AHLA Foundation Releases 2022 Report on Diversity of Hotel Industry’s Public Company Boards

The American Hotel & Lodging Foundation (AHLAF) released the 2022 “Diversity of Hospitality Industry Public Boards” research report.

AHLAF is a philanthropic organization that aims to educate and empower the hospitality workforce. It is also committed to creating an industry which is “as diverse as the guests we serve”.

The research published its findings after reviewing public company boards of 30 hospitality companies and 262 board members. They reviewed 10-k filings on corporate brands of public hospitality companies based in the United States. Using a data range of six years to track progress, some of the key findings include:

• Hospitality public company boards comprised 22.5% women in 2021. The Russell 3000 averaged 25.6 percent female board members in 2021 and will reach 27% in 2022.
• 7.6 percent of hospitality public company board members in 2021 were African American, up from 6.3 percent in 2020 and equivalent to pre-pandemic 2019 levels.
• There are three Black board chairs, one of whom is female. Only two boards had no female representation.

Research was conducted by the Castell Project. AHLA Foundation and Castell Project recently merged and stated they share same values of bringing diverse voices to the top.

“This research is crucial as part of the AHLA Foundation’s commitment to advancing diversity in hospitality,” said AHLAF Vice President of Workforce Development Sarah Cozewith

“While there is still work to do, we are proud to see the industry making DE&I a priority and look forward to tracking continued progress in 2023 and beyond,” said Peggy Berg, founder of the Castell Project.