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Gender Equality Champion of the Year Award

The only international award for tourism and hospitality businesses leading the way in putting gender equality into practice.

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2027 Applications: Coming Soon

If you're a tourism organisation making remarkable strides towards gender equality, you'd be a perfect candidate for Gender Equality Champion of the Year 2027.

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About the Award

A Platform to Celebrate Best Practice

The Gender Equality Champion of the Year Award recognises organisations actively creating more equitable workplaces and supply chains. It identifies organisations genuinely putting equality into practice, then helps share their approaches.

By entering, you'll contribute to a growing movement of practitioners willing to share what works, what's challenging, and what they're learning. We welcome applications from organisations of any size, anywhere in the world.

The application process is also valuable in itself. It prompts reflection on current practices, helps identify where you're making progress, and reveals opportunities to strengthen your approach.

Benefits

Why Enter the Award?

Celebrate Your Team

Take time to reflect on and appreciate your team's dedication to gender equality.

Learn and Grow

The application form is an evaluation tool, to help you identify ways to advance equality even further.

Create Global Change

Share your learning and experience with other organisations working towards the same goals.

Award News

Gender Equality Champion of the Year 2026

TO UPDATE: We introduced two categories for the 2024 edition of Gender Equality Champion of the Year: Accommodation and Travel & Destinations. Our winners were revealed during a ceremony and panel discussion at ITB Berlin on 6th March:

•Accommodation: Accor Brazil Embrace Program
•Travel & Destinations: Eternal Landscapes Mongolia
•Highly commended runner-up: NH Hotel Group, part of Minor Hotels

They follow in the footsteps of Costa Rican travel operator Travel Excellence, the first organisation to receive this prestigious award in 2023, as well as last year's runners up – ETUR from Ecuador and AdventureWomen from the US. All set a shining example for others looking to carve out an equitable, responsible industry.

Champions

Introducing Our 2027 Gender Equality Champions

Accommodation: Amba Yaalu Kandalama

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Travel & Destinations: Nomad Africa

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Champions

Highly Commended in 2026

TBC

ETUR is a sustainable travel operator in Ecuador that is focused on giving the traveller the opportunity to contribute socioeconomically to local communities and generate an environmentally responsible impact during their visit. With 52% of tourism service providers being women, ETUR has implemented a business policy that focuses on recruitment, promotion, and selection of service providers with gender equality in mind. They strive to reclaim the role of women in tourism through a "from the ground up" approach and even have a programme specifically for female travellers. ETUR's commitment to gender equality is evident in their actions to ensure that women have equal opportunities in the tourism industry. They are working hard to set a precedent for how tourism can be used to empower women and benefit both the planet and local communities.

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TBC

AdventureWomen is a women-owned and women-run travel company from the United States of America, that prioritises gender equality in the workplace. They offer a hybrid work model that creates the opportunity for a balance of work-from-home and in-office hours with highly flexible schedules tailored to accommodate the various demands that women experience outside of work. As well as this, the company's parental leave benefit surpasses the state or national law, and they implement a zero-tolerance, zero-retaliation policy against sexual harassment. These are just some of the strategies that impressed the judges, demonstrating a clear understanding of the obstacles women face in the workplace. They set a great example of commitment to gender equality in the workplace.

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Our Sponsors

Meet the Award Sponsors

We're delighted the World Sustainable Hospitality Alliance will sponsor the Gender Equality Champion of the Year Award for a fourth year in 2026.

The Alliance drives collaborative action to enable the hospitality industry to have a lasting positive impact on the planet and its people. By working with CEOs and C-suite representatives from across the hospitality industry, alongside strategic partners, they are able to implement strategic action worldwide to create a prosperous and responsible hospitality sector that gives back to the destination more than it takes.

Their members have a reach of 7 million rooms and include world-leading hotel companies as well as regional brands.

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