Addressing Sexual Harassment in the workplace of Tourism and Hospitality Industries

This conference paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the current threat of sexual harassment in the workplace within the hospitality and tourism industry. The causes of sexual harassment in this industry are multifaceted, encompassing an environment that objectifies and sexualizes women, interactions between employees and leaders, interactions between employees and customers, and unequal power dynamics between employees and the business.

The primary objective of this conference paper is to identify the challenges faced by the hospitality and tourism industry within the workplace. It begins by providing an understanding of the concept of sexual harassment and proceeds to discuss the underlying causes and effects of the industry's high prevalence of sexual harassment. These aspects are examined in terms of the industry context, the power disparities between employees and stakeholders, and the attitudes of victims toward sexual harassment in the workplace. The paper then offers recommendations for various stakeholders to effectively address sexual harassment. Finally, a conclusion summarizes the key findings.

Sexual harassment emerged as a relatively new concept in the 1970s, with 'unwanted sexual behavior' at its core. Both researchers and social organizations are increasingly concerned about the unequal social and industrial contexts that contribute to the occurrence of sexual harassment?UN Women, 2018).

The hospitality and tourism industries are disproportionately affected by sexual harassment, primarily impacting women. Shockingly, at least a quarter of female employees in the hospitality and tourism sectors experience unwelcome and offensive sexual behavior. In the UK, 67% of women in the hospitality industry have reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment, surpassing the national average of 52%.

The working conditions and characteristics of the hospitality and tourism industries are closely linked to the high incidence of sexual harassment. These sectors operate within a sexualized service framework, where employees' work uniforms contribute to their objectification. Moreover, employees are often expected to work in intimate spaces such as guest rooms. These factors significantly increase the risk of sexual harassment for employees. Additionally, the high prevalence of part-time employment and staff mobility results in extremely low unionization rates, leaving employees with limited avenues for seeking external support through unions and associations.

Inequality in labor relations between employees within the hospitality and tourism industries is a significant contributing factor to the pervasiveness of sexual harassment. The industry operates on the principle that the customer is always right, and employee service plays a crucial role in shaping the customer's experience. Consequently, interactions between staff and customers are vital for customer satisfaction. However, the power dynamic favors customers over employees, creating a prevailing perception that employees should tolerate unethical behavior from customers. As a result, the risk of encountering customer sexual harassment is exceedingly high.
Due to the industry's low barriers to entry, managers in the hospitality and tourism industry hold positions of power, and the tolerance exhibited by organizations significantly impacts the prevalence of sexual harassment in the workplace. Unfortunately, the prevailing norm is that managers are often hesitant to address instances of sexual harassment experienced by their employees. Moreover, sexual harassment is sometimes rationalized through training programs that portray it as an inherent part of service work or through meaningless training that evades the company's legal responsibility to protect employees from such behavior. It is not uncommon for an employee's immediate manager to be the perpetrator of sexual harassment, further exacerbating the difficulty for employees to assert their rights through their organization.

Given the distressing risk of sexual harassment in the hospitality and tourism industries, the attitudes of employees at the bottom of the power structure towards sexual harassment are undergoing changes and are being influenced by the industry environment. Unable to prevent and effectively address widespread sexual harassment, employees attempt to strike a balance between self-perception and work by rationalizing and tolerating lesser degrees of such behavior, thereby mitigating the negative impact on their personal emotions. However, severe instances of physical sexual harassment continue to significantly impact employees' physical and psychological well-being, necessitating modifications to their work tasks to alleviate the psychological trauma caused by such harassment. For instance, hotel waitresses may attempt to avoid cleaning rooms occupied by individual male clients, or tour guides may become more selective in accepting certain groups and locations for group tours.

Suggestions to address this issue include leveraging the power of the state to encourage employees in the tourism and hospitality industries to join third-party organizations or providing public access to resources and guidance on dealing with sexual harassment. Additionally, new media platforms can serve as powerful tools in the fight against sexual harassment. Advice on avoiding sexual harassment should consider the risks associated with asserting rights. By assessing the level of sexual harassment, implementing measures to control incidents and minimize financial costs, and considering potential retaliation by perpetrators, employees can be better equipped to address instances of sexual harassment.

