Women entrepreneurship in the hospitality and tourism industry: a comprehensive review and future research directions

Purpose This paper aims to present a comprehensive review of the research published on various facets of women entrepreneurship in the hospitality and tourism (HT) industry. This paper covers the opportunities and challenges specific to women-run HT ventures and conclude with gaps in the existing literature. Design/methodology/approach After multiple stages of search, selection and synthesis of the literature published in the journals of tourism, hospitality, entrepreneurship and management, the authors arrived at a list of 78 articles pertaining to women-run ventures. Using systematic review methodology, the authors extracted the motivations, challenges, enablers and outcomes of tourism ventures run by women entrepreneurs. Findings Building on the existing research, the authors offer avenues of future research and posit that research in this area can benefit from the utilization of novel methodologies, application of diverse theories and exploration of disparate settings in order to generate new knowledge. The authors posit that building this knowledge base would be instrumental in addressing issues related to gender inequalities in the HT industry. Originality/value By synthesizing the existing body of knowledge regarding women’s entrepreneurship within the HT industry, this study aims to establish pathways for the development of new theoretical frameworks and to generate practical insights in this domain.