PHUKET, 8 July 2026: Women represent more than 50% of the global hotel workforce, but they hold fewer than 30% of executive leadership positions, including General Manager roles, according to C9 Hotelworks, the co-organiser of RISE 2026.
Other leading players behind RISE include Mrs B Group and Delivering Asia, supported by the Phuket Hotels Association, the Thai Hotels Association Southern Chapter, UN Women, and SAii Laguna Phuket as host venue.
“The event reflects C9 Hotelworks’ commitment to the principle that people matter in hospitality — not as a statement of intent, but as a foundation of sustainable business practice,” says C9 Hotelworks managing director Bill Barnett.
In Thailand, that imbalance is sharper still: entrenched gender norms continue to limit advancement into senior roles, even as women dominate the customer-facing and operational functions that define the guest experience. RISE 2026 – Reshaping Hospitality by Empowering Women is built around that gap — and the practitioners, founders, and emerging voices working to close it.
Returning on Thursday, 3 September 2026, at SAii Laguna Phuket, RISE brings together a cross-section of Thailand’s hospitality and tourism industry for a focused three-hour program that moves between personal leadership narratives, gender-responsive business practice, and the candid perspectives of the next generation entering the workforce. The event is deliberately not a panel of executives talking about diversity. It is a room of women — and the professionals who work alongside them — discussing the realities of building a career, a business, or a brand in an industry that is still recalibrating what leadership looks like.
The 2026 programme runs across four themes
Vision and Voice: Examining how personal narrative and values translate into professional authority.
Systems and Sectors: Engaging UN Women, IHG Hotels and Resorts, and Marriott International address what gender-responsive business practice requires at the operational level.
Emerging Leaders: Providing a platform for young Thai entrepreneurs and student voices to share what the industry must change to earn their commitment.
Craft, Communication, and Self: Exploring design, personal brand, inclusion, and the often-unacknowledged performance pressures in professional life.
Speakers include hotel owners, global brand directors, independent entrepreneurs, designers, disability-inclusion strategists, and youth panellists drawn from across Thailand’s tourism and business communities.
RISE 2026 is open to all working in and around Thailand’s hotel, tourism, and hospitality sector. Advance registration is required, and tickets are THB1,000. To view the programme and to register, use the following link CLICK
(Source: C9 Hotelworks)
