Capita Travel & Events and Maiden Voyage Join Forces to Make Hotel World More Female-Friendly

Capita Travel and Events, the UK’s specialist in travel, meetings and event management and Maiden Voyage

the world’s leading provider of female business traveller safety solutions have joined forces in a unique deal to

certify and showcase hotels that are ‘Female Friendly’.

Maiden Voyage sets the standard for female friendly, hotels based on a strict set of criteria looking at both

safety and comfort. With employers becoming increasingly aware of their duty of care obligations, an informed

choice takes away some of the guess-work when selecting hotels and of course, hotels deemed female

friendly are also just as suited to male travellers. Capita Travel and Events will be inspecting hotels across the

British Isles and incorporating those that qualify into their hotel programme.

Leigh Cowlishaw, director of supplier partnerships, Capita Travel and Events, said “We asked travellers

whether or not they ever feel at risk when travelling and 67% of women said yes, compared with 19% of men.

Our data also tells us that female travellers form a large proportion of our customers’ travelling population – a

trend which varies between customer industries. Traveller wellbeing, for all travellers, is an important part of

our Smarter Working proposition, so it made sense for us to join forces with a company which is changing the

way in which hoteliers approach the needs of individuals. At the same time, Maiden Voyage saw the

opportunity to use our UK hotel market expertise to help source the types of properties which meet its

identified criteria – Maiden Voyage research shows that women business travellers want to be treated

appropriately, not necessarily differently.”

Carolyn Pearson, chief executive officer and founder of Maiden Voyage said “We are delighted to be working

with hotel experts, Capita Travel and Events, on this initiative and we know that the female business traveller

community will thank us for helping them to identify hotels that meet their specific needs. With 51% of female

business travellers having reported feeling vulnerable when staying in a hotel we know that there is a genuine

need for a trusted standard. Our strict inspection process is based on hard criteria unlike other initiatives we

have seen and is far from subjective. We look at physical security elements, walk the area to assess the hotel

location and we expect our hotel partners to adhere to certain security measures such as not announcing

room numbers out loud. With a number of high profile cases of sexual harassment and assaults in hotels we

expect this partnership to drive change across the industry and we are already seeing hotels such as the

Leopold in Sheffield and Hotel du Vin in Birmingham making adjustments such as adding a second door lock

to the hotel bedrooms”.

-ENDS

MEDIA ENQURIES

07903 738383

carolyn@maiden-voyage.com

capitatravelevents.co.uk

Notes to editors

About Capita Travel and Events:

Capita Travel and Events is not your average travel management company. We’re a forward thinking travel, meetings and

event management company. Supporting a range of UK based organisations, we use innovative technology, valuable

insight, and the expertise of the best people in the industry to help our customers challenge behaviours, and reduce and

control costs, whilst putting travellers’ welfare at the heart of any travel and meetings programme.

We strive to achieve this by living by our company vision: To revolutionise business travel, meetings and events services

through our knowledge, curiosity and innovation to enable every customer to realise the value of smarter working.

Capita Travel and Events Limited.

www.capitatravelandevents.co.uk

@CapTravelEvents

About Maiden-voyage.com

Maiden-voyage.com is the global specialist in the female business travel market. With over 12000 members and over 80

local ambassadors, Maiden Voyage provides organisations with duty of care solutions and training to support their female

business travellers. In 2011 Maiden Voyage, with the help of its community set the global standard for ‘Female-Friendly’

hotels which drives contracting decision for both employers and travel management companies alike.


About Maiden Voyage

Maiden Voyage is the world’s leading specialist provider of inclusive business travel safety education for diverse and minority groups as well as a social community for female business travellers. Maiden Voyage provides traveller safety training, workshops and eLearning solutions for corporate and individual business travellers and works alongside travel industry providers to drive best practice in duty-of-care. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Maiden Voyage released it’s COVID-19 Traveller Safety eLearning toolset to enable employers to prepare their business travellers for travel during the COVID-19 pandemic. The company has been widely featured in the press including CNN, NYT, Mintel, Forbes, BBC and the Economist and the leadership team are regular contributors to major business travel industry and security panels and events.


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