Cybersecurity for hotels, why it’s important and how cloud-based software solutions can help with this

by | Mar 16, 2023

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by Tanya Girdhar John

Sri Lanka’s opening of its first hotel managed by an all-female team brought the attention of the world towards gender representation within hospitality workspaces. Amba Yaalu Kandalama, run by an all-female staff-from top management to maintenance-is a bold initiative given that women only comprise 10% of the country’s tourism workforce.

As we open the conversation about women in tourism and hospitality at large, there is no better time to focus on women’s impact within the sector than International Women’s Day.

Women in tourism: current impact and outlook

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Women currently make up 54% of the global tourism workforce

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In the hotel industry alone, women representation remains between 60-70%

So, where is the gender gap?

According to UN’s Global Report on Women in Tourism, majority of women in tourism work in the informal economy where they earn less and have less job security.

Female workers are underrepresented in leadership roles, currently holding less than 40% of the managerial positions within the sector.

Closing the gender gap–trends and opportunities 

Hospitality hub

The hospitality remains a hub of opportunities for women, who often dominate roles in accommodation, food and beverage services, and customer relations.

 

Rise of female travellers

The increasing number of female travellers is reshaping the travel industry. This is creating opportunities for female-run businesses that can cater to female traveller needs and preferences, such as safety, wellness, and personalised experiences.

Sustainable tourism

A 2023 study states that destinations with greater gender equality tend to have more sustainable tourism practices, showing the positive correlation between women empowerment and responsible tourism.

Entrepreneurial spirit

Women are entering entrepreneurship with ventures like boutique hotels, tour operations, and travel agencies, often with a focus on community-based tourism.

Addressing the challenges faced by women

Despite their significant contributions, women in hospitality and tourism continue to face numerous challenges:

  • Due to the gender wage gap, women in the industry often earn less than their male counterparts for comparable work which reinforces systemic inequalities.
  • Long hours or inflexible schedules, make it challenging for women who juggles family responsibilities and, sometimes motherhood alongside their career.
  • Women are often limited to stereotyped roles (i.e: receptionist, server) perpetuating traditional gender roles and discouraging them in leadership positions.
  • Many women in the travel and hospitality industries are unaware of their rights, available resources, and opportunities for professional development.
  • The lack of mentorship and resources makes it harder for women to acquire the skills and networks needed to advance their careers.

Strategies for women empowerment in hospitality

To create a more gender-inclusive hospitality and tourism sector, it is essential to implement comprehensive diversity, inclusivity and equity strategies for better employee welfare.

1. Addressing stereotypes with policy and advocacy

Industry stakeholders can advocate for policies that promote gender equality and empower women in the workplace while supporting organisations that are working to advance women’s rights in the industry. Challenging gender stereotypes within operations and in marketing and advertising materials, establishing the correct DEI strategies and awareness, addressing gender disparities in wages, and hiring and promotion practices are essential in ensuring workspaces remain safe and healthy and will encourage more women to participate within the industry.

2. Technology utilisation

Technology bridges the opportunity gap for women in tourism, enhancing access to training and mentorship and providing online platforms for them to connect, share resources, and network. Technology tools like mobile apps can also be used to promote women-owned businesses. In addition, effective roster management systems, cloud services that enable remote working, or performance tracking that alleviate biases in promotions and other opportunities will create workplaces that foster employee equality and equity.

3. Education and mentorship

UN Tourism has partnered with UN Women and external partners worldwide to bring gender issues to the forefront of the tourism sector. Similar initiatives, not only at the international level but also at regional and local levels, provide opportunities for women to learn and access equal opportunities within the industry. Scholarships, leadership training, financial literacy, entrepreneurship opportunities and networking opportunities for aspiring professionals are also helpful.

4. Flexible work arrangements

While equality is crucial in the industry, so too is equity; understanding and addressing the needs unique to women. For instance, on-site childcare facilities or childcare subsidies can make it easier for women to return to work after having children. Oftentimes, social responsibilities for women differ from their male counterparts, demanding their attention for other activities such as feeding hours. In such instances, flexible work schedules and remote work options enable women to balance work and family life.

Find the right technology solutions to empowers your employees. Book a Demo Today

Accelerate action for an empowered future

Imagine an industry where people are equally represented at all levels—from entry-level positions to C-suite executives—and empowered to reach their full potential, with their unique skills and perspectives creating a more inclusive, innovative, and sustainable future. As International Women’s Day 2025 urges all to accelerate action for gender equality, industry stakeholders are called to accelerate their commitment to realising the vision of gender equality within the sector. 

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Majority of world class hotels makes use of software to operate and conduct its day-to-day activities such as property management systems and point of sales systems as they support and assist the fluidity of hotel services. However, they impact the digital security of a hotel where it is challenged with a number of issues that makes cybersecurity an important element.

Although a majority of hotels still makes use of an in-house solution for system needs, a cloud-based solution can be more effective and efficient.

Modern security threats for hotels

At least around 45% of the world’s population has access to the internet with an estimate of 3.4 billion individuals making use of the internet extensively. Although this creates one homogenous market for products and services to be sold to customers, it also accounts for a fair share of threats due to which cybersecurity can be highlighted as an important element in information systems.

