Women Hoteliers in the COVID-19 Crisis: A Conceptual Paper

The COVID-19 crisis has negatively affected people’s health and economies worldwide. Being subject to negative external threats, the hotel industry has been greatly hit by the COVID-19 crisis. In the global labour market, the hotel industry has long been a key employer, supplying many employees. The majority of hotel employees worldwide are women and given how hard the COVID-19 pandemic struck the hotel business, women’s employment in the hotel industry has suffered significantly, which is no exception in the case of Sabah. Compared to the earlier crises, such as the 2003 SARS outbreak, the COVID-19 crisis has a greater effect and is more volatile. Thus, it is critical to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Sabah hotel industry in general and women hotel employees in particular. For this research, the interpretivism paradigm of the descriptive phenomenological approach will guide the research process. Semi-structured and in-depth interviews with women employed in the Sabah hotel industry will be conducted qualitatively. The data will be analysed using a thematic approach to generate a holistic perspective of the impact of COVID-19 on women working in the Sabah hotel industry. The expected findings of this research contribute theoretically to gender studies of the hotel industry in crisis and provide practical guidance to hotel managers on how to establish a more favourable work environment for women employees in Sabah.