By CATHERINE CHETWYND
chief executive, Maiden Voyage
a choice: if there is information available that answers some of those vulnerabilities, it’s up to them whether they engage with it but if they feel vulnerable, it’s there. We launched SOLO last year to find the hotels that go above and beyond to meet the needs of the UK’s female business travellers. It is about being pragmatic and sensible, and there is some information that is helpful for female travellers. They can choose whether this influences their decisions or not. Men can also look at it but it is being driven by females, who nominate hotels on the Redfern website. I don’t think it is about having a travel programme specifically for women, but I do think hotels that go the extra mile to resolve some of these vulnerabilities should be flagged within a programme so that women can make the choice.
but I don’t think a separate policy is appropriate. The overlap between men and women is so great that there are only a few things organisations need to do to make sure they are applying the correct duty-of-care for female business travellers, and that is where they fall down. I recently spoke at duty-of-care conference for travel risk managers, who are often male and ex-military. Quite a lot of them said: ‘we know we should be having these conversations with our female travellers but we shy away from it rather than facing it head on’ – some of them had had their head bitten off by someone who said: ‘why are you giving me this advice when you wouldn’t say this to a man?’. It is potentially tricky ground because if something does happen to a woman that is related to their gender and their employer hasn’t briefed them or done risk assessment, they can have a case against their employer. And in reality, if a woman reports sexual assault in the UAE, she’s liable to be arrested
for having unlawful sex, or if she uses inappropriate body language or gives public displays of affection in the Middle East, she could be in danger. You risk offending the people you have gone there to do business with and losing the business deal. It is also about training. One-in-four female travellers has a negative incident while
travelling on business, and half of those relate to sexual harassment. We have developed e-learning modules that are gender specific: if you are travelling in this country, you may want to observe a more conservative dress code, it wouldn’t be appropriate to shake hands or initiate a handshake or make long eye contact. That will make a difference. It will enable them to reduce the risk of anything happening to them, and to have a plan B and plan C they can activate to avoid the risk escalating. My message to employers is, have the conversation. If you have the right intention and tone, women travellers will have a more amazing business trip and be more successful. If they take offence, it says more about them than it does about you.
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