UN Tourism and ITF revealed gender gap in tourism transport: what it means for tourism

UN Tourism and the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) presented a global report on the participation of women in tourism transport on June 25. The document is important not only for the HR departments of airlines, railway operators, bus carriers, or the cruise sector. It shows exactly where the tourism industry is losing people, competencies, and managerial stability, and therefore - where problems with service quality, safety, security, and route accessibility and passenger trust may arise in the future.

The UN Tourism and ITF report is called the first global overview that systematically collects data on women in passenger transport related to tourism. The study focuses on aviation, ground passenger transport, rail, and water transport. The authors emphasize: tourism transport remains sharply uneven in terms of female representation, especially in technical, driving, flight, and leadership roles. This is not a narrow social topic, but a matter of long-term competitiveness of an industry that is simultaneously dealing with labor shortages, an aging workforce, digitalization, and growing demand for travel.

What exactly the new report showed

The most notable figures concern sectors that shape the traveler's experience daily. According to data provided in the ITF communication, women make up 36% of aviation workers, but only 6% of pilots. This means that in the parts of air travel visible to the passenger, women may be present quite widely, however, in the cockpit, technical services, operational planning, and leadership, their share remains much lower.

An even sharper imbalance is recorded in ground passenger transport. According to the report, this segment covers 96% of all tourism transport workers, but women make up only 3% of its workforce. For tourism, this is critical, as it involves bus routes, transfers, intercity transport, excursion transport, shuttles between airports and hotels, and other services without which a trip often simply does not work as a convenient product.

In water passenger transport, women make up 12% of workers. This concerns not only cruises in the classical sense, but also ferries, tourist vessels, water transfers, and routes that are part of the basic tourism infrastructure for islands or coastal regions. In these segments, as in aviation, the largest gaps are observed in technical and managerial roles.

Why this topic concerns more than just industry workers

For a passenger, gender balance in transport may seem far from practical issues such as ticket price, flight delay, or transfer quality. In reality, the connection is direct. If a large sector of the economy systematically fails to attract half of the potential talent pool, it becomes more vulnerable to staff shortages. And staff shortages already turn into real problems: reduced flight frequency, longer queues, more difficult recovery after disruptions, higher costs for staff training, and weaker competition for service quality.

Tourism depends especially on people. Airlines can invest in new aircraft, airports in terminals, hotels in digital booking systems, but a journey remains a chain of human decisions: who plans the schedule, who manages the crew, who repairs the equipment, who drives the bus on a mountain road, who responds to a crisis during a flight cancellation. If in this chain, a part of the talents does not receive equal access to training, career growth, and a safe working environment, the industry loses not symbolically, but very practically.

Barriers: safety, sanitary conditions, and legal protection

A separate part of the findings concerns not only hiring, but also working conditions. UN Tourism and ITF highlight safety, access to proper sanitary facilities, and legal protection as key barriers. The report communication states that in every fifth country, there is still no legal protection against workplace harassment. For the transport industry, this is particularly sensitive, because work often occurs on shift schedules, at night, on remote routes, in technical zones, on board vessels, or in situations where the employee depends on the team and the employer.

Such factors influence the choice of profession even before a person submits a resume. If girls and young women do not see a safe and realistic career in piloting, technical maintenance, bus driving, rail operations, or maritime transport, the market receives a narrow talent flow. Then this shortage is reproduced for years: fewer mentors, fewer examples, fewer women in management, fewer decisions that take into account the different needs of staff and passengers.

Why aviation is in the spotlight

Aviation has become one of the most visible examples of the gap, because tourists understand its role in global travel well. When women make up over a third of the aviation workforce, but only a small fraction of pilots, it shows not a lack of interest in the industry overall, but uneven access to specific career trajectories. Pilot training is expensive, technical education requires early vocational guidance, and leadership positions often depend on long internal career ladders. If at every stage women face additional barriers, the final statistics change slowly.

For airlines, this has an economic dimension. The global aviation market has been talking for several years about the need for new pilots, engineers, dispatchers, technicians, and operations managers. A carrier that does not work with a wider talent pool risks losing the competition for specialists. And for passengers, the staff stability of an airline means a more stable schedule, fewer operational disruptions, and a better ability to respond to peak periods.

Three-year action plan: what UN Tourism and ITF can change

Along with the publication of the report, UN Tourism and ITF announced a three-year work plan for the implementation of the Action Plan for Women in Tourism Transport. It involves cooperation with governments, employers, trade unions, and industry partners. Among the directions are gender-sensitive policies, improvement of working conditions, training, leadership opportunities, and better data collection and analysis.

Data here has a special significance. Tourism transport consists of many different sectors, and without disaggregated statistics, it is easy to make the wrong conclusion. For example, the overall share of women in a company may look acceptable, but a detailed analysis may reveal that they are concentrated in service or administrative roles, while technical, operational, and leadership positions remain almost entirely male. For real changes, general declarations are not needed, but measurable goals by profession, levels of responsibility, and working conditions.

What this means for tour operators and destinations

For tour operators, destination management companies, and tourist regions, the report's findings should be read as a signal about the quality of the supply chain. A tourism product does not end with a hotel booking. It includes the flight, transfer, excursion bus, ferry, rail trip, local driver, support in complex logistics, and response to an emergency. If the providers of these services have an unstable staffing model, it affects the reputation of the entire destination.

In a practical sense, companies can start with simple but important questions to partners: is there a policy against harassment, are safe conditions available for night shifts, is there training for women in technical roles, are mentorship programs open, is the share of women in leadership and operational teams measured. For the traveler, these processes are not always visible, but they are exactly what forms the service stability, especially during the peak season or a crisis.

Conclusion

The new report by UN Tourism and ITF highlights a problem that the tourism market often discussed fragmentarily. Women are already an important part of tourism, but in the transport infrastructure that ensures the very possibility of traveling, their participation remains uneven. The biggest challenge is not only to increase the number of women in statistics, but to open access to technical, operational, and leadership roles, where decisions about safety, schedules, investments, and service quality are made.

For tourists, this means that conversations about inclusivity in transport are not separate from the real travel experience. A sustainable transport sector requires a wider talent pool, safe working conditions, transparent promotion, and better talent management. If the three-year plan of UN Tourism and ITF turns into concrete actions by governments and companies, not only the women workers of the industry will win. The entire tourism market will win - from airlines and tour operators to passengers who expect reliable, safe, and high-quality travel.