Resource Center

This preparatory World Bank paper on tourism and gender explains the rationale for integrating a gender lens into tourism development projects. It also includes a set of resources designed to help development professionals and project managers get started and find necessary data. This paper paves the way for more in-depth operational research and data collection on what works for empowering women in the tourism sector. Many advancements have been made in empowerment of women, but women are still far from enjoying the same basic rights, privileges and benefits that men do. Women still earn much less than men, do a disproportionate amount of housework, have fewer rights, less social mobility, and limited access to resources. Research by the World Bank shows that women lag behind men in nearly all measures of economic opportunity in every country in the world. These inequalities are even more extreme in low income countries. Achieving greater gender equality is a critical step toward the World Bank Group’s (WBG) goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity.