Almaty Call: Tourism Unites for Women's Empowerment

The "Almaty Call to Action" comes out of the First Regional Conference on the Empowerment of Women in Tourism in Europe and women's empowerment workshops which have taken place in Almaty, Kazakhstan from 22-23 October. It will serve as a catalyst towards gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls, reflecting the objectives of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

UN Tourism Executive Director Zoritsa Urosevic said: "Tourism is one of the world's most vital economic sectors, and a key source of employment and opportunity for women. But still, inequalities persist across the sector, The Almaty Call to Action is a clear signal of where and how to do more and do better, and to make sure tourism embraces and empowers women and girls everywhere."

Diyar Askarov, Director of Almaty Tourism Bureau, added: "We are not holding this conference for the sake of the event itself. It is part of a larger, long-term project aimed at driving real change. It includes training sessions with UN Tourism-certified coaches, a video series highlighting women in tourism, and a range of online and offline programs designed to move us from discussion to concrete action. Our goal is for this conference to mark the beginning of systemic change - more opportunities for women, more equality, and more professional growth. Everyone is welcome to register and take part so that together, we can move tourism forward."

While tourism offers huge opportunities for women's economic and social empowerment, the high-level discussions at the Conference also made clear the inequalities that remain in the sector, with women often found in lower‐paid, lower‐skilled and informal employment. Advances in closing the gender wage gap, bridging the digital divide and ensuring gender parity in leadership remain limited and the huge burden of unpaid domestic care work that women shoulder was a recurring theme.

The Almaty Call to Action signaled a shared commitment to drive change in six key areas:

1. Employment

• Take measures to tackle the gender pay gap in tourism
• Challenge gender-stereotypes in tourism employment
• Strengthen outreach efforts and initiatives to attract women to careers in employment where women are currently underrepresented such as transport, rural guiding and technical roles
• Implement comprehensive policies that clearly define and prohibit Gender Based Violence and harassment
• Require tourism businesses to report on their progress towards gender equality.

2. Entrepreneurship

• Devise and implement initiatives that enable and support women's entrepreneurship, for example through training and education, financial capital and grants, or incentives and tax benefits
• Work to ensure that women's tourism businesses can become formalized, if they wish to be, and contribute to women's financial inclusion
• Expand and diversify women's market access and fair trade for their tourism products and services through gender-responsive procurement
• Expand women's access to digital technologies, including digital tourism platforms

3. Leadership, policy and decision-making

• Collaborate on improving women's professional development opportunities through professional networks, mentorship programs and leadership training
• Develop policies that facilitate women's entrepreneurship, access to finance and technology, career progression
• Implement gender-mainstreaming by conducting gender analyses, consulting civil society actors and integrating a gender perspective into all phases of the tourism policy and programme cycle.
• Respecting the principles of international conventions, policies and frameworks on gender equality and decent work, including ILO Decent Work Conventions and UN Tourism Framework Convention on Tourism Ethics

4. Education and training

• Increase girl's and women's access to education and training needed to enter the tourism sector, in particular STEM education to facilitate entry into more technical employment
• Support the up-skilling and re-skilling of women throughout their careers through life longer learning
• Provide targeted training and support to enable women's progression into more senior and higher paying roles
• Implement and provide resources for gender-equality educational programmes and incentivise training participation from industry

5. Community and civil society

• Introduce measures to improve women's work-life balance in tourism and encourage an equal division of unpaid care work in tourism communities.
• Ensure gender equality and human rights commitments at the national level are met and implemented effectively.
• Create and collaborate with women's tourism networks and associations to advance gender equality initiatives and support

6. Measurement for better policies

• Systematically produce and publish tourism data that is disaggregated by sex in-line with the UN Tourism 'Measuring the Sustainability of Tourism' statistical framework
• Regularly provide tourism data disaggregated by sex to UN Tourism