Exploring Women’s Career Development in Tourism and Hospitality: Insights from Qualitative Interviews

Abstract Book of the 7th International Conference on Tourism Management and Hospitality

Year: 2026

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Exploring Women’s Career Development in Tourism and Hospitality: Insights from Qualitative Interviews

Eiko Iwata

ABSTRACT:

Although the tourism and hospitality industry provides important career opportunities for women, their career development processes are complex and often not well understood. Young women entering service-oriented professions must navigate not only occupational aspirations but also concerns related to long-term career continuity, work-life balance, and workplace realities. This study explores how women shape their views of future careers within the tourism and hospitality context, with a particular focus on the airline industry.
Drawing on qualitative interviews with Japanese women at various stages of early career development in tourism and hospitality, including aspiring airline employees and individuals with initial experience in service roles. This study examines how career aspirations are formed, interpreted, and reshaped in relation to career transitions, workplace realities, and changing personal values.
The findings suggest that career development is not based solely on idealized occupational images. Rather, participants continuously interpret and reconstruct their future careers in response to workplace realities, interpersonal influences, and evolving values. While students tended to emphasize aspirational and highly visible career images, early-career employees described more nuanced and sustainable views of work shaped by lived experience. These results underscore the dynamic nature of women’s career development in tourism and hospitality and highlight the importance of supporting reflective and realistic career formation.
This study contributes to research on tourism employment by offering a qualitative perspective on how women perceive career development across different stages of early careers formation. It also provides implications for career education and human resource development in the tourism and hospitality industry.

Keywords: Women’s career development; Tourism and hospitality; Qualitative interviews; Airline industry; Early career