Dr Cristina Figueroa Domecq

Despite the increasing presence of women in the hospitality labour market, empirical evidence shows persistent horizontal and vertical segregation, as well as a pay gap - a situation that perpetuates lost opportunities for the industry. Based on Barbara Risman’s model “Gender as a Social Structure” as a leading reference, the paper provides a gender based approach for the hospitality industry. Risman’s three levels of analysis (Individual, Interactional and Institutional) are completed with an Intersectional level, conforming the “Gender as a Social Structure in the Hospitality Industry” model. This model aims at identifying factors that cause discrimination among female executives. The methodology is based on thirty semi-structured in-depth interviews with female executives in the Spanish hospitality industry. The results show that the influence of self-imposed barriers, gender roles, problems associated with work-life conciliation and issues related to gendered organizations are the main factors that hinder achieving gender equality.

To the best of our knowledge, there is no work that has focused on analysing the development of the scientific production on women, peace and security. The main objective of this paper is to cover this research gap through a bibliometric analysis, that covers 95 years (1918–2013), of articles published in peer-reviewed journals extracted from the SCOPUS database. Bibliometric indicators and laws have been applied to better understand the patterns that govern the scientific literature on this realm. A gender perspective has also been implemented in the analysis. The analysis provides quantitative results based on 321 articles published by 478 authors in 210 scientific journals. The data showed the high dispersion of the literature, both in terms of authors and journals focused on the topic, and a low level of collaboration among both authors and institutions. Regarding the research topic, half of the papers were related to the impact of conflict on civilians and civil society. The implementation of a gender perspective shows that most of the first, second and third authors of the papers are women. In terms of methodologies,  methodologies are the most relevant and women are more prolific applying these methodology. In terms of geographical region of the research, most of the studies have been performed by authors from institutions in Anglo-Saxon countries, and most of the fieldwork has been focused on the United States and the main areas of conflict in the world throughout history. Finally, important research opportunities are identified.

This paper seeks to rouse debate about the workings of tourism enquiry as a knowledge-generating system through its critical accounting of the sub-field of tourism gender research. This accounting includes a gender-aware bibliometric analysis of 466 journal papers published during 1985–2012, which categorises the sub-field’s prevailing themes and methodologies and identifies its most prolific authors and popular journals. It contends that, despite three decades of study and a recent increase in papers, tourism gender research remains marginal to tourism enquiry, disarticulated from wider feminist and gender-aware initiatives and lacks the critical mass of research leaders, publications, citations and multi-institutional networks, which characterise other tourism sub-fields. The paper identifies two possible futures for gender-aware tourism research: stagnation or ignition.

Employment in the hospitality industry is generally associated with lower quality of employment opportunities than other industries. While women's participation has improved both quantitatively and qualitatively, they continue to encounter a host of barriers attributable to labour market discrimination. A gender-oriented study of job quality is consequently in order. The present paper aims to define and construct a composite index of job quality, compiling objective job security conditions in a single variable that allows the detection of possible gender differences in job quality. Unlike other comparisons of job quality that focus primarily on salary, the composite indicator developed stresses work week duration in an industry in which part-timing impacts women particularly heavily. Findings reveal that women hold lower quality jobs than men and that the gender gap widens with age. Results also show a double adversity for women: a lower job quality in management positions they have not traditionally held, and a wider quality gap in clearly feminized, lower skilled positions.

A new model is proposed to assess the implementation of revenue management (RM), specifically by the hotel industry. Named the Model for Evaluating RM Implementation (MERMI), it was designed around the factors identified by expert consensus to be essential to ensuring optimal RM. The protocol developed from that information was applied to compare the extent of RM use in hotels in Spain’s capital city and to evaluate the feasibility of ranking establishments based on that criterion. Very few Spanish hotels attained an excellent rating under the proposed model, although a significant percentage proved to be very high or high performers.

Business women and their companies, powerful drivers of international economic development, are characterised by certain idiosyncrasies. The present study aimed to analyse the effect of financial support for female entrepreneurship on the number and characteristics of such endeavours. Data for 2005-2012 drawn the database of new company projects financed by AVALMADRID SGR were analysed with univariate and bivariate methods. The findings revealed differences between female and male entrepreneurship and showed that women’s business activities are more intense when specific support is available financial institutions.

The decision-making processes of tourism firms are being conditioned by the profound transformations taking place in both client demand and destination dynamics. This new scenario requires an increased level of information, innovation and technology if tourism firms are to remain competitive. In particular, information and communication technologies (ICTs) can provide competitive advantages by improving a firm's knowledge of its own internal structures and of the milieu in which it is operating. This study therefore identifies and analyses the critical external factors that influence innovation and ICT investment in hotel businesses by evaluating the impact of hotel investment strategies. The methodological approach taken is an adaptation of the PESTEL model to the particular case of hotel management. This model identifies the factors (political, economic, social, environmental, technological and legal) that affect any given organization. The authors also apply Porter's ‘five forces model’, which assesses the competitive environment in which firms act, taking into account the power of buyers, intermediaries, current and potential competitors and substitutive products. The study area is the region of Madrid (MAC), since this has only lately emerged as a major tourist destination and its hotel market is recent and of medium to high quality.