Kerala has long been the global leader in Responsible Tourism. It should come as no surprise then that Kerala hosted the first Global Women’s Conference on Responsible and Gender Inclusive Tourism over four days at Munnar Hill Station.
There is increasing evidence that women are more important than men in determining leisure travel destinations and bookings and that there are strong ethical and commercial reasons to empower women in the tourism sector as both hosts and guests. The Kerala conference has addressed both with 245 people attending, overwhelmingly a female audience (210) but with active and supportive participation from Shri P A Mohamed Riyas, ministers, Kerala Tourism, state government officials and business leaders. There were fifteen international participants from 12 countries.
With support from the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, UN Tourism and UN Women published guidance on “Gender-Inclusive Strategy for Tourism Businesses” in 2022 to help businesses promote gender equality. Kerala has worked with technical support from UN Women to complete gender audits and safety studies and to run workshops to ensure the implementation of Kerala’s policy commitment to Responsible Tourism (RT), which was renewed in 2023 and is explicit to:
- Actively empower and involve the local community in planning and decision-making and provide capacity building to make this a reality.
- To achieve greater gender equality, safe destinations for women as hosts and guests. The RT mission will cooperate with panchayats, UN Women and Equations, and gender equality elements in all its work programs.
There is growing evidence that more women are travelling and travelling alone or in all women groups without a male partner. Skift, in their latest report on “The Woman Traveler“, has revealed that women are projected to control 75% of discretionary spending by 2028 and that they are travelling alone or with other women significantly more frequently.
Condor has recently gathered data from a range of sources and concludes: “Female travel has become a major phenomenon over the past few years with travel companies dedicated to woman-only clientele increasing by 230%. 64% of travelers worldwide are female, while only 36% are male. There has also been a growing desire for females to travel alone and it is expected that $125 billion will be spent by women on travel this year.”
As we have come to expect, the Kerala Responsible Tourism Mission Society (KRTMS) has based its implementation efforts on sound research and engaged women across communities – they were honoured during the conference. Since the Women Friendly Tourism Project was launched in October 2022, the KRTMS has identified 18,000 women-friendly tourism initiatives, with 70% of them led by women entrepreneurs.
The preparatory studies covered women’s safety, gender sensitivity in signage and information, the availability of women-friendly activities and women’s participation in providing tourism goods and services. An infrastructure gap assessment was completed in 70 destinations.
Shri K. Biju, Secretary of Kerala Tourism, highlighted the fact that the initiative focuses on experiential tourism, offering stay packages, artistic villages and cultural streets. Smt. Sikha Surendran, the Director of Kerala Tourism, emphasised the importance of increasing women’s participation in tourism, explaining that this boosted the confidence of women travellers, resulting in increased tourist flow.
During my presentation at the conference, I reminded participants of the speech made by Mrs M R Dhanya, Panchayat President of Kumarakom at WTM London in 2011, which brought to the world stage an understanding of the importance of local community leaders in realising Responsible Tourism in destinations.
All those present at the conference, government officials, entrepreneurs and panchayat leaders signed the declaration, which included in the call to action both an intent and a mechanism for reporting and ensuring progress – We the signatories, pledge to:
- Integrate gender inclusivity and responsible tourism practices as the core principles in tourism planning, with a special focus on women-friendly initiatives.
- Continuously monitor and report on gender inclusivity and responsible tourism practices, ensuring transparency and accountability.
The conference was supported by many local businesses in Munnar, evidence of the strength of the business support in Kerala for Responsible Tourism.
