.png)
Yet another reason to have more women running hotels! New research by travel metasearch website WayAway shows 87% of female travellers would give preference to a ‘female-led’ hotel and almost half would pay more. The data is from a study WayAway conducted this summer with 1,250 female travelers.
In response to this data, WayAway has recently introduced a new category on its maps and listings called "female traveller approved points of interest." Other highlights from the data:
67% felt 'safety' would be the main advantage.
Nearly half would pay 10% more for a female owned or managed hotel.
New Female Approved Traveler Points of Interest
WayAway launched the "female traveler approved points of interest" category in September with about 100 listings and has target of low thousands businesses for year end. WayAway has a team of over 200 on-the-ground representatives around the world looking out for properties and companies to support.
"Points of interest could include the fact that the owners, founders, or senior management of a hotel or restaurant or shop are females – or simply that the point of interest has a female focus, for example a museum or monument celebrating women," according to WayAway’s Director of PR, Janis Dzenis.
Examples of inclusions are hotels such as the Carpenter Hotel in Texas or the Peter & Paul hotel in New Orleans or the Saint Claude Social Club also in the same city, all of which are owned by female founders.
“By launching the female traveller approved points of interest service we hope firstly to open the door to those who wish to support women-led businesses, but more importantly to allow female travellers to chose travel experiences that are not only perhaps more relevant to them but also, particularly in the case of solo female travellers, in order to feel safer. This is feedback we hear regularly: not enough solo female travellers feel safe when travelling when compared to men," commented Janis.
“We’d also like to point out that this is not only morally very important, but that businesses who are able to provide a relevant and authentic appeal to female travellers would be tapping into a market that represents half the world’s population – and an audience that is chronically underserved by the travel industry currently. In other words, there’s money to be made here, female entrepreneurs (and those lending money to them!) take note.
This news follows other actions this year from WayAway to improve resources for female travellers, including the introduction of maps that include ‘no go’ areas based on crime figures and user feedback – as well as producing a ranking of the 30 safest cities globally for female solo travellers.
Opportunity: If your hotel wants to get listed with WayAway, please reach out to Janis Dzenis at pr@wayaway.io.