Tourism: male dominant industry: a case study of tourism activities in the Municipality of Arusha –Tanzania

The main concern of this study was to explore socio-economic and cultural factors as well as impacts associated with gender dynamics in tourism industry as portrayed in different tourism activities in the Municipal of Arusha. The study sought to establish empirically the influence of patriarchal dominant views in ownership, employment patterns (observed gender division of labour), income differentials between men and women as well as the general asymmetrical gender relations in the tourism industry which tend to favour men than women. In order to accomplish the above task, a descriptive purposeful selected sample comprising employees from Hotels/Lodges and Tour Operator Companies (both photographic and hunting) was used. Employers from that sample were also interviewed as well as officials from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism and other bodies related to the tourism industry. Likewise, a sample of convenience from the informal sector activities associated with tourism was employed. This sample comprised the tourism souvenir kiosk operators and the "self-employed" prostitutes or female commercial sex workers (FCSWs). Data was mainly collected through interviews, focus group discussions and observation At the end of the research, the obtained results confirmed the established hypotheses that is; employment patterns in tourism industry were biased against women and favoured men, that there were specific occupations/duties in this industry which were basically a domain of one sex whereby the male gender was more advantaged in crossing over to the duties traditionally considered to be for the other sex and that female commercial sex workers (prostitutes) were part and parcel of tourism "product" for consumption.