What’s important for women decide a travel destination?
Along a research I’ve been doing about tourism and marketing positioning for developing countries, it’s been evident among the interviewed women the importance of the women’s rights as a critical factor to decide a travel destination. Considering that many developing countries have conservative cultures regarding women’s social role and there are countries where sexual harassments occur massively, summed up with news about rapes and violence against women, it’s not that strange this concern.
My purpose with this post is not only share the insights pointed out by the 45 women I interviewed from 17 countries — from a total of 105 interviewed individuals from 22 countries until now — but also to provoke reflections and questions to women that search for relevant information when deciding a place to travel, especially to those destinations carried out by negative stereotypes and scarce accurate information about.
Among the topics pointed out by the women I interviewed, they showed a great concern to know about the social role performed by women in the place they want to travel, to the degree of liberty they join and how easy is to foreigner women adjust to local culture. In addition to these topics, the interviewed women also mentioned more concern regarded to the local dress code than the interviewed men, what’s culturally accepted for women and how to behave on the local daily life.
This is only one side of the coin. When asked about their culture shocks and the negative aspects of their travel experiences in developing countries, sexual harassment was mentioned by the interviewed as one of the main causes of discomfort. Below, it’s shown the main topics pointed out as important for the interviewed women when deciding a travel destination:
· How women’s rights are respected in the destination?
· If the destination is safe for women, either local or foreigner;
· The degree of liberty joined by women in the destination;
· Dress code: how careful do I have to be with dressing?
· The degree of restrictions imposed to women in the destination;
· How am I going to adapt to local culture?
Important to remember that women are travelling more and more and, proportionately, travelling alone. Personally and economically independent, with more income available, the demands to attend the specific needs of women travelers have been getting bigger every year, including to the off-the-radar destinations.
Data from the Brazilian Association of Hostels point out that 55% of the solo travelers that stayed in Brazilians hostels during 2013 were women. Statistics from USA, in parallel, point the growth of a segment represented by women single, young and childless, with an average age of 27 years old, which totalizes 31 million women willing to consume more products and services, including travelling. I didn’t find accurate statistics outside the Anglo-Saxon world, which indicates a nice opportunity to explore!!!
Communicate and attend the women travelers is one of the current greatest challenges to professionals and organizations that promote touristic destinations, even more to the destinations out of the touristic mainstream. So, communicate accurately to women travelers is a critical point to break down negative stereotypes and promote unknown places as possible travel destinations.
By position to women, I don’t mean lying and omit real information as a post on social media is more than enough to unmask any scam, pink fluffy websites carried out with shoes and make ups (girls, don’t take me badly, please!); but to the availability of useful, clear and realistic information for a travel experience be the safest as possible, without create unrealistic expectations.
ؑIn the end, who wants to be treated as “easy woman” simply for being foreigner? What’s you opinion about it? Comments and feedbacks are welcome!
To check the whole research, it’s available on Slideshare on this link.
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