The initiative will centre on strategic skills development, supporting women across the tourism sector to build the confidence, knowledge and networks to grow their careers and contribute to the industry’s future. 

While the global share of tourism and hospitality board seats held by women doubled from 16% in 2013 to 33% in 2025, representation still thins out at the top. A recent World Travel & Tourism Council study shows that they hold just 42% of mid-management positions and only 7% of CEO or chair roles. 

“As demand accelerates globally for inclusive leadership in travel and hospitality, we’re working to ensure that the effective upliftment of women in tourism remains a priority,” said Megan De Jager, Portfolio Director for Travel, Tourism and Sports at RX Africa. 

Voted Mentor of the Year at the 2026 Women in MICE Awards, De Jager believes genuine progress in gender empowerment calls for more than creating leadership opportunities for women. It requires intentional focus on professional development and support to help them succeed when they get there. 

“Women have an enormous role to play in deciding our industry’s future, but leadership is not only about the positions we hold. It is also about having the confidence to use our voices, share our ideas, and recognise the value we bring,” she added. 

Amongst the planned highlights for WiT 2027 is “Empowering Female Leadership in Tourism”, an interactive workshop exploring high-impact topics including strategic decision-making, adaptive leadership, personal and corporate branding, mentorship and networking.  

This dedicated session will follow the Women in MICE Breakfast, welcoming women working across the meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions sector and providing a platform to launch new categories for the Women in MICE Awards 2027. Further details will be announced closer to the show.  

This Women’s Month, the message is clear: women already represent one of tourism’s greatest resources. WTM Africa 2027 aims to create more opportunities for them to develop their skills and step forward with the confidence to contribute at every level of the industry. 

Taking place between 30^th October and 5^th November 2020, the event will hold a diverse array of webinars and summits designed to help the travel industry recover, rebuild and innovate.

The schedule will be focusing on how to market a destination or brand into the future. The Five Percent will deliver their take on the future of travel marketing, before the BAME Women in Travel organisation will unpack how to diversify travel marketing to help brands connect with an increasingly varied consumer market.

Moving to Saturday, and London Travel Week will be showcasing further insightful content including webinars with BBC Storyworks and the Caviar Spoon Rebelle as well as debuting the #TourismStrong campaign from GLP Films who will be showing their work towards pioneering sustainable recovery solutions for local tourism operators around the world.

G Adventures will also be taking up slots over the weekend, with two webinars centred on their recent “re-travel better” campaign.

The company’s founder Bruce Poon Tip will speak to the likes of Dr Jane Goodall, Conde Nast Traveller and National Geographic as part of this series.  Find out more about the two sessions taking place on Saturday 30^th October and Sunday 1^st November clicking here.

Monday 2^nd November signals just one week to go until the opening of WTM Virtual and so London Travel Week virtual will be hosting WTM’s aviation expert John Strickland as he explains why 2020 was the most unprecedented year in aviation history.

For anyone interested in this sector or wanting to get a preview of the sessions John will be conducting with Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary and Jet Blue’s Robin Hayes during WTM Virtual, then this is a must attend event.

The following day, London Travel Week Virtual will be focusing on digital influencers with its Content Creators Summit. The three-hour event will begin with the BCMA Influence Awards for 2020 and the ten finalists will be showcasing their work to the assembled audience.

Following on from this, a panel of leading travel content creators will delve into the topic of how to make your niche your influencing super-power and produce truly unique content.

Digital influencer marketing agency Traverse will then present their own webinar on how content creators can form a crucial part of travel and tourism’s recovery before the winners of the BCMA Influence Awards are crowned to conclude the summit. 

Wednesday 4^th November will be a dedicated Responsible Tourism Day with a special programme of interviews curated by WTM’s Responsible Tourism expert Harold Goodwin.

There will be a series of conversations with industry leading figures and a key-note interview with Sir Tim Smit, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of the Eden Project who will talk about why acting in a green and responsible way makes business sense in 2020.

The final day of London Travel Week will begin with a summit from WTM’s official media partner TTG.

The industry publication will be focusing on how to put travel back on the map for 2021 and will draw on their vast network to deliver a great deal of insightful content.

Concluding London Travel Week in 2020 will be another summit, this one designed for Press and PRs. During the summit, speakers from PRCA, Finn Partners, Lotus and Hills Balfour will all take their turns to address the main issues facing travel and tourism clients and how to maximise return on investment through effective PR.

All of these sessions are included as part of the ticket price for WTM Virtual and to learn more about these and all the other sessions taking place during London Travel Week you can click here.

There is also still time to sign up to WTM Virtual 2020 and you can take your place at the event where ideas arrive here.

