Children and a career: yeah right! Barriers to women managers’ career progression in hotels

This paper investigates what barriers are present for female managers in the organisational structure of Australian and New Zealand hotels that may delay their progress to senior management positions. Research was carried out in an international hotel group represented in both Australia and New Zealand. The methodology included a survey of the hotel group‟s female supervisors and managers with follow up interviews. The barriers experienced by the women were both visible and invisible, and included such obstacles as a long working hours culture and the pervasiveness of the „Old Boy Network. Male privilege practices resulted in women managers being disadvantaged at a certain life/career stage. Female role models who had „made it to the top‟ were perceived by the women in the study to be “childless superwomen” (Liff and Ward, 2001, p 32) exhibiting the same profile as male managers. This has implications for human resources management practice within hotels