Drastic decline in women’s retention rates in SL’s tourism

Adding to the woes of Sri Lanka dealing with the low availability of quality human capital in the hospitality and tourism industry, recent statements by officials from key stakeholder agencies highlighted a concerning trend on the low women’s participation in the sector. 

Despite the hospitality training institutes maintaining at least 20-25 percent female enrolments, the retention rates of women in the industry have drastically dropped to 11 percent, according to Sri Lanka Institute of Tourism and Hotel Management Chairman Shirantha Peiris. 

“In terms of training, we maintain a healthy 20-25 percent. Unfortunately, not all of them remain in the hospitality industry. The rate comes down due to various reasons like marriage and roster work challenges,” Peiris stated at a recent tourism event. 

Sri Lanka has about 300 training institutions nationwide, both public and private, with the capacity to produce a maximum of 12,000 trained personnel per year.  

However, this falls short of the skilled labour demand of around 25,000 per year in tourism.  

Moreover, women comprise only 10 percent of Sri Lanka’s tourism workforce, according to the Asian Development Bank (ADB). 
The ADB is also currently involved in a study focusing on women’s participation in tourism in key destination areas, the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) said. 

At the event, SLTDA Chairman Priyantha Fernando shared a few findings of the ADB study conducted in the districts of Dambulla and Trincomalee.  

“In the Dambulla district, which covers destination areas such as Dambulla, Sigiriya and Habarana, women’s participation was found to be 18.5 percent and in Trincomalee, it was 11 percent,” Fernando shared. 

While these figures show improvement compared to five to 10 years ago, when participation ranged between 7.8 and 10 percent, the increase is still insufficient.  

“We have ongoing programmes with the ADB’s assistance to identify precisely what needs to be done and where it needs to be done,” Fernando added. 

He further shared that a detailed report on the study is expected to be published next week.