Hotel Industry in Marrakech: Positions of Power are Still Little Feminized

Abstract

This article proposes a reading of the hotel sector by gender. Taking this concept into account is one of the main concerns for the development of the tourism sector in general and for economic development in particular, insofar as tourism occupies a preponderant place in Morocco's economy. At this level, a very abundant literature has focused on gender as a data linked to the evolution of the field and this at least since 1990. It’s thus a question of studying the professional situation of women who are often victims of the glass ceiling, of professional segregation and find themselves confronted with various obstacles to occupy decision-making positions. The major interest of this research is to show that despite the constitutional reform and the efforts made by the State (particularly concerning the laws relating to gender and which have nevertheless enabled progress to be made with regard to the active participation women in the workplace). Notwithstanding, their presence remains insufficient as one goes up in the hierarchy (i.e., the highest-level positions). Marrakech in this case, out of a total of 240 classified hotels, there are less than 20 female hotel managers. (According to data from the Marrakech-Safi Regional Tourism Council: CRT). If during the last decade the situation of women has changed a lot, the fact remains that professional inequalities between men and women still persist today. A quantitative approach was naturally imposed on this study, which is based on in-depth questionnaire surveys, centered on the analysis of the professional situation of 202 women employed in the hotel industry in Marrakech, specifying several details which make it possible to understand the inventory and analyze the problem of inequality suffered by women in the tourism sector, particularly in the hotel industry.

Keywords: Women, tourism, hotels, gender, career, inequalities, power, discrimination, conciliation private life / professional life

DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/14-4-02

Publication date: February 28^th 2022