Hotels Have Made Progress on Women in Leadership. But the Pipeline Is Thin.
Photo Credit: Executives at a Women Leading Travel event in 2025. Women Leading Travel
Skift Take
Hotels have more women executives at the top of their organizations than they used to. But the middle-ranks still don't have enough of a sustainable pipeline of future leaders.
New benchmarking data on hotel companies from Penn State suggests that women are maintaining a better share of representation at the CEO and president levels. But their share of the crucial pipeline roles just below the C-suite has stalled or declined.
The hotel industry's progress in promoting women to senior leadership has largely stalled, with overall representation in upper-management flat between 2022 and 2025, according to a Penn State report. In some roles that typically serve as stepping stones to the C-suite, women actually lost ground. The share of managing-director positions held by women fell from 18% to 15% over the past few years.
