Putting Focus on Female Business Travelers

Troubling new research shows that women who travel for business tend to remain silent about sexual harassment and other threats they endure.

Four out of five U.S. women business travelers polled by the Global Business Travel Association said they had experienced a safety issue in the last year, and just over half of them always or sometimes report these issues to their company or travel manager.

While the sector has renewed its focus on physical security following a few years marked by terrorism and political instability around the world, much more needs to be done to support women as they routinely face threats to their safety. Earlier research on the subject found that travel policies don’t really focus on issues affecting women.

Companies can start by creating support programs focused primarily on women, while also ensuring that education is tailored to the growing group of female business travelers who often endure mistreatment instead of speaking up on issues that could affect their careers.

You can read my coverage of the research below. This week we also have the latest on a resurgence in corporate incentive travel budgets, along with a look at TravelPerk’s big funding round as it gears up to position itself as a European alternative to U.S.-based TripActions.

If you have any feedback about the newsletter or news tips, feel free to reach out via email at [email protected] or tweet me @sheivach. Is your company taking a novel approach to ensuring the safety of women who travel? Let me know.

— Andrew Sheivachman, Senior Editor

Airlines, Hotels, and Innovation

Safety Issues Severely Impact Women During Business Travel: Women who travel for business need more resources and support from the companies that dispatch them around the world. Raising awareness of the issues they face can only do so much.

Budgets Increase as Businesses Embrace Travel Rewarding Workers: Incentive travel professionals are doing a better job of proving that their sometimes expensive trips have a positive impact on a business’ bottom lines at the end of the day.

TravelPerk Raises $44 Million for Biz Trip Management: TravelPerk’s funding further supports Skift’s 2018 Megatrend that companies are becoming more interested in booking systems that more directly serve business travelers.

JetBlue’s Battle to Remain Dominant in Boston: A few years ago, Delta Air Lines expanded in Seattle and tried to take share from Alaska Airlines. Surprisingly, Alaska has held on to most of its customers. Now, Delta is trying a similar strategy in Boston. JetBlue has a big customer base there. Will JetBlue’s loyalists stick around?

Qatar Airways CEO Puts Pressure on Oneworld: Qatar’s departure from the Oneworld alliance could translate into some trickier international flights and connections for travelers on American, British and a dozen other airlines.

The Future of Travel

Hilton Debuts New Hostel-Inspired Brand, Motto: So, it’s not being marketed as a “hostel on steroids,” as Hilton CEO Chris Nassetta once described it, but Motto by Hilton is more or less a lot of what we’ve seen before, albeit with a few twists.

Planners Pressured by Uncertain Future as Meeting Sector Booms: Boom times for the meeting and events sector are disrupting the status quo, putting pressure on planners to do more with less. We are entering a period of unprecedented change for the industry.

Soho House Is Turning to Co-Working to Give It an Edge Over WeWork: Sounds a lot like our Skift Megatrend from this year: “The hotel of the future is everything to everyone” where co-working, co-living, hotels, and private clubs are all blended together.

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Skift Senior Editor Andrew Sheivachman [[email protected]] curates the Skift Corporate Travel Innovation Report. Skift emails the newsletter every Thursday.

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