TravelVoice Journal - Hotels wake up to women

Hotels wake up to women

by Sophie Campbell

Security, hairdryers, cotton wool - female travellers' needs are no longer ignored

IT’s ages since I've been mistaken for a hooker. The last time was with a friend in the Ritz, when a man in a suit came up and asked us some polite questions (top marks for finesse there) about how long we had been waiting and for whom. We thought it was quite funny at the time.

For a lot of women travelling alone, however, being mistaken for a prostitute is their biggest fear. It deters them from sitting in hotel lobbies and stops them having a drink in the hotel bar. It ranks alongside eating alone, checking in and worrying about room security as one of the things they most hate about travelling.

Recently, there has been a surge of interest in this subject on the part of the travel industry. The Salzburg Tourist Board, for example, is advertising a "Best for Ladies" programme, including safe hotels, hairdryers and skirt hangers in rooms, female tour guides and childcare facilities. And a recent issue of Conference & Incentive Travel magazine ran a feature on female business travellers and their needs.

Room Service, a company that specialises in booking Italian hotels and rooms particularly suitable for women travelling on their own, says in a press release: "Many tour operators book you into the first hotel to hand, regardless of whether it's in a red-light district or whether you're likely to find yourself the only female dining in a room of well-oiled conference delegates."

Women expect to have hairdryers and ironing boards in their rooms instead of shaving plugs and trouser presses

The reason for this heightened interest is easily explained. According to a survey conducted last year by American Express, women will soon account for 50 per cent of the world's travellers, and many of them will be businesswomen with serious spending power.

It suddenly matters that these women expect to have hairdryers and ironing boards in their rooms instead of shaving plugs and trouser presses

It matters that 48 per cent of the 200 women questioned said they had felt "ignored, sexually harassed, treated rudely or patronised because of their sex" - and that only 11 per cent felt comfortable eating alone in a hotel restaurant.

Women travelling alone on business very often eat in their rooms. "It's partly so you can flake out," said Sara Finn, a stockbroker specialising in Asian markets, "but there is also the embarrassment factor - you do feel a bit of a Norma No-Mates."

Hotels are trying to redress the balance. Most large chains have stepped up security - everything from ensuring discretion when giving a woman her room number to offering patrolled car-parking services. They are also attending to the more personal aspects of female travel, such as providing cotton-wool balls and women's magazines in rooms.
However, segregated facilities such as women-only tables in restaurants or women-only floors are not popular among female travellers. The message is that women would like to be treated the same as men - there are simply some issues (first and foremost security) that preoccupy them more.

There is a demand for women-friendly - as opposed to women-only - services

The women who occupy the middle ground, between expense-account and low-budget travellers, are the most vulnerable. They may be travelling on a budget for pleasure, or working for small companies that cannot afford large hotel bills. Either way, they are cut off from the safety net of expensive hotels and unlimited taxis, and from the useful bush telegraph of the backpackers. Unlike the latter, they look smart enough to be worth robbing, thus increasing their personal risk.

Theresa Lennon, who works for a small London company, went to Moscow on a business trip with her male boss and stayed at the Ukraina, one of the gigantic Russian hotels, which costs $120 per night, as opposed to $320 at a Western-style hotel. Both were woken repeatedly during the night by phone calls to their rooms from male and female prostitutes addressing them by name.

"I complained to the concierge and he said, 'It's people from outside the hotel.' I replied that of course it wasn't, as these people knew our names. Someone was selling the guest-list, or using the numbers from within the hotel. If I'd been alone, I would have felt very worried."

Maggie Moss, co-author of The Handbook for Women Travellers, believes that there is a demand for women-friendly - as opposed to women-only - services.

Victoria Riela, who started Room Service four years ago, reckons that 20 per cent of her clients are women on their own

"When we first did the handbook there was a crying need for it," she said. "At that time all the guides were written by and for men - now at least half the writers are female. The issue of who owns public space is so important for women. Men don't notice, unless they are in an Islamic country where there aren't many women about."

Such concepts help to explain why in some countries you can walk about undisturbed, whereas in others you are transgressing social boundaries, and will be treated accordingly.

Frustrating as it is, most female travellers feel that the only solution is to work around such obstacles rather than confront them. Victoria Riela, who started Room Service four years ago, reckons that 20 per cent of her clients are women on their own.

"There are a lot of women out there who have the funds to travel and they're not going to wait for a husband or boyfriend - they just want to go. They need to know that a hotel is clean, the people that run it are decent and that it is in a safe area." She tries to feature hotels with low or no single supplements, and avoids notorious areas, such as south-east of Termini station in Rome, so that women guests do not have to depend on taxis to get back safely.

Small hotels of the world, take note. And when in Rome, use Room Service.
Room Service can reserve hotel rooms throughout Italy. The Austrian National Tourist Office has details of Salzburg's "Best for Ladies" programme. The Handbook for Women Travellers, by Maggie and Gemma Moss .

Sophie Campbell
April 2000

Oh Savannah

Trevor Sinclair
June 2003

By Trevor Sinclair

My oh so patient partner and I arrived in Savannah after an extremely tedious drive from Atlanta. Trucks, eighteen-wheelers, trucks, trucks and more trucks. If I’d known more I would have flown. With ticket prices under $50 it’s gotta be worth it. The drive along the Interstate is very lush green and somewhat pretty, but it’s not as though there’s anywhere to stop, apart from finding the most wonderful fresh fruit in the small town of Dudley…somewhere off the freeway past Macon.

Hotels wake up to women

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