Women remain the fastest growing segment of business travellers (interestingly, women are also leading the boom in solo, wellness and adventure travel). What’s more, women make over 80% of all travel decisions.

According to Oz Desai, General Manager FCBT, successful travel management companies (TMCs) recognise the decision-making power of women, address their needs and are focused on delivering new and innovative solutions for female business travellers.

“The debate around whether female business travellers should be treated any differently to their male counterparts is well and truly over,” says Desai, “With a greater understanding that women travellers have different vulnerabilities, stresses and mental load. It should not be about treating women differently, rather treating female business travellers appropriately, and focusing on their safety, wellbeing and peace of mind.”

Astrid Loury, International SOS Regional Security Information Analyst, puts it best:

“The business case is that when companies have to send someone abroad, they send the relevant expert, regardless of gender. However, if that person is female, then it must be acknowledged that she might be more vulnerable than her male colleague. This recognition could save corporates the unforeseen cost of a wasted business trip – or worse.”

Here are just 5 concerns faced by women in corporate travel today:

1. Safety

The vast majority (71%) of female business travellers believe they face greater risks than their male counterparts. This is according to a 2018 online survey conducted by AIG Travel and Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) of women who travelled on four or more business trips within the past year.

Similarly, a report by Maiden Voyage, a UK-based firm focussed on corporate travel safety, shows that almost a third (31.4%) of female business travellers have suffered sexual harassment while travelling. In fact, sexual harassment accounts for over half (51.2%) of all incidents encountered by female business travellers. Handbag theft (23.02%) is the second most frequently encountered incident, followed by drink spiking (3.97%) and sexual assault (3.17%).

For Christie Odendaal, FCBT Head of Key Account Management, safety and duty of care should be front and centre for any TMC:

“The greatest responsibility of a travel agent is to bring their clients home safely. This means flagging areas of travel risk, understanding how to mitigate those risks and offering 24/7 support.”

 TMCs are able to:

• Provide information. Different countries have different risks, and travel experts are able to provide country-specific information and hyperlocal tips and advice, including  areas to avoid and what to do after business hours.
• Offer advice. A good TMC will have vetted a number of different accommodation options and will consider everything from location and safety features (for example, double-locking doors) to well-lit corridors, safe parking options and in-house amenities (safe gyms, spas and shops). 
• Bring you home. Business travellers encounter everything from flight cancellations to  adverse weather events and terrorist attacks. Not only will your travel expert be able to change your plans quickly and efficiently, but they’ll even liaise with your consulate in order to bring you home.

2. Health

Business travel is inherently stressful. And no wonder. It often places one in extremely stressful situations, be it airport waits, long-haul flights, navigating around unfamiliar cities – never mind the business meeting itself. All can have an impact on one’s health and mental wellbeing.

COVID-19 has added another layer of  stress. No one wants to fall ill on the road or pick up an infection when you’re returning to families and children. And while working mothers understand the need to get back on the road, this is balanced by a very real fear of the risk COVID-19 poses to their own personal health and that of their family. 

TMCs continue to step up by providing information around:

• Different airline regulations.
• Travel documents required.
• New travel policies (for example, health passports or compulsory vaccinations).
• Flexible cancellation policies (in case of illness).
• Recommended health and safety measures (for each step of the traveller journey).
• A destination’s protocols and restrictions (for example, compulsory quarantine for inbound travellers).

Although these are still uncertain times, Odendaal believes TMCs are working hard to provide peace of mind.

3. Time

For women, time is perhaps the most valuable commodity they have. And if a 2017 paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Journal is to be believed, then the majority of “working adults experience greater happiness after spending money on a time-saving purchase than on a material purchase.”

Good travel management means personalising the business travel experience for each traveller and addressing their particular needs, including saving them time.

Time they could use more productively (at the office or at home) or time they could spend with children, families and friends.

Let your travel expert save you time by:

• Making all your travel arrangements, including shuttles and activities, so you can concentrate on more productive (and profitable) activities instead.
• Booking the best connections and making any last-minute changes or cancellations (without penalty).
• Vetting all suppliers, from accommodation establishments to transport options.
• Managing your travel awards programme.
• Putting convenient cost/expense management tools in place to relieve post-travel admin. This includes ensuring travel expenses are reconciled and reimbursed quickly and easily, so that travellers are not left stressed and out of pocket.
• Analysing your travel management programme to identify any areas of friction.

4. Connectivity

One of the biggest pain points for businesses  travellers – men and women – is a lack of connectivity. Not only is it a productivity killer, says Desai, but travellers are likely to experience more stress when they feel disconnected from their families, children or support structures.

