Women Strongest Clients For Business Travel

The number of women that travel for professional reasons continue to increase and now reaches some 50% of total business travelers, compared with a meager 1% back in 1970, said Josiane Loutfi, president of the International Federation of Women’s Travel Organizations during a recent visit to Athens.

Ms. Loutfi, the guest speaker at the December meet organized by the local organization Women in Tourism, added that about 25% of women business travelers combine their professional trips with a few days holiday, which creates substantial revenue for the tourism sector. Only about 17% of their male counterparts do the same.

Another surprising statistic mentioned is that the number of women that travel alone on business reached some 238 million in 1995, according an NBC research. As well, it found that more advertising and promotion should be targeted at the female population as 63% of the people involved with organized travel are women, and some 75% of those that deal with nature travel are women.

Even family holidays are a woman’s domain. Women take 70% of all travel decisions and family travel is 90% decided upon by the male counterpart.

In 1970 only 1% of the business travelers were women and today we are approaching 50% of the total of all business travelers. Of course, this means women represent increasingly significant revenues for hotels, car rental companies, airlines and all other facets of the tourism economy worldwide.

“Women make up a big part of this industry and we should be proud of some of the things accomplished so far,” said Ms Loutfi.