'More to be done' to close travel gender pay gap, research suggests

Female travel professionals accounted for 67% of all new travel placements during the first four months of 2017 but took home less pay than male employees at a number of corporate levels across the sector.

According to research carried out by C&M Travel Recruitment and C&M Executive Recruitment, women starting new executive roles had an average pay packet of £47,571 - 7.56% less than the typical male executive who pockets £51,167.

Meanwhile women earned 1.54% less than men in senior travel roles paying between £30,000 and £39,999 and 3.21% lower than males counterparts while carrying out mid-level travel positions paying between £22,000 and £29,999.

The only exception to the trend was for junior travel roles – typically paying below £22,000 - where women’s pay was slightly ahead of males by 0.53% or the equivalent of £96 – £18,126 compared to £18,030.

Barbara Kolosinska, director at C&M Travel Recruitment and C&M Executive Recruitment said: “It feels as though we’ve been talking about the gender pay gap forever and yet our new figures show that the problem is still prevalent in the travel industry.

“Thankfully, the gap has all but disappeared for entry level and junior roles, but women are still routinely earning less than men for the average mid-level or senior position.

“When female executives are typically earning £3,500 less than men in similar roles, it is evident that we have an issue.

“The travel industry is a fantastic place for both women and men to work, and I believe we have a far better attitude and approach to gender equality than many other industries, but it is clear that more can still be done.”

According to the research when it came to the number of new placements made so far this year, women now outnumber men at all levels of the industry.

Women accounted for three quarters of all junior placements in the first four months of the year, 66% of all mid-level appointments, more than half of all senior positions and 54% of all executive placements.

“Our figures show that more women have been appointed in senior and executive roles than men so far this year and that is a truly encouraging finding,” Kolosinska added.

“We have become used to seeing men hold the majority of high-powered jobs in the UK, but it seems that the travel industry could be the exception.

“These figures are in contrast to those from the start of last year, so whether this proves to be a long-term trend or merely a short-term blip will be fascinating to see and we will be keeping a close eye on this throughout the rest of 2017.”