Gender differences in tourism behaviour in the European Union

Given its increasing role in today's societal and economic realities, tourism is seen more and more as a discursive area and a successful channel for the transmission of gender equality issues. The purpose of this article was to examine the differences between core-members and latest accession states from the European Union regarding gender gaps in tourist behaviour. We used the number of trips, overnight stays, and the values for travel expenditures from Eurostat database, as indicators to study the participation of men and women in tourism for both leisure and professional purposes. The results indicated small or almost inexistent differences between the core-members of the European Union and latest accession states regarding gender gaps in tourism, however both groups manifested an underrepresentation of women in professional or business tourism as well as smaller values of expenditures overall for women. The results seemed to indicate the existence of a 'glass ceiling', despite the overall progress made in gender equality area.