Hospitality has never been short of women doing the heavy lifting. The industry’s problem is what happens higher up the ladder.

Women account for 51.2 per cent of the global hospitality workforce, yet hold only 30 per cent of executive roles, according to industry data reported by Hospitality Investor in March 2025. At CEO and chair level, representation falls to just 7 per cent. It is one of hospitality’s more awkward contradictions: women are everywhere in the business, but still considerably less visible in the rooms where its biggest decisions are made.

Thailand’s hospitality sector is now putting that imbalance under a much brighter spotlight.

On Thursday, 3 September 2026, RISE 2026: Reshaping Hospitality by Empowering Women will bring together hotel owners, corporate leaders, entrepreneurs, designers, and emerging talent at SAii Laguna Phuket for a focused three-hour industry gathering from 2 pm to 5 pm.

Organised by C9 Hotelworks, Mrs B Group and Delivering Asia, RISE is being run as a not-for-profit industry platform. Supporters include SAii Laguna Phuket, Phuket Hotels Association, the Thai Hotels Association Southern Chapter and UN Women. Advance registration is required, with tickets priced at THB1,000.

There is, thankfully, little appetite here for another conference session constructed from worthy slogans, agreeable nodding and coffee that has spent rather too long in an urn.

RISE is pitched instead as a practical conversation about leadership, business systems, career progression and what hospitality companies need to do if they genuinely want to keep — and promote — the talent already working inside them.

“Hospitality has always depended on women. We understand people, build relationships, hold teams together and often carry enormous responsibility. Yet women are still underrepresented in ownership and senior decision-making roles,” said Lily Udomkunnatum, Managing Director, Burasiri Hotel Group.

And there, in one sentence, sits the heart of the matter.

Hospitality is famously a people business. Women have long been central to hotel operations, guest experience, sales, marketing, design, food and beverage and administration. Yet the further one travels up many organisational charts, the thinner that representation becomes.

Four themes put leadership firmly on the agenda

RISE 2026 will tackle the issue through four program themes: Vision and Voice; Systems and Sectors; Emerging Leaders; and Craft, Communication and Self. C9 Hotelworks says the agenda will move from personal leadership stories and gender-responsive business practices to entrepreneurship, career development, communication and the expectations of the next generation entering hospitality.

The speaker roster reflects that breadth.

It includes Udomkunnatum; Mary Pakamard, Managing Director and Principal Designer at M2 Plus; Kate Gerits, Director of Operations Thailand for IHG Hotels and Resorts; Pitinut Robbins, Senior Director Thailand for Marriott International; Wichupan Phukaoluan Srisanya, President of the Thai Hotels Association Southern Chapter; and Sara D Anzeo, Sustainable Finance International Consultant at UN Women Asia Pacific, alongside entrepreneurs, designers and emerging industry voices.

That range matters.

The discussion about women’s leadership in hospitality can sometimes be conveniently parked in the human resources department. In reality, it is a broader commercial issue.

Who gets promoted, who controls capital, who develops hotels, who shapes brands and who ultimately sits around the boardroom table influence competitiveness, corporate culture and, eventually, the guest experience.

Pakamard argues that the industry need not look very far for capable women.

“I believe empowering women in hospitality isn’t just about creating opportunities, it’s about recognizing the incredible talent that’s already here. We need to stop waiting for change and start making it happen,” she said.

That focus on talent rather than tokenism may prove to be RISE’s strongest card.

Hospitality’s leadership maths still refuses to behave

The broader numbers suggest there is plenty of work ahead.

Hospitality Investor’s March 2025 analysis found that women slightly outnumber men in the global hospitality workforce, yet remain substantially underrepresented in executive positions. The disparity becomes even greater at the very top of organisations.

The issue extends beyond hotels. UN Women reports that women account for about 30 per cent of managers overseeing administrative and commercial activities in Asia and the Pacific, illustrating the wider regional challenge surrounding women’s representation in senior decision-making.

For Thailand’s hotel industry, therefore, the challenge is not merely attracting women into hospitality. The bigger question is how effectively businesses create routes into senior operations, ownership, investment, development and board-level positions.

And that requires more than just adding another paragraph about diversity to the annual report.

Bill Barnett, Managing Director of C9 Hotelworks, said RISE had been designed to create the connections needed to move the discussion forward.

“Thailand’s hotel sector has no shortage of women doing the work of building it, but too few platforms built specifically to put them in front of each other,” Barnett said. “RISE exists to close that gap, not for one afternoon in Phuket, but as a marker for where the industry needs to go across the country.”

It is an ambitious brief for three hours.

Then again, hospitality has built entire brands on considerably smaller promises.

What will matter after 3 September is whether the conversation travels beyond the ballroom. Mentoring, executive sponsorship, transparent promotion pathways, leadership development and better access to ownership and investment opportunities will ultimately determine whether the industry converts good intentions into measurable results.

RISE 2026 cannot correct hospitality’s leadership imbalance in one afternoon, nor should any sensible conference pretend that it can.

What it can do is put influential people in the same room, make the leadership gap considerably harder to ignore and establish a clearer benchmark for what genuine progress should look like.

For an industry that has spent generations proudly opening doors for its guests, opening a few more at the top seems a very good place to start.

RISE 2026: Thursday, 3 September 2026, 2 pm–5 pm, SAii Laguna Phuket. Advance registration is required, and tickets are THB1,000.

Registration: Register for RISE 2026 through Eventbrite

 

By: Prae Lee – © 2026.

Read Time: 4 minutes.

 

Author Bio:

You can tell a great deal about a person by how they meet a Bangkok morning. Prae Lee doesn’t charge into it; she glides, unhurried, as if time itself has agreed to behave. There is a calm assurance about her, the sort earned by knowing both your roots and your destination.

A graduate of Chulalongkorn University, she earned her business degree with quiet pride, then further honed it in Singapore and Australia. Travel didn’t change her. It refined what was already there: curiosity, discipline, grace.

Back in Bangkok, she slipped modern life into the family business, mastering social media with an instinct for listening and selling with Thai gentleness.

Prae never seeks attention, yet everything she touches grows brighter.

Now with Global Travel Media, she writes with authenticity, drawing on culture, travel and a rare, steady confidence.

 

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