Opinion: Virgin and Richard Branson Have a Problem With Women Nobody Talks About
Photo Credit: Richard Branson with a companion in a promotional image for Virgin Voyages. Virgin Voyages
Skift Take
We are fans of Virgin products and we think that the brand's founder does good work. But we'd also like to see a workplace relatively free of the type of sexist images it promotes at launch events and anywhere else the founder shows up.
Last year at a conference in Los Angeles, women in black bathing suits and red overcoats mingled with a group of guests that was decidedly much, much older and much, much more male.
It wasn't an auto show, or a consumer electronics show, or even a sci-fi fan gathering, where behavior like that is the norm. It was the Americas Lodging Investment Summit (ALIS) for 2016, the annual gathering of hotel brand executives and the investors who finance the properties the brands flag with their names. And the young women parading around were there to promote Virgin Hotels, Richard Branson's extension into hospitality in the United States. So far it has one open property in Chicago and hotels under construction in Nashville, Tenn.; Dallas, Texas; and next to Skift headquarters in New York City.
Virgin Hotels has been promoted to the public as a female-friendly brand, with apps and snac
