Women's empowerment through self-employment in tourism

Women’s empowerment is a central issue in the development process of countries all over the world (Agarwal, 1997). According to Rao (2011), it is a process in which women individually and collectively become active, knowledgeable, and goal oriented, and lead or support initiatives to overcome gender inequalities. One popular approach to women’s empowerment has been the establishment of associations, sometimes called self-help groups, or SHGs. Members of these groups choose to pool their resources in order to radically change their lives and the lives of their families, and in order to have an impact on their communities; in this way, SHGs seek to empower women both economically and socially. This research note explores SHGs as a strategy for women’s empowerment in the tourism industry in the rural, developing-region context of Serbia, and presents the results of a survey