Speaker
Description
Tourism development globally has driven economic growth, offering potential pathways for promoting inclusive development. Yet the implementation of inclusive practices in tourism often faces challenges, including restricted growth in tourism opportunities, unequal access to tourism opportunities, and inequitable outcomes of tourism (Bakker, 2019). Taking Dali, China as an example, tourism, as the key industry of this ethnic minority tourism destination, generates numerous employment opportunities for the locals and attracts external labour and investors. In particular, more than sixty percent of the employees are women, which makes them the main labour in the tourism industry (CNTour, 2023). However, various inequalities in employment exacerbated the unequal structure of existing social classes. Furthermore, research on gender issues within China’s tourism is often limited to a gender-binary perspective, which simplifies participants into male and female, overlooking the complex impact of the intersection of gender with other identities (e.g. ethnicity) on social inequality (Chambers, 2023). The expansion of tourism has refigured the social roles of local ethnic minority women, enabling them to get away from traditional agricultural activities and households to active participation in tourism. However, they remain disadvantaged in resource allocation, decision-making and economic benefits. Especially with the flow of migrant investors, the conflict between the local ethnic minorities and the new Dali citizens (non-ethnic minorities) emerges. Under these circumstances, ethnic minority women are faced with inequalities arising from the combination of both gender and ethnicity, which constitutes a constraining factor for inclusive growth in Dali's tourism.
Therefore, the focus of this study is on identifying the factors that limit the effective promotion of ethnic minority women's careers in Dali tourism, which instead reinforces the overlapping inequalities of gender and ethnicity. The research adopted field surveys, in-depth interviews, and the analysis of planning policy documents to develop an analytical framework. The framework compares ethnic minority women with three other groups (non-ethnic minority men, ethnic minority men, and non-ethnic minority women) in four dimensions: labour division, economic benefit distribution, career development opportunities, and existing development policies, in order to identify the factors contributing to the career development inequality of ethnic minority women. The findings show that the jobs of ethnic minority women are concentrated in low-income, labour-intensive jobs such as handicraft production, catering services, and hotel housekeeping. Their ethnic cultural characteristics (traditional clothing, dance performances, and handicrafts) are over-commercialized, and the image of women is also instrumentalised as a marketing tool. Ethnic minority women are also affected by language barriers, limited education levels and gender stereotypes associated with traditional culture. These factors severely limit the career development of women, resulting in their inability to receive economic rewards that match their contributions.
This research illustrates that the development of tourism in Dali has not significantly improved the career prospects of local women, on the contrary, it has reinforced gender and ethnic inequalities. The difficulties faced by ethnic minority women in career development due to the combination of gender and ethnicity are revealed. It explores the possibilities of tourism to promote the career development of ethnic minority women. This finding offers a new perspective for examining the marginalisation of vulnerable groups in tourism development. It aims to enhance social awareness regarding the social cognition of inclusivity’s crucial role in tourism development and facilitate equal outcomes for marginalized groups.
References
Bakker, M. (2019) A conceptual framework for identifying the binding constraints to tourism-driven inclusive growth, Tourism Planning & Development, 16(5), pp. 575-590.
CNTour (2023) ‘Women in Tourism Industry Employment Survey Report’, Available at: http://www.cntour.cn/h-nd-2714.html (Accessed: 12 January 2025).
Chambers, D. (2023) Are we all in this together? Gender intersectionality and sustainable tourism, in Gender and Tourism Sustainability. Routledge, pp. 133-148.
| Keywords | Tourism; Ethnic Minority Women; Gender and Ethnic Inequality; Career Inequality |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | No |
