Abstract:
Women entrepreneurs often face challenges in accessing finance due to cultural norms
and gender bias. This can impact their ability to invest in their business and expand
operations, which can lead to lower business performance. This study analyses the
factors that influence the business performance of men and women in different
sub-sectors of small-scale enterprises in the tourism industry in Sri Lanka. This is an
explorative study, which employed several data collection techniques, including key
informant interviews, non-participant observation, a questionnaire survey and in-depth
interviews. They were carried out among small-scale tourist enterprises in the Hikkaduwa
Urban Council (HUC) area of Galle district, Sri Lanka. The samples were chosen at
random, and the data was analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. Three major sectors,
namely accommodation, food and beverage, and tourism-affiliated retail services were
selected for this study. Secondary information was mostly collected from the literature on
gender studies and relevant documents of small-scale enterprises. The data suggests
those women entrepreneurs in the tourism industry in Sri Lanka are performing well and,
in some cases, outperforming men. The fact that women in all three sub-sectors showed a
higher increase in sales than men is a positive sign of the growing role of women in the
tourism industry. Furthermore, the fact that women entrepreneurs in the accommodation
sub-sector showed the highest sales expansion is particularly encouraging. This indicates
that women in this sub-sector may have fewer gender differences in business performance
than women in the other two sub-sectors.
