Women travelers are a very important segment of consumers. In 2005 women travelers accounted for approximately 43% of the business travelers. According to marketing expert Martha Barletta, 85 % of all buying decisions is made by women. She also claims that that the majority of corporate purchasing agents and managers are women. Women make approximately 70% of travel decisions for the family and for other people (e.g. at work).
Speaking about accommodation, women are especially interested in security, cleanliness, communication facilities, style and ambience of the space, smooth check-in/check-out procedures, as well as in comfortable access and/or transfers.
Security is a very important factor. For example, some hotels offer a separate floor for female executives. The hotel staff is now trained not to give the guest room number to anyone or to write information down to avoid a stranger overhearing it.
Women prefer to go for trips in groups. According to Kathy Stewart, a program director for Butterfield & Robinson, a company based in Canada that organizes trips: "Women want to go to exotic places, they want to have exotic experiences, but they feel much more comfortable when there"s a guide or an experienced person there to make them feel safe in a foreign country."
But security is not the only issue. Hotels often imagine their customers as men only. It concerns the choice of magazines for the lobby, lack of skirt hangers or number and logical placement of electrical plugs. Also women sometimes complain about being treated with less respect and less politeness than men by airlines’ staff.
Women are more demanding than men but are also willing to pay more for comfort.
