How independent hoteliers can create more opportunities for women in hospitality
By Aaryan Patel
Hospitality has always been a people business.
Our industry depends on individuals who can lead teams, solve problems, understand guests, control costs, manage assets, and make decisions under pressure. Those abilities are not limited by gender, background, or generation.
The challenge is making sure opportunity is not limited either.
Women already play critical roles throughout hospitality, from operations and sales to finance, development, design, and ownership. But if our industry wants to continue developing the strongest possible generation of hotel leaders, owners need to be intentional about ensuring talented women have a clear path toward greater responsibility and, ultimately, ownership.
For independent hoteliers, that effort can begin inside our own properties and family businesses.
Exposure Creates Opportunity
One of the simplest ways to develop future leaders is also one of the most overlooked: Give them exposure to how the business actually works.
Someone working at the front desk may understand guest service extremely well but never see how revenue management works.
A manager may oversee employees every day without ever participating in a budgeting discussion.
A daughter growing up around a family hotel may see her parents working constantly but never be included in conversations about financing, acquisitions, renovations, or investment decisions.
If we want more women to become hotel executives, developers, and owners, we have to expose them to those parts of the business.
Invite promising employees into financial discussions. Allow managers to participate in renovation planning. Teach younger family members how to read a profit-and-loss statement. Bring them to industry conferences, lender meetings, and ownership discussions.
Leadership development should happen before someone receives the leadership title.
Build the Skills Behind Ownership
Ownership requires a different set of skills than simply operating a hotel.
Understanding financing, underwriting, real estate, capital improvements, market conditions, and investment returns can be just as important as understanding guest service.
Those skills are learned through experience.
Independent hotel owners are uniquely positioned to provide that experience because our businesses are often less segmented than large corporations. At an independent property, someone can potentially gain exposure to operations, marketing, revenue management, accounting, renovations, and ownership decisions within the same organization.
That can become a powerful training environment.
Instead of asking whether someone already has every qualification needed for the next position, owners should also ask whether they have the potential to learn it.
Sometimes the difference between a capable employee and a future owner is simply that someone gave them the opportunity to understand the business at a deeper level.
Listen to Different Perspectives
Creating opportunity is not only about helping the individual being developed. It also makes the business stronger.
Hospitality serves an incredibly broad guest population. Having different perspectives involved in decisions about property design, amenities, technology, service, marketing, and operations can help owners recognize opportunities they might otherwise overlook.
Independent hotels have an advantage here.
We are not required to make every property look, feel, or operate exactly the same. We can experiment. We can listen to our guests. We can adapt quickly.
Bringing more voices into those decisions can strengthen that advantage.
The goal should not be diversity simply for appearance. It should be better decision-making through broader experience and perspective.
Create the Next Generation of Owners
Hospitality has created extraordinary opportunities for generations of entrepreneurial families.
Now we have a responsibility to make sure the next generation understands that those opportunities belong to them as well.
For family-owned hotels, that means exposing daughters and sons equally to the business.
Do not only teach one child how to negotiate with the lender while another learns operations. Do not assume who will eventually want to run the property. Give each person the opportunity to learn, contribute, and decide for themselves.
The same philosophy should apply to employees. Identify talented people early. Give them responsibility. Allow them to make decisions. Introduce them to parts of the business outside their normal role.
Not everyone will eventually become an owner. But nobody should reach the end of their career wondering whether they could have become one if someone had simply opened the door.
Hospitality’s future will depend on attracting talented people and giving them reasons to stay.
Independent hoteliers can help lead that effort by ensuring the next generation of women in our industry does not simply have a place in hospitality.
They have a path to lead it.
Aaryan Patel is the chair of AAHOA’s Independent Hoteliers Committee. He is committed to helping hoteliers become – and stay – independent.
Image: jozefmicic/stock.adobe.com
Leave a Reply