With over half of the world’s travel and tourism workforce made up of females – many of them engaged in unsecure work – the United Nations says that women are being hit harder by the pandemic than their male counterparts.

“In the midst of a global pandemic, one stark fact is clear: the COVID-19 crisis has a woman’s face,” said António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, which this week released a special guide designed to help women in tourism recover.

A collaboration between the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and UN Women to mark International Women’s Day 2021, the Inclusive Recovery Guide provides recommendations to policymakers, businesses, and civil society actors in tourism for designing gender-responsive measures in response to the ongoing pandemic.

This in response to a second year of an “unprecedented crisis” that has resulted in a record drop in international tourist arrivals that the UNTWO says “risks rolling back progress made towards achieving gender equality and efforts to empower women and girls.”

UNWTO data shows that women make up the majority of the tourism workforce (54%). Women in tourism are also often concentrated in low-skilled or informal work. This means that they are feeling the economic shock caused by the crisis more acutely and quicker than their male counterparts. In many cases, they are cut off from the social and healthcare protections that are so vital in a global pandemic.

This increase in women’s economic and social insecurity has been combined with an observed rise in unpaid care work and domestic violence, adds the UNWTO.

“Tourism is a proven driver of equality and opportunity,” said UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili. “This unprecedented crisis has hit our sector’s women fast and hard, which is why gender equality and empowerment must be centre stage as we work together to restart tourist and accelerate recovery.”

The free guide can be found on and downloaded from the UNWTO website.