In London, the luxury Dukes hotel has a "Duchess" floor for women only, one on which the decorations and amenities are more feminine and the only attendants are female.

It's a concept that's been tried occasionally over the years with varied outcomes. But at the Dukes, in the heart of London's financial district, the rare offering has been a hit with female business travelers looking for a respite from days spent in male-dominated industries.

The success of the Duchess floor might well be attributed to the fact that the hotel executive behind it, Dukes Collection managing director Debrah Dhugga, is herself a bit of a rarity: a female in the top echelons of another largely male-dominated world, hospitality, where the decor and amenities in traditional rooms often attest to the lack of gender diversity in top management and decision-making roles.

"It's a very white, male industry," said Lalia Rach, an industry consultant and former dean at New York University's Jonathan M. Tisch Center for Hospitality and Tourism. "Is it changing? Yes. But it is changing glacially. The sea of change is far too slow."

Globally, the lack of women in top hospitality management roles has lagged not only that of the rest of the travel industry but much of the business world, save for maybe Wall Street and Silicon Valley.

It's an issue that many hospitality companies still don't like to talk about, but it's clearly on their minds.