Monday 25 April 2016, 16.30 to 18.00, Showcase Theatre
The Women in Travel Meetup launched at ATM sister event World Travel Market in London in 2014. It expanded in 2015 to a full afternoon of debates, one to one mentoring and networking and had a combined audience of 200 (mostly) women from 31 nationalities.
And now we’re bringing it to Dubai. But why now?
According to recent research commissioned by the WTTC Tourism directly contributes 2.7% of total GDP, 3.2% of direct employment and 4.6% of total visitor exports in the Middle East.
Women and gender related issues are an increasingly discussed topic in the Middle East and North Africa region and recently published research such as ‘Arab Women – Leadership Outlook (2009-2011)’ by advisory firm PwC offers a snapshot of the thoughts and views of a dynamic, intellectual and enthusiastic group of women in the Arab world. In the report it is being said that women are slowly but substantially improving their position in Arab societies with female entrepreneurship on a remarkable rise.
Tourism too, as an economic sector, provides great opportunity for women in the Middle East.
Already in 2011, the then Minister of Tourism for Jordan, Dr Haifa Abi Ghazaleh spoke in Berlin about the opportunities travel and tourism offers to women. She stressed that while challenges continue to exist, tourism as an industry is too important to afford overlooking the female pool of talent and illustrated the ‘Jordanian initiative to open the doors for women in tourism jobs’, comprising of several streams, including changing the perception of the industry, field trips, open days, scholarship, mentoring, personal development skills and many others.
A plethora of other projects have also been initiated in the last few years, for example EcoWin a non-governmental organisation that works to improve conditions for the integration of women in business and employment in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia, cooperated with TUI travel group on strengthening women’s position in the tourism sector.
With the ATM Women in Travel Meetup 2016 we hope to contribute to opening up the travel and tourism sector to women in the Middle East.
The panel discussion will look at the increasing role played by women both as travel consumers and as travel professionals, the opportunities existing for women in tourism employment or as travel entrepreneurs and the opportunities for business in tapping into this pool of talent. In addition the panel will also make reference to women as travelers and how regional destinations may attract the increasing numbers of women to the area on business and leisure.
Following the debate, there will be an opportunity to stay on to continue the discussion informally with attendees and speakers.
ATM Women in Travel meetup will provide the ideal platform for this discussion and help women professionals, entrepreneurs and business identify opportunities as well as possible challenges.
Join us to find out how women are taking advantage of the opportunities offered by the sector and to share insights, inspiration and practical tips!