Reference
UN Women. (2018) Towards an end to sexual harassment: The urgency and nature of change in the era of #MeToo. Available from https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2018/11/towards-an-end-to-sexual-harassment [accessed 21 May 2023].

As the paper states, sexual harassment in the workplace needs to be addressed with management systems, both internal and government intervention.

The first is that internal company restrictions on sexual harassment in the workplace can be effective in reducing the incidence of harassment. Studies have found that where staff have ethical codes, adequate training and managers actively discourage harassment, the incidence of harassment is lower (Poulston, 2008). Some restaurants often offer young women their first experience of institutionalised sexual harassment to teach them to reasonably discourage sexual harassment through managers and the law. While institutionalising the prevention of sexual harassment and establishing avenues of recourse for victims to discipline perpetrators will not completely eliminate the occurrence of sexual harassment, institutional deterrence is important. It is a basic, low-cost safeguard against sexual harassment, which is more effective in preventing sexual harassment and will help to create a clean workplace environment.

Secondly, as employer training programmes for intolerant sexual harassment do not effectively address the issue, government departments are needed as a complement and bottom line prevention of sexual offences (Tinkler et al., 2015). Influenced by the #MeToo movement, the UK government introduced legislation in July 2021 that requires employers to demonstrate that they have an existing anti-harassment policy, as well as up-to-date training for employees (Skrzypinski, 2021). If businesses remain ineffective in preventing sexual harassment, then employees who have been harassed will be offered protection and the Equality and Human Rights Commission employers will be required to respond to sexual harassment complaints

As the paper suggests, both companies and governments have a robust infrastructure in place to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace. In short, when women's rights are not violated and are respected, this will create a gender neutral tourism industry and achieve gender equality.

Reference
Tinkler, J., Gremillion, S., & Arthurs, K. (2015). Perceptions of legitimacy: The sex of the legal messenger and reactions to sexual harassment training. Law & Social Inquiry, 40(1), 152-174.

Poulston, J. (2008) 'Metamorphosis in hospitality: A tradition of sexual harassment', International Journal of Hospitality Management, 27(2), pp. 232-240. doi:10.1016/j.ijhm.2007.07.013.

Skrzypinski, C. (2021) UK government proposes to prevent workplace sexual harassment, SHRM. Available at: https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools /hr-topics/global-hr/pages/uk-government-prevent-sexual-harassment.aspx (Accessed: 25 May 2023).

This discussion paper analyses the current threat of sexual harassment in the workplace in the hospitality industry. Sexual harassment at work can occur in any industry, however, the characteristics of the hospitality industry provide a unique context for sexual harassment at work.

Sexual harassment refers to unwelcome sexual behaviour (Wikipedia, 2023) and sexual harassment at work can create a hostile, intimidating or offensive work environment, which leads to a severe loss of morale and efficiency (Gilbert et al, 1998). These may take the form of verbal harassment, or physical harassment. Examples include offensive jokes and comments, unwelcome touching, sexual advances, etc. The high frequency of sexual harassment at work in the hospitality industry is related to the working conditions in the hospitality industry. Firstly, the working environment in the hospitality industry is often a private space, which provides the conditions for sexual harassment; secondly, the unequal relationship between employees and customers is another issue, where the subservience of employees to customers leads to the tolerance of unethical behaviour by hotel staff towards customers, thus increasing the risk of sexual harassment. Further, poor hotel management can result in a further tolerance of sexual harassment.

It is important to note that while women are the main people affected by sexual harassment in the hospitality industry, the problem can occur not only with women but also with men, in addition to groups from marginalised communities such as LGBT+ individuals and migrant workers, who may face compounding harassment and discrimination. Understanding and addressing these issues is critical to creating an inclusive and equitable work environment.

As stated in the discussion paper, this needs to be addressed at a managerial level. Hotel management therefore needs to strengthen training for staff to help them recognise sexual harassment in order to defend their rights. For example, hotels can conduct regular training sessions to help staff identify and respond to sexual harassment.

Addressing sexual harassment at work in the hospitality industry is an important step towards improving fairness and safety at work.

Reference

Gilbert, D., Guerrier, Y. and Guy, J., (1998). Sexual harassment issues in the hospitality industry. International Journal of Contemporary hospitality management.

Sexual harassment (2023) Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_harassment (Accessed: 25 May 2023).