Efficient but Constrained: The Technology Gap Facing Women Hotel Leaders

In Georgia's fast-growing hotel industry, a surprising story is unfolding. Women who run private hotels are, on average, better managers than men. Yet when overall performance is measured, they do not appear to outperform their male counterparts. A new World Bank study explains why this happens and challenges a common belief about gender and productivity.

The research was produced by the World Bank's Development Economics Global Indicators Group and carried out by economists from the Enterprise Analysis Unit. Instead of assuming that all businesses operate under the same conditions, the study asks a crucial question: do women and men actually have equal access to the same business technology and opportunities?

The answer, it turns out, is no.

Looking Beyond the Surface

The study analyzes 86 private hotels in Georgia using 2023 World Bank Enterprise Survey data. Of these, 36 hotels are run by women and 50 by men. The researchers measured performance using a method that compares how efficiently hotels turn inputs such as labor costs and the number of rooms into output, measured by annual sales.

But they went a step further. They separated productivity into two parts. The first part is managerial efficiency. This shows how well managers use the resources available to them. The second part is the technology gap. This measures whether one group has access to better business conditions or production possibilities than the other.

This distinction changes everything.

Women Outperform in Management

When compared only with other women-run hotels, female managers perform much better than male managers do within their own group. Women-run hotels score 0.69 on technical efficiency, while men-run hotels score 0.48. In simple terms, women managers are better at getting results from the resources they have.

This means that, relative to their own benchmark group, men-run hotels have much more room to improve. Women managers appear more effective at controlling costs and using space and labor wisely.

If we stopped the analysis here, the conclusion would be clear: women are stronger managers.

But the story does not end there.

The Hidden Technology Gap

The study finds that men-run hotels operate much closer to the industry's best overall standard. Their access to technology and business conditions almost match the top frontier in the sector. Women-run hotels, however, operate on a lower technological level.

This difference is captured in what researchers call the meta technology ratio. For men-run hotels, the score is 0.99, meaning they are nearly on par with the best possible production benchmark. For women-run hotels, the score is 0.71. This shows a clear gap in access to higher-level production possibilities.

Once this technology difference is considered, overall performance between women- and men-run hotels looks similar. Under traditional analysis, which assumes everyone has equal access to technology, one might wrongly conclude that there is no gender gap at all.

The reality is different. Women are more efficient managers, but they operate under tougher structural constraints.

Why This Matters for Policy

The researchers also checked whether these results were driven by differences in hotel size, location, age, or ownership structure. After carefully matching similar women- and men-run hotels, the pattern remained the same. Women managers still showed higher efficiency but faced a clear technology disadvantage.

The study also found that this disadvantage is strongest among lower-performing women-run hotels. This suggests that structural barriers weigh most heavily at the bottom of the efficiency ladder. In other words, women trying to climb up may face especially strong obstacles.

The message for policymakers is straightforward. The issue is not that women lack managerial skills. In fact, the data show the opposite. The real challenge lies in unequal access to finance, networks, infrastructure, and broader business opportunities that shape technological possibilities.

Training programs that focus only on improving women's management skills may miss the main problem. Instead, policies should aim to close the technology gap by improving women's access to resources and business support systems.

The study reshapes the conversation around gender and productivity. It shows that equal outcomes cannot be judged without considering unequal starting points. In Georgia's hotel industry, women are not underperforming because they are less capable. They are operating on a different, more limited frontier. Closing that frontier gap may be the key to unlocking their full economic potential.