Skift Take
A proliferation of women-only tours reflects the fact that women are a driving force behind the trend for experiential and adventure-oriented travel. The tours enable participants to interact with women from cultures far different than their own.
A growing array of women-only tours, particularly to the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, are giving Western participants a behind-the-scenes look at how local women live and work in societies quite different than their own.
While more complex than the “girlfriend getaways” to spas and resorts that surfaced as a hot travel trend in the early 2000s, these cultural and adventure-oriented tours also reflect strong demand for female-centric travel. Travel Leaders Group’s 2019 Travel Trends Survey of advisors found that women-only journeys and active/adventure travel are among the top specialty-travel trends across all ages.
“There’s tremendous interest in experiential travel among women,” said Beth Whitman, owner of WanderTours, a Seattle-based company that offers primarily women-only tours to an expanding number of destinations in Southeast Asia, Africa, South America, Europe, and the Middle East. “While I can only speak for my tours, we’re finding that women really like the comradery of traveling with each other. It’s a sisterhood.”
Marian Marbury, who founded Adventures in Good Company 20 years ago by primarily offering domestic U.S. hiking trips, has been steadily expanding with women-only trips to locations around the world.
“Women-only tours are hardly a new fad, but they’ve really taken off in the p
