Female travellers seen as more at risk
Travellers believe that women face greater risk than their male counterparts when travelling for business, according to new research from the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA), conducted in association with WWStay.
Sixty-nine per cent of US travel buyers believe that the safety risk to female travellers is greater, while 61 per cent also believe that it is very important to consider female safety when implementing risk management programmes. Respondents said that the top concerns for female travellers were travel to certain countries/cities, sexual harassment and assault, and kidnapping.
“While this research revealed travel buyers are concerned about female business traveller safety, only 18 per cent of travel policies specifically address female safety,” said Christle Johnson, GBTA President. “As an industry we need to do more to ensure the safety of our female road warriors, especially as women make up an ever-increasing amount of our business traveller population.”
“We are proud to partner with GBTA on this important research,” said Shobha Shankar, WWStay co-founder and COO. “As a long-time advocate and leader in addressing female safety, WWStay has vetted our global list of serviced apartments and have made changes in our technology to highlight those that meet a certain set of criteria with female traveller safety in mind. We hope that this study raises awareness of risks to female travellers, provides the attention these issues deserve, and results in changes and improvements by both the buyer and supplier communities.”