The role of gender equality in Iranian female tourism entrepreneurs’ success

ABSTRACT

Gender (in)equality in entrepreneurship has been getting more attention in recent decades. The number of female entrepreneurs repeatedly reported less than males due to cultural issues, education, and lack of support. Moreover, launching start-up apiaries is more challenging for Asian women in tourism, and the likelihood of unsuccessful experiences is higher among them. Accordingly, the lack of empirical material on female entrepreneurs in tourism and gender equality issues, especially in middle east countries, are the two main gaps. Therefore, this paper tries to reveal the Iranian female entrepreneurship experience to fulfil these gaps. This research applied a qualitative research design leading with social constructivism and critical theory. 12 Iranian female tourism entrepreneurs participated in semi-structured online interviews. The snowball sampling technique was applied to collect data that was analysed thematically. The findings of this study highlighted that family responsibility, legal disparities, credit constraints, and the social construction of gender roles and norms are among the hurdles restricting females from engaging in social and economic opportunities. Moreover, the participants mentioned that the lack of social, government, and sponsors’ support and a platform for training and sharing peers’ experiences impact their businesses.

KEYWORDS:

• Female entrepreneurs
• tourism entrepreneurship
• gender equality
• entrepreneur network

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Zahed Ghaderi

Zahed Ghaderi is attached to the Department of Tourism, College of Arts and Social science, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman. Zahed has over two decades of experience in the field and has published extensively in top-tier tourism and hospitality journals. His research interests include cultural aspects of tourism, gender issues, destination management, organizational learning, host-guest relationship, sustainable tourism, tourism crisis management, etc.

Rokhshad Tavakoli

Rokhshad Tavakoli is an Iranian woman who holds a PhD in Tourism and Hospitality Management. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Tourism, College of Art and Social Sciences at Sultan Qaboos University, Oman. She contributed to two main areas of tourism research—first, gender studies in tourism and tourists' behaviour, mainly Muslim Women. Second, 2D & 3D social networks, virtual and augmented reality in tourism. Ethnography and netnography are her research approaches.

Fatemeh Bagheri

Fatemeh Bagheri has earned her BA, MA, and Ph. D in Tourism Management. She is now a faculty member at the University of Guilan, Iran and a postdoctoral researcher at research center for tourism, sustainability and well-being (Cinturs), Algarve University, Portugal. She has written extensively on tourism marketing, cultural tourism, recovery strategies, and women entrepreneurship.

Saeedeh Pavee

Saeedeh Pavee is MA graduate in Geography and Tourism Planning from Kharazmi University in Iran. She works on rural community quality of life, gender issues in tourism. Her research interests are tourism community development, gender equality in tourism, etc.