The statistics come from the Atlantabased Castell Project , a nonprofit initiative created by founder and President Peggy Berg in 2017 to track and monitor the status of women within hospitality and , more important , create programming to

The inaugural Castell Project manager ’ s training in 2017 .

bump those numbers up and hold companies accountable .

“ The industry collectively tends to think the problem ’ s fixed and it ’ s not ,” says Berg , a former consultant and Hilton and Choice franchisee . “ There ’ s a comfortableness that comes from a lot of like people talking to each other and agreeing with each other , but it ’ s still not fixed .”

“ This is the time we have the momentum , because of a tremendous talent pipeline , we have the momentum in the industry to move the numbers ,” she says .

This type of bias isn ’ t limited to the hiring process ; it also affects

the voices the industry chooses to amplify . A February New York Times op-ed points out that women are consistently underrepresented in general news coverage by a ratio of 3 to 1 ; political science papers by women , for instance , are systematically cited less than those by men .

As Castell ’ s research shows , from 2016 through 2017 , at the four big hotel investment conferences , women represented only 21 % of attendees . An even more depressing number ? Only 13 % of panelists – those publically voicing their thoughts and

As the Castell Project does the heavy lifting of measuring the status of women within the hospitality industry , HOTELS spoke with Peggy Berg regarding larger questions of how racial bias can affect women ' s ability to climb the corporate ladder . HOTELS : Where does racial diversity fit into this conversation ? Peggy Berg : We ’ re all human , we all have biases . The entire executive team in the company has biases , we as women have biases . It ’ s how we move efficiently and effectively through our lives , but sometimes those biases don ’ t serve us well and the bias around women , the bias around people of color , is not serving us well . Now , it ’ s hard to identify in yourself but we all have it , myself included . It ’ s hard to know how to address it with other people when

>> Continued on page 26

WHERE DO WOMEN OF COLOR FIT IN THIS CONVERSATION ? with

April 2018 hotelsmag . com 25