum. To put this statistic into a larger context, the 2024 Grant Thornton IBR found that the portion of female CEOs globally sat at 19% this year - down from 28% last year. But female senior management was up 1.1 percentage points year over year at 33.5%.
Kleaveland, who calls herself an optimist, called Belvera’s findings “a starting point.”
Luisa Oyarzabal, vice president of business strategy and operation transformation at GoNexus Group, which focuses on experiences and mobility travel, said her team is disheartened by the results but also motivated.
"This stark disparity highlights a significant challenge in our sector - a challenge that we must confront head-on,” said Oyarzabal.
Ayşe Yaşar, vice president of sales at Bedsopia, a B2B accommodation booking platform, pointed out that women are often the primary decision makers when it comes to travel planning - especially in a family setting.
“If you’ve no or few females in your top team in your company, how can [you] claim to understand that market?” Yaşar asked.
Why the imbalance persists
The polarity in leadership rates exists beyond just travel technology and startups, according to Kleaveland.
“There's a lack of female presence in executive leadership roles across the industry, generally,” said Kleaveland, citing regular reporting from the American Hotel and Lodging Association.
As for why that is, Kleaveland believes the issue is rooted in a combination of factors: There aren’t many female role models in the space and it’s statistically harder for female founders to receive funding, for example.
“To a significant extent the problem is self-perpetuating as the lack of female leaders doesn’t inspire junior females on, nor do the panels at conferences or people quoted in media help as they too are often male dominated,” said Oyarzabal.
Some of the issue stems from patterns that have come to pass over the decades.
“So much of the talent [in the industry] kind of comes out of tech and engineering, and I think, traditionally, there were fewer women than men pursuing those careers,” said Lorraine Sileo, senior analyst and founder of Phocuswright Research.
Sileo added that while the number of female speakers on stage at Phocuswright conferences has increased over the years, the numbers of those who are CEOs can probably be counted on one hand.
What can be done
While Belvera’s data theoretically shows an improvement in terms of percentage of female leadership, there is more work to be done.
I think we're on the right path. But it also feels like it's a slow path forward.
Nina Kleaveland - Female Founders in Hospitality
The right steps forward, of course, are to be determined. But many have ideas as to how to improve leadership equilibrium.
Kleaveland believes there needs to be more funding for female-founded companies and that the industry needs to provide more support for companies on their journeys to success.
Maria Seller, senior director of travel solutions for Terrapay, said she wasn’t surprised by the result.
“I recommend that all travel tech companies employ a chief female user experience officer to ensure that their offering really is appealing and relevant to female travelers,” said Sellar.
Sileo doesn’t see the disparity resolving in the near future. “I've been doing this for over 25 years, and I've not seen an uptick in female leadership.”
But she does believe work is being put in, she said, referencing groups to promote female leadership and experience in travel - like Kleaveland’s Female Founders in Hospitality group, for example.
“We also need to have just more talent kind of in the pipeline as well, to teach people like this is a good industry,” she said. “Maybe a lot of women go into industries where they feel like they're going to make more money. And travel, historically, has been a low paying job career for women - unless they reach the C-suite, it could be much lower paying for really smart women than other industries.”
How the industry lures more people in, to let them know that it can be lucrative and that there can be flexibility involved, matters, Sileo said. She said she believes the industry needs to also prioritize recruiting - which can start at the university level.
And more data on the gender gap is important for progress, too. Bottom line - awareness of the issue is important and metrics are key to measure the progress.
"I think the industry has suffered from a lack of data about representation of females in leadership positions so the combination of the AHLA survey as well as this travel map [from Belvera] are helpful as baselines to understand what the gender gap looks like so we can start to make progress on closing the gap," Kleaveland said.
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