Almost one in five people (19%) working in the hospitality industry are Black, but their representation in leadership teams remains very low, a study has found.
A review of 630 hotel company websites also reveals that 84% do not include any executives from the Black community.
The study from the Castell Project, a nonprofit organization with a goal for women to hold one in three hospitality positions at all levels, shows that 102 of brands' websites showed a Black employee at director level or above.
The organization concludes the industry is “structurally biased against Black employees.”
The Black Representation in Hospitality Industry Leadership 2020 report shows that the representation of Black employees in hospitality is 53% above their share of the employed U.S civilian labor force.
Yet Black executives make up 1.5% of hospitality industry executives at the director level or above, holding one in 60 vice president roles and one out of every 66 executive vice president or senior vice president positions, according to hotel corporate websites.
Black women have an even lower share of leadership roles than men.
The study says Black women have been promoted to 1.8% of mid-management roles compared to 0.9% for male peers but that Black women only hold 0.1% of CEO or president roles.
Advice in the study comes from Errol Williams, a vice president at InterContinental Hotels Group, who suggests companies should create a “safe space” where they can listen and learn from Black employees.
Castell Project says that although the dataset includes 6,302 people from director to CEO level, the study only shows the public face of the industry with many executives not shown on hotel websites.
It also acknowledges that many large hotel companies have robust diversity programs but only list a few top executives on their sites.
The recently launched Black Travel Alliance called on travel companies to make public their metrics on Black representation by June 19.
So far only Airbnb and Marriott International are listed under the accommodations/hotels category.