But the glass ceiling that still prevents women rising to the top of the ladder in the travel industry has yet to be shattered, says Jacquie Steadman, who takes over Awte’s chair in April. “Awte was formed mainly for networking and for asserting the rights of women travel executives but there is still a glass ceiling. Women are not going through to the top.
“As an industry it is female predominant at call centres, on agency counters and at regional level but the higher you go there are fewer and fewer women. The situation has improved. It is around 50/50 at management level but the next level up, the senior executives and directors, it is still around 25/75 in favour of men.”
Clearly, Awte still has a role to play despite its progress since its inception half a century ago. The Association was formed when Joan Richardson, travel manager for a shipping company, applied to join SKAL, a club for travel executives - which turned her down as it only accepted male members. So she set up her own.
During its life, Awte has pushed strongly for hotels to take a more pro-active role in the safety and security of women travellers, especially those travelling alone, by lobbying on issues such as parking of cars in unlit hotel car parks.
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“Security was an issue although it is less of one now. But I remember the days when I would be on a business trip and I used to sit in my room with room service. These days I go down to the restaurant or sit in the bar,” says Steadman, director of a leisure travel agency, Travel Time World.
Improvements include discretion at reception when giving a woman her room key, offering single women rooms near lifts and, in some cases, having floors only for women travellers.
Easy to forget but it was not until the 1970s that the Equal Pay Act (1970) and the Sex Discrimination Act (1975) were on the statute book although the Awte’s role was confined to articles in newspapers and trade magazines rather than overt lobbying of ministers.
Julia Feuell, Awte membership secretary, said that furthering women’s rights were still a main issue with members today. “There is an interesting trend where women who reach directorship level are more likely to have chosen to forgo having children.
“Those who do have children tend not to want to push their careers any higher although there are obvious exceptions. This balance of life is one of the things which we talk in our mentoring scheme,” Ms Feuell said. But throughout its life, the organisation has stressed that it is a networking body not a political or lobbying one.
Ms Feuell said its main role was still focused on networking. “The aim is to enhance the awareness of women travel executives through networking with like-minded women for both business reasons and for friendship. We are not political. We are helping women develop their working lives and also helping them with the balance between home and work.”
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For more information on AWTE, visit www.awte-london.co.uk.
Stanley Slaughter is editor of businesstraveleurope.com and has specialised in writing about business travel for the past ten years
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