Women feel this keenly, and a travel expert will know to book accommodation with Wi-Fi and will be able to offer advice around roaming charges, all-inclusive packages, access to airport lounges (with connectivity) and more.

5. Balance

Women continue to strive for all important work-life balance. Travel managers (and TMCs) worth their salt support this by  implementing new travel policies, or improving on existing policies, to ensure that they meet the needs of each traveller.

This might be as simple as giving each traveller a choice of when, how and how often to travel, which hotels or airlines to support (hint: ask them!) – and building in the option of bleisure travel.

Even better? More and more companies are offering flexible working between business trips and wellness programmes in order to ease the strain on female executives.

The #IAmTourism campaign, running the duration of Women’s Month, is aimed at highlighting the important role that women play in South Africa’s tourism industry and the extent to which their livelihoods have been impacted by the pandemic.

Women working in all areas of the tourism sector – as travel agents, air hostesses, accommodation staff, business owners, tour operators, drivers, game rangers, etc. – have submitted their photographs to the #IAmTourism campaign, bringing a face to the women who comprise 70% of South Africa’s tourism workforce.

“During the month of August, 31 women in tourism will be giving a voice to the affected women in tourism whose voices have been forgotten since the pandemic forced the tourism industry to close,” says #IAmTourism spokesperson, Thembi Kunene-Msimang.

“We are profiling 31 #IAmTourism women from all roles within tourism, all walks of life, all parts of the country. These stories are curated on YouTube, Social Media and on the industry’s ‘South Africa is Travel Ready’ website which was created to showcase South Africa’s readiness as a travel destination and to motivate for the reopening of the destination as quickly and safely as possible,” adds Kunene-Msimang.

A recent survey conducted by SATSA, the voice of South Africa’s tourism private sector, indicated that half of tourism business will be forced to retrench staff by October if leisure and international tourism remains closed.  Based on the survey, a fifth of tourism businesses polled will survive after October if the current situation continues. 

Over 90% of tourism businesses rely on international and domestic leisure, with 97% of tourism businesses having experienced a 75-100% decline in revenue since March 2020. The Bureau of Economic Research has forecast that 1.15 million jobs in tourism hang in the balance if South Africa does not open its borders to tourism by the end of 2020. Some 600,000 tourism employees have claimed for UIF TERS since it was launched.

“It is deeply concerning that women appear to have borne the brunt of the COVID-19 retrenchments in tourism. Now more than ever, the women of South Africa need support to become financially independent and to support their families,” says Kunene-Msimang.

“For an industry that has the potential to provide that financial independence and employ low- and semi-skilled women and youth, especially in areas where no other industries operate, it is essential that we bring our voice as women in tourism to bear.

“We call on every woman to provide her inputs on the Tourism Recovery Strategy by 15 August 2020 so that tourism receives attention at the highest levels of government. Our women deserve that much,” concludes Kunene-Msimang.

Women who wish to contribute to the Tourism Recovery Strategy specifically around the empowerment of women in tourism can do so by emailing women@traveltosouthafrica.org. These inputs will be submitted by the #IAmTourism lobby to the Department of Tourism.

The gender gap in aviation careers is surely closing up, with a large number of women taking up various roles in the once male-dominated industry. In celebration of Women’s Day and shattering the existing gender stereotypes around females in aviation careers, Lufthansa interviewed a South African flight attendant, Carla Naude, Purser 1 (chief flight attendant), to get her thoughts around the role of women in the industry and what it takes to be a flight attendant.

Q: What inspired you to pursue a career as a flight attendant?
A: It always was a dream of mine, even as a little girl. I remember watching movies on TV and saying to my mom, “I want to be just like those girls one day”! What is really special is that every day is different; every flight has its own surprises. You cannot compare it to a regular office occupation. Flying is not just a job it’s a lifestyle. I love travelling the world, always meeting new people, experiencing other cultures and, of course, trying new things like food.

Q: Why do you think there are more females than males in your profession?
A: It is interesting because most people don’t know that some of Lufthansa’s first flight attendants were actually men. Our first flight attendants flew in April 90 years ago and more than ten years later in June 1938, Lufthansa had their first female flight attendants. The demographics have obviously changed since then. From a “men only” field, it has become a job more inclined to women. Equality is more important and apparent than ever – even though the majority of flight attendants are still women, we have more and more men becoming flight attendants.

Q: What are some of the challenges that you face as a flight attendant?
A: The most important responsibility of being a flight attendant is to make sure that all passengers are safe and comfortable at all times. Other general challenges can be the time difference when travelling a lot, but I would not say there are separate challenges for men and women.

Q: What do you think encourages women to work in this sector?
A: I think becoming a flight attendant is becoming a more popular job for everyone. Lufthansa had so many applications that we started hosting hiring “castings” across Germany where hundreds of people showed up to apply.

