If you’re among the 40 percent of business travelers who are female, you’re part of a growing force of frequent fliers whose demands increasingly are being met with gusto by the travel industry.
And it’s about time, says Pat Stout, founder of Alamo Travel Group, a San Antonio-based travel agency.
“They’re making all kinds of requests and the industry is paying attention,” Stout says of her female customers.
Those requests include flights that arrive before dark, hotels situated near meeting sites and that provide airport shuttle bus service, which is considered safer than taking a taxi late at night.
According to the American Business Women’s Association, major hotel chains are actively targeting female business travelers. Travel planners are also beginning to specialize in booking women’s travel by catering to their needs, such as making sure hotels have in-room amenities like hair dryers and irons.
Some hotels take a subtle approach: a free bottle of water in the room, low-calorie mini-bar munchies, a complimentary magazine. Others lay it on thick, supplying yoga DVDs and mats for in-room workouts, samples of designer lotions and potions, parking garage escorts and women-only floors.
When Wyndham Hotels launched Women on Their Way eight years ago, it was one of the industry’s first programs dedicated to the female business traveler. The program, which incorporates research from New York University’s hospitality center, has a travel advice-heavy Web site (www.womenontheirway.com). And it often surveys women travelers about what they want. (They want their bottled water and Internet access on the house for starters and a “Back at the Office” bag of forgotten supplies doesn’t hurt, all of which Wyndham provides.) The efforts are appreciated, say women travelers, but not yet complete. Wyndham’s most recent poll, for example, found that a listing of hotels deemed safe by other women travelers joined pretzels and designer shampoo on the request list.
“A few years ago there was much discussion about catering to the woman business traveler and things like magnifying mirrors and key card door locks became standard. But with the economy and 9/11, these initiatives have been put on a back burner,” says Carol Kuc, a Naperville meeting planner and frequent traveler who notes that while some more upscale properties are devoting money to amenities for women business travelers, it’s “not yet the norm.”
But the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, did force hotels to tighten security efforts for all guests, a fact that reassures Kuc when she’s looking for sites to book largely female business groups.
“Hotels understand they need to have better security, safety and emergency plans in place–and that’s especially comforting for women travelers,” she says.
Janelle Brittain, a Chicago-based business owner, consultant and speaker, says she appreciates the fact that hotel front-desk managers no longer “shout out my name for the entire registration line to hear.” But she thinks the travel industry needs to go further.
“Airports and hotels need to have better security in parking lots, including better lighting, security cameras and security personnel driving or walking around, especially in remote parking lots,” Brittain says. “Hotels should have a 911 type of number, which a person could dial quickly if there’s an emergency in their room. This would be to call hotel security quickly. It would be best if it was an industrywide number, so it is easy for the lodging public to remember.”
A 2002 survey by John Portman & Associates, a hotel-architecture firm, found that 75 percent of female executives polled wanted screens in their rooms showing who was outside the door, and 84 percent would like panic buttons on the wall to alert the front desk.
Safety features don’t end at a hotel room’s double-bolted door. In 2002, the Hamilton Crowne Plaza in Washington, D.C., began offering a women-only floor, Sunday through Thursday. When occupancy has been unexpectedly high during the week, the hotel has at times put a heterosexual couple on the floor, but never a single man, says Tiffany Fessler, a spokeswoman for the property. The response has been so positive, Fessler says, that the hotel is considering adding a second women-only floor.
The Hamilton Crowne Plaza also provides women with parking lot escorts upon request. During check-in, women, as well as men, are given their room number on a hand-written note, rather than verbally, and room cards never indicate room numbers.
The Hotel Teatro in Denver also appeals to female business travelers, especially those with security concerns. On the Guided Run program, a member of the hotel staff will escort female joggers on the city’s Cherry Creek Trail, a paved path moments away from the hotel.
Luxury properties, like Hotel Teatro, and spas are leading the pack in making security upgrades, says Cathy Enz, a professor at Cornell Hotel School who wrote two reports on hotel safety and security after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Although impressed by the efforts like jogging escorts and the industry’s overall push for anti-terrorism measures, Enz says hotels have room for improvement.
“I would give the industry a mixed grade on handling female safety,” she says. Although “most chains in major cities get high marks, lower-end hotels particularly in smaller cities could do a better job in both facilities and training, and be more attentive to some of the special concerns of female travelers.”
Regardless of size and cushiness, all hotels could do a better job of training employees, Enz says. And she doesn’t need a study to prove it. When she stayed at a luxury hotel a few years ago, the employee escorting her to her room, “spoke in such a loud voice about the safety features that I was sure everyone in the hotel who didn’t know I was traveling alone knew by the time he finished his speech to make me feel safe and secure.
“His message was great, his delivery was terrible. A little training could have solved that.”
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Basic features of a safe hotel
If the hotels on your business trips aren’t yet offering security escorts and female-only floors, don’t cancel your reservations. Just make sure they meet certain standards.
SafePlace, (www.safeplace.com) a Wilmington, Del., company that offers accreditation to hotels and other facilities, said hotels should provide common-area lighting, electronic room locks and perimeter-security measures; run background checks on job applicants; hold security courses for employees and put emergency procedures in writing. And travelers, especially women, should not hesitate to ask whether the hotel does all the above.
Although accreditation by SafePlace is a start, it’s not mandatory and no standards for safety, beyond fire codes, exist at hotels.
That could change if Lin and Sol Toder, the parents of Nan Toder, can get Nan’s Law on the books. Toder was a 33-year-old female business traveler who was murdered in her Hampton Inn room in suburban Crestwood eight years ago by a hotel handyman.
The legislation, which would require a background check of hotel workers with access to keys, has been introduced into the Ohio and Pennsylvania legislatures, is gaining the support of some lawmakers in Florida, where Toder lived. It also has received endorsement from the American Automobile Association, which awards Diamond Ratings to hotels based, in part, on safety precautions.
–Amanda Long
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For more information
These Web sites provide tips and ideas for women travelers–whether traveling for business, recreation, with family or solo. They also share tips from readers and list other resources for female travelers.
www.womentraveltips.com
www.journeywoman.com