Similarly, in providing personalised services to customers, hotel brands across the globe makes use of a large amount of customer information, that provides the opportunities to offer an exclusive guest service. Most services offered by a hotel commences and concludes with credit card details; for example, making a hotel reservation, enjoying a drink at the bar, booking a spa treatment and ordering meals out of the à la carte menu, all requires credit card details of the customers to be stored in each customer profile. This makes it much easier for transactions to be made through customer curation. An insecure network can be hacked in two ways; either physically through the device used for swiping the credit card or virtual attacks through access to credit card details alone. Either way, it has the ability to compromise data security rights of customers and users of the system.

Moreover, a hotel’s Wi-Fi can also be hacked through which guest information can be accessed by the hacker, where a guests’ data can be breached by accessing devices such as personal mobile devices and laptops. A breach in guest information can lead to a number of privacy issues for the hotel management in case of a poor protection mechanism set forth by the property. In case of a breach in data within the hospitality industry, it can lead to a number of service failures that can impact guest satisfaction. It can also impact the brand reputation and brand image. Therefore, protecting the customer and as well as the hospitality management firm is equally important against breaches of data privacy. The cybersecurity threats have increased by 15% when comparing 2020 to 2021 according to Forbes.

1. Social engineering attacks

Social engineering is a technique used by hackers to gain access to confidential and private information of internet users. A social engineering attack may look like an email from a friend in your contact list. Using one password everywhere can be a high risk for individuals as hackers can thereafter gain access to the victim’s social media accounts and contact list. Mostly containing a link or a download, these messages will try to unlock passwords of others in the same contact list.

2. Phishing attempts

Known as a subset of social engineering attacks, phishing attempts can take place as a result of imitation of a trusted source. It is made evident from the Data Breach Investigations Report that phishing attempts accounts for over 93% of the data breaches found globally. The phishing attack can take place based on an email coming from a legitimate source, as a donation for a charitable foundation or can also come as a problem that requires the user’s support to be solved. It can also appear as a cash claim, or a lottery win for the victim. Therefore, phishing attempts can be highly diverse in terms of its appearance.

3. Code vulnerability

Code vulnerability refers to issues and drawbacks in a system software which is categorised as a flaw in the coding structure that creates potential risk towards the information system. The attacker makes advantage of a vulnerable code through the attachment of an endpoint to access data. Similar attacks also include tampering of the data sources and or, in worst case scenario, deleting all data within the system.

Therefore, code vulnerabilities can be of very high risk to the user and the property management as well. This leads solution providers to defend coding structure, offering simpler and a more scalable remedy that assists in reducing the risks caused by code vulnerability.

4. Bad password management

A bad password can be created due to a number of ineffective password management practices of users of information systems. A weak password can be created due to reuse of passwords, sharing passwords, having the same password for all account log-ins and as well as hard-coded credentials. Moreover, bad password management can lead to major breaches in cybersecurity.

Some of the ineffective password management behavior has changed over the years with several information systems requiring passwords to be created including upper case and lowercase letters and numerical values to be included in the password. Changing passwords every three months at least can also overcome bad password management practice. Therefore, using a strong and unique password can be highly effective to practice good password management techniques.

How cloud-based solutions help hoteliers with cybersecurity

Firstly, in order to provide a total solution for hoteliers that are victims of cyberattacks, it is essential to educate employees on managing such situations in order to avoid them. Although this is not a critical emphasis given by most service providers, certain service providers offer total solutions with education and training so that employees could handle similar situations and take corrective action to mitigate risks associated to cyberattacks.

In order to provide with solutions for cyberattacks, it is not required for a costly development team or a code audit to work on various scenarios time to time when they occur. The cloud solution providers would already have them in place, which makes cloud-based systems more attractive in comparison to on-site system. In addition, cloud-based systems would keep back up of data on a regular and periodic method so that backups are made on a timely manner, further minimising risks to the hoteliers as a support team will be allocated to meet recurring issues within cloud-based systems. This ensures strong methods of security being deployed, so that cloud-based systems are strongly secured against cybercrimes in comparison to on-site systems.

Things to consider before getting a secure hospitality software solution 

One of the key factors to consider when purchasing a hotel software solution is to decide on the cost factors and the budgeting decisions of the hotel management. Although budgets are smaller at start, with the development and growth of the firm, this can increase. Therefore, decide upon the scalability and adaptability of the system, as the growth potential is a crucial element for a system to be long-lasting. Therefore, the system should be sufficient and scalable based on the future needs of the hotel.

The security compliance and the ability of the system to fightback various cyberattacks can be dependent upon the quality of the overall system. Service providers offering cloud-based system also provide a strong defense against cyberattacks. Such services ensure that the quality of services offered provides users with reassurance that services are reliable and effective in solving recurring problems on a 27/7 basis.

It is also important to highlight that when deciding on purchasing a hotel software solution, it is essential to proceed with secondary market research information that can be found on various suppliers of software solutions.

Checking on Google rankings and reviews can be one way of deciding and re-confirming your decision on selecting a suitable supplier. Therefore, Google reviews also has the propensity to identify those suppliers that has a proven track record in offering software solutions for hotels through past customer experiences. Customer reviews can also be identified as e-word of mouth, which is a strong mode of advertising based on digital landscape. Such knowledge based on secondary sources of information can provide strong evidence of performance of various providers of hotel management software.

In addition, having a disaster management and data recovery plan is another essential element that a hotelier should think of when purchasing a hotel software solution. While a majority of service providers may offer attractive pricing, it should not be compromised with quality. While this is an important area of concern, contingency planning and scenario planning is an essential element in a total software solution for hotel management.

This is where IDS Next comes to play, as all services provided are of high quality, with efficient support mechanism with contingency planning, that allows your hotel to plan ahead, implement best practice in managing cybersecurity.