As I have mentioned before, being a flight attendant or working in the airline industry in general is not just a job, it is a lifestyle that you choose. If people think that they won’t be able to spend enough time at home, I don’t know a better company to work for than Lufthansa. The group supports different part time options, is very family friendly and after every flight they provide enough resting time to cover jetlag. This resting time can be up to 5 days, depending on the route.

Q: What advice would you give someone considering a career in aviation?
A: I can only speak from my experience. I changed my school subjects accordingly (Hotel Management, Geography, etc.), got a degree in tourism, lived in a different country and learnt the language (through Au Pairing), worked in a restaurant, etc. – anything that would look good on my CV when applying for a job in the airline industry. It is important to know, however, that it doesn’t always go as planned and sometimes you have minor setbacks, but don’t let that discourage you; keep trying! I did, and now 14 years later I work for one of the best airlines in the world, and manage a whole crew, most importantly I’m doing what I love!

Q: What are key things you think are important to succeed in this industry?
A: You need to be outgoing, enjoy working with people, and open to different cultures. Empathy is a key factor. Another important factor is language skills. You have to be fluent in English and be able to communicate well.

Q: What are the top characteristics of a great flight attendant?
A: Someone who is a multi-tasker, observant, conflict arbitrator, calm under pressure and in stressful situations, and has excellent communication skills.

Q: As a South African, what does Women’s Day mean to you?
A: South Africa was a land of discrimination for a very long time, and part of the reason that changed was that its woman stood up and protested injustices, such as laws from the past. As a South African, this taught me that I should always stand for what I believe in and that nothing is impossible.

“It is clear that aviation provides many career opportunities for women and there are diverse platforms for females to change the world in numerous ways, through the industry,” says Dr. André Schulz, General Manager Lufthansa Group, Southern Africa.

Needless to say, in today’s evolving aviation landscape misconceptions about the industry being male lead are being broken and this is helping fill the gender gap for future flying generations.

“I don’t think I’d have chosen any other profession besides what I’m currently doing and my role as a flight attendant is just as exciting as it was when I first started. I also believe that it does not really matter whether you’re a female or a male in this profession, we’re all destined to achieve,” says Carla Naude. “Even if the road ahead is bumpy, your own perseverance and commitment will always pay off sooner or later. If you can dream it you can achieve it.”

Sorry Gents. Walk into any Flight Centre store in South Africa, and you’re the exception, not the rule. We love you of course, but 74% of Flight Centre’s 1,000-odd staff members are women and proud that they’ve chosen to pursue a career in travel. Ladies turns out you can have it all.

At Flight Centre, women have their fair share of seats at the management table. Our Executive Team comprises 50% women and as much as 70% of our Senior Leadership Team. Few companies can claim to put women at the forefront to the extent that Flight Centre has, which is why we are consistently voted as one of the best companies in the country to work for by Deloitte.

Flight Centre’s female-heavy workforce is in line with the industry average. According to the Association of Southern African Travel Agents (ASATA), 73% of employees in South Africa’s travel industry are women, and 45% black females.

So important is our focus on diversity and equality, that we have created a 30% black women employee shareholder ownership trust for staff, which has distributed hundreds of thousands of rands in profit share to the deserving employees who are part of this scheme.

Unlike our counterparts overseas, we’ve been focusing on uplifting the role of women in our workplace for many years. I’m proud to say that South Africa leads the way in the Flight Centre Group globally when it comes to female representation at a leadership level.

I also like to think that Flight Centre offers a very agile environment for its staff in general. We recognise the importance of family commitments. And, as the demands of the business have changed, we’ve evolved with them, introducing a range of staff-focused initiatives.

One of these is the introduction of Flight Centre Associates, a brand where we offer fully flexible work practices, including the ability to work from home, be your boss, decide on your hours, and take your business into your own hands.

We are also launching Women Wise, giving women an opportunity to meet with other high-powered females. This initiative will include female staff, but also women outside of the business so we can share insights and mentor each other to greater heights.

One thing we have in common as women in travel is passion. I stand by the mantra: “If you want to succeed in this industry, you have to love the travel industry and what you do.”

Besides loving the industry, I think it’s important for aspiring female leaders in travel to surround themselves with people who know more than they do. Very often people are intimidated by others who know more, whereas I see it as a great way to learn and grow.

And, as we celebrate Women’s Day in South Africa this month, I would like to tell women not to be afraid of the glass ceiling. I’m not a huge believer in the glass ceiling, and I think success comes down to the individual more than anything else.

So, in the words of activist and author, Sheryl Sandberg: “If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat. Just get on.”

All aboard Ladies!