Echoing a late 20th-century trend, solo women business travellers are again being targeted by hotels, reports David Churchill
NEARLY 20 YEARS AGO leading hotel bookings agency Expotel launched an innovative campaign called ‘Women Aware’, to make hotels safer and more user-friendly places for the emerging new generation in the 1990s of women business travellers. The initiative was widely welcomed at the time and recognised by many in the hospitality industry as an important step forward.
Two decades on and Expotel, which was acquired by outsourcing group Capita last year, has decided that in the 21st century a non-gender specific approach would be more appropriate. Hence the campaign has been reinvented as the ‘Lone Traveller Initiative’ to focus on improving hotel stays for all solo business travellers, whether men or women.
So does this mean that the era of targeting female business travellers with special women-only floors, enhanced beauty products in the bathrooms and ‘lighter meals’ to stay healthy is all a thing of the past? Not quite.
In May this year the Andaz hotel, located next to London’s Liverpool Street station, became the first UK Hyatt property to launch a special female-friendly approach, under the ‘Hyatt for Her’ programme, which being rolled out at Hyatt hotels around the world. The programme is the result of an 18-month research study by Hyatt into what women travellers want from hotels.
But Hyatt is not alone in targeting women business travellers in the capital. Dukes hotel in London’s St James’s Place, traditional home of ‘gentlemen’s clubs’, has also launched what it calls Duchess Rooms, specifically for women guests. Special facilities include ‘make-up mirror, hair dryer and accessories positioned at easy reach from the dressing table’, ‘smaller-size slippers’ and a ‘choice of glossy lifestyle magazines in every room’.
Other London hotels that also provide special facilities for female executives on the move include the Grange City Hotel in the City of London, which introduced a scheme after research showed half its customers were women. The rooms contain ‘female-friendly’ features, such as ‘illuminated wardrobes and a backlit make-up mirror’.
Outside London, the trend is also gathering pace. Aberdeen’s Skene House Hotelsuites, for example, was recently certified as Scotland’s first ‘female-friendly’ hotel by online networking site Maiden-voyage.com, aimed at women business travellers. The hotel was singled out for its approach to women, especially given the predominance of men staying in Aberdeen who work in the oil and gas industry.
But Skene House’s approach – like that of the Andaz, Dukes and other ‘female-friendly’ hotels – may seem patronising to some women (and men) because of a perceived emphasis on frills. Businesswomen staying at the Andaz, according to Hyatt, should expect ‘feminine touches’ such as room amenities which include ‘more powerful hair dryers, and smaller bathrobes’ along with ‘Toni & Guy hair straighteners and curling tongs on request’.
Moreover, this is not just a UK trend. Around the globe, hoteliers are increasingly targeting women on business. In Copenhagen, for example, the Bella Sky Comwell Hotel allows only women to stay on its 17th floor, although this policy has faced a legal challenge for being discriminatory against men. The Crowne Plaza in Philadelphia, part of Intercontinental Hotels Group, is another of several hotels around the world to have opened a dedicated women-only floor.
PAYING FOR THE PRIVILEGE
But the concept is not really new: a decade ago, for example, the London Hilton on Park Lane launched a women-only floor amid much fanfare, only to quietly drop it a few years later. The Hilton, like a number of hotels operating such floors, charged women guests a premium for the privilege – and found that cost-conscious women business travellers clearly decided it was not worth it.
But according to New York-based Ann Mack, director of trend spotting at marketing group JWT, “this [women-only floors] is an old concept once dismissed as sexist that’s having a resurgence primarily as a result of more women travelling solo on business”. In fact, the rise in numbers of women business travellers over the past generation has been huge. In 1970, a survey by Delta Airlines and American Express Travel Services found that just 1 per cent of business travellers in the US were women. Now, according to America’s Cornell University, which specialises in the hospitality industry, almost half of all US business travellers are women. “As women in all businesses move up the career ladder, they are travelling more frequently and have become the fastest-growing segment of business travellers in the US,” says Judi Brownell, dean of students at Cornell’s School of Hotel Administration.
Although data is more sketchy for the UK, it is estimated that the proportion of women travelling on business is at least 40 per cent of the market and edging closer to the 50-50 ratio seen in the US. This emphasises that women can no longer be regarded as the ‘Cinderellas’ of the business travel world. But there is also a growing recognition that there is a genuine gender gap between what male and female business travellers are looking for when travelling on business.
