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#TBT: Catering to a key market – women

“By the year 2000,” the October 1988 issue of Hotels & Restaurants International predicted, “women business travelers in the U.S. alone will make up 50% of all business travelers.”

That’s not too far off: In 2014, women accounted for nearly half of all business travelers. In 1988, they were 36% and rising, and accounted for US$10 billion of the total US$23 billion in spending in the U.S. travel market – despite, as the story said, still receiving consistently lower salaries than men.

Then, as now, hotels found that an enlightened approach to women guests paid off with men, too. Amenities such as lighted mirrors for make-up application helped men give themselves a better shave.

Marketers were warned not to appear condescending or patronizing to women travelers, whose needs weren’t all that different than men’s, anyway. Everyone wants security and privacy, and even the male traveler of the ’80s appreciated “the pastel colors and residential atmosphere of the rooms” at the Radissons they frequented.

This was 1988, though, and some things hadn’t evolved too much: Radisson’s hotel chain’s service personnel were trained “to seat a woman entering alone immediately so she is not left standing to meet the stares of other guests.” Most people today wouldn’t stare at a woman dining alone – and most women traveling alone these days, if they notice it at all, would probably consider it the least of their problems.

 


#Throwback Thursday is a weekly feature to commemorate HOTELS’ 50th anniversary. Remembrances welcome from women other travelers: Email Managing Editor Barbara Bohn.

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