Vol. 6, Issue 5, Part E (2020)

Abstract
Empowerment is defined as a critical aspect of gender equality implies a society in which women and men enjoy the same opportunities, outcomes, rights and obligations in all spheres of life. A critical aspect of promoting gender equality is the empowerment of women, with a focus on identifying and redressing power imbalances and giving women more autonomy to manage their own lives. Women’s empowerment is vital to sustainable development and the realization of human right for all. Tourism is a tool to empower women from various aspects. Tourism could assist women to increase power and control over natural resources; economic empowerment; educational empowerment and political empowerment. Tourism development can be a great incentive for development and thus for the empowerment of women, which makes the plan of the WTO a reasonable motivation to empower women through this sector. Despite many international agreements that were organized to evaluate and improve the rights of women UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) claims ‘they are still much more likely than men to be poor, malnourished and illiterate. They usually have less access than men to medical care, property ownership, credit, training and employment. They are far less likely than men to be politically active and far more likely to be victims of domestic violence’ (UNFPA, 2008). The empowerment of women could therefore significantly contribute to reaching gender equality.