A study by the New York’s Tisch Centre for Hospitality suggested that women business travellers were more likely to be attending meetings, conferences and conventions for multi-night stays than their male colleagues, who were more disposed to be on sales or consultancy trips often for single-night stays. In the UK, there is no directly comparable research but anecdotal evidence would suggest meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE) events are similarly a key driver for women travelling on business, although sales trips are likely to be growing as well.
But, according to research published late last year by Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT), which covered 6,000 business travellers around the world, women travelling on business are more likely to suffer stress than their male colleagues. Lost or delayed baggage was the most stress-inducing experience for women – well ahead of the stress men felt – while, in hotels, CWT found that “increased workloads, weekend travel and long-stays were significant stress factors for women”. One interesting finding was that women were less stressed about flying economy than men, which CWT said was “somewhat unexpected as convenience and the importance of a daily routine was a common theme among the responses given by women travellers”.
Yet other research has suggested women do have problems with airlines and airports because of safety and security concerns. A survey by Cap Strategic Research of US and European women business travellers (split 50-50) found that while security on aircraft is not a problem, it is at the airport or car rental office where issues arise. “Many of the respondents complained of arriving late at an airport and finding security and transport seemingly non-existent, or even of being stranded at an airport,” the survey reported.
BUYERS’ CONCERNS
Laura Mummery, a senior executive assistant and travel manager at Young’s Seafood in Grimsby, says the “concerns for me as a woman business traveller are not putting yourself at excessive risk. If you wouldn’t do it ‘normally’ outside of business travel, then don’t do it now, but if you would, then don’t make an issue of it simply because it is business.”
A (male) travel buyer for a major global manufacturer also reveals that “we’ve had a few isolated incidents recently where a female traveller has had to move hotel because it was oversold and they had arrived late in the evening, and in a couple of cases the women felt vulnerable – but I think male travellers would have felt the same in similar circumstances.”
The issue of whether women should get special treatment from hotels (and airlines) does not appear to be high on the agenda for travel buyers. Mummery says Young’s does not have specific policies covering women travellers: “At the last policy review it was considered, but we were confident our travel policy covered all relevant aspects and didn’t require highlighting any special issues.” The global manufacturer’s buyer also confirms his company has no specific policies in place for women travellers: “We have not been asked to do this by HR, or indeed, by any female colleagues,” he says.
Another travel manager for a telecoms firm says: “Our approach is quite straightforward: we don’t differentiate between male and female travellers. I know that some of our preferred hotels have female-only floors, but this is not something we would require or demand when negotiating with our suppliers.”
PC OR NOT PC?
It is perhaps unsurprising that women business travellers are not singled out for special treatment in corporate travel policies, given the modern legal emphasis on gender-neutrality.
However, the current vogue among hoteliers around the world for female-friendly facilities may be ignoring one of the basic rules of hospitality: the best hotels are usually those that treat all their guests in a ‘uniformly superior’ way, be they men or women.
WHAT WOMEN WANT
WHEN MEL GIBSON played a male chauvinist with the ability to read women’s thoughts in the 2000 Hollywood film What Women Want, it proved a therapeutic eye-opener and enabled him see the error of his ways, at least as far as his relationships with women were concerned.
Hyatt Hotels, however, had no such paranormal powers when it also thought it would be a good idea to tap into the psyche of its female guests, especially since women travelling on business are now one of the fastest growing segments of the global hotel industry.
So in the late Noughties, it embarked on an 18-month research programme – the biggest ever undertaken by the Chicago-based hotelier – to find out what women really wanted from their hotel experiences. More than 40 groups of women took part in discussion meetings held around the world and discovered – perhaps unsurprisingly – that women did want some different things when staying in hotels that may not have been as apparent as previously thought.
The Hyatt research found that women needed to feel ‘safe, relaxed and comfortable’ in hotels. This meant, for example, ensuring that measures such as being allocated rooms near lifts or staircases – rather than the end of a corridor – were actually implemented at check-in.
But additional steps mean that female guests are contacted by a woman employee shortly after arrival to confirm everything is satisfactory. Additionally, if something is requested or room service ordered then this should be delivered by a female member of staff.
Sara Kearney, Hyatt’s senior vice-president for brands, points out that while women usually prefer not to sit alone at a bar or restaurant, they also want a place outside their room to unwind and work. “Hyatt is working to adapt communal areas in hotel lobbies over time to make them into spaces where women guests feel more comfortable,” she says.
Other measures include a new ‘Hyatt Has It’ service enabling guests (both male and female) to borrow or buy forgotten small items. “Women are often much more reluctant than men to seek assistance when they forget things, which can make something simple such as leaving a phone charger at home more disruptive for female travellers,” says Kearney.