Gender Bender: What Women Want at Meetings
by Cheryl Rosen /A recent report from Skift on “The Rise of Female Business Travelers” finds that, yes, women are different from men, and a good travel planner takes those differences seriously. At the same time, it’s important to recognize that every traveler is unique.
To find out how these gender differences play out in business travel, especially in meetings and incentives, Travel Market Report spoke with several industry members.
Take nothing for granted, the experts said. Do your homework; know your demographics, and be prepared for a future in which male versus female is not quite so important, nor so easy to define.
5 key issues for women
The differences between male and female travelers come down to five issues – safety, wellness, food and beverage, content/technology and comfort – said Sabrina Colquitt, CMP, purchasing manager, meetings and incentives, at BCD M&I.
A former director of convention services with Adam’s Mark Hotels, Colquitt commented on women’s priorities when it comes to lodging.
She said that women’s questions about their hotel rooms typically focus on:
• the floor in which their room is located (women generally do not like to be at ground level);
• the room’s proximity to the elevator (many women prefer to be close, so they can more easily drag their bags, though some prefer the quiet end of the hall);
• the hotel parking lot (whether it is regularly patrolled by onsite security).
F&B: the female perspective
When it comes to meetings, large groups that are predominantly female are typically more concerned with the menu than male-dominated groups, Colquitt said.
Women’s groups tend to want healthier food, a little less on the buffet, more bottled water and hot tea, more diet soda, more wine and less beer.
Women also like change. While men go for the traditional meat and potatoes, women like to try something new.
“Women appreciate having something exciting, some fresh idea, rather than the same old same old,” Colquitt said. “You need to think outside the box.”
Planning the program
When it comes to the comfort of women attendees, Colquitt suggested longer breaks, warmer rooms and flexible seating that facilitates all kinds of interactions.
Fight the temptation to jam too much into each day, she advised. While some groups “do really tight turns” between sessions and evening networking events or dinner, all attendees – and particularly women – prefer a little more alone time between events.
In addition to checking their messages and emails at the end of the day, women want a few extra minutes to go upstairs, freshen up, call their kids.
With incentives, it’s about the details
BCD’s Anne Gorman, CMP, plans one incentive trip every spring in which the winners are 95% women, and the total body of guests about 65% female. For this group, she does things differently from the start.
“Women like to get their information very far in advance. They want to know the agenda, attire expectations, the details of the hotel and their room, what F&B and retail outlets are available,” said Gorman, senior program manager for BCD M&I.
“They want a lot more detail from the moment registration opens.”
Women also want more fun programming, like volleyball contests and little gifts; a spa and retail outlets.
Appearances count
For most women, the trip starts the minute they leave home, and “the flight is just as important as the event.”
Women care about the experience at the ticket counter, about sitting next to their guests on the plane, about not having to leave too early in the morning or arrive home too late at night, Gorman said.
At the hotel, too, appearances count more with women. They like a registration area that looks inviting and special. And they prefer that things be self-contained within the hotel so they don’t have to go out at night.
Make no assumptions
For meetings guru Joan Eisenstodt of Eisenstodt Associates, LLC, in Washington, D.C., every successful meeting starts with throwing away all assumptions, including about men and women, and focusing on the facts.
Whereas five or 10 years ago a group of nurses or airline attendants or Avon salespeople might be all female, today planners cannot take this for granted.
Planners of meetings for traditionally male professions are learning to deal with growing numbers of women attendees and thinking about how to integrate them into male-dominated groups like financial services and technology.
If the attendees at an annual meeting have always been all male, the questions become, “Will women want to be included?” And, “What do we need to do to make everybody comfortable?”
Times are changing
Spouse programs, too, are undergoing changes. Not all spouses are women, and some attendees may be same-sex marriages. “You need to think about whether your spouse programs are applicable to any gender,” Eisenstodt said. “We need to rethink the model.”
Even terms like “female” and “male” may need to be reconsidered in a world that is beginning to accept more fluid definitions of gender.
Meeting content is changing with the times too.
Whereas five years ago Eisenstodt would have advised against sports figures and sports analogies for female groups, now “every local TV channel has a female sports anchor,” and a great male coach can be a great motivational speaker for women as well as men.
Overall, Eisenstodt said, she finds fewer differences in the needs of men and women than you might expect. Or rather, she finds that every group and every attendee is unique in its own way.
A broader view
Soon a bigger issue than male versus female, she suggested, will be coming to grips with transgender attendees and with aging attendees.
ASAE is already considering the differences in how people learn at meetings, with a focus on the young versus the old, rather than male versus female.
“Anytime you have differences there will be issues to look at, but I’d never say, ‘All women are this,’ or, ‘All men are that,’” Eisenstodt said.
In the end, planning a successful meeting comes down to understanding the needs of each participant and making everyone comfortable.
“Break down your demographics and think about what they mean,” she advised. “Whoever the minority is in your group, how do you integrate them?”