Influence of gender and financing on tourist company growth

Research in both the manufacturing and service sectors has shown that companies run by women start with less capital and receive less external financing than firms run by men. This has had particularly adverse effects on the performance of companies managed by women. The present study analyzes start-up capital, financing and growth in terms of revenue and number of employees in 10,170 tourist companies created in Spain since 1996, based on longitudinal data for the period 1996–2006. The aim is to learn whether or not gender is a significant explanatory variable. The findings differ substantially from the results of previous research. In this study, while no start-up capital differences are observed, tourist industry companies run by women are found to out-perform ones run by men in terms of corporate growth. The differences in external financing report earlier were also identified here, however.