Comment: An equal world is an enabled world

The theme for this years’ International Women’s Day is Each for Equal – a clear declaration that an equal world is an enabled world.

Diversity and inclusion have always been important for Intrepid and when we surveyed our workforce in 2017, we found that about 60% of our office-based workforce were women. Not a bad result, right?

However, we had a far smaller percentage of women leading our small group tours, interacting with our customers and delivering our product on the ground. There weren’t equal opportunities for women in every part of the business.

That was something we wanted to change.

In 2017, we got to work and set a goal to double the number of female tour leaders – from 150 to more than 300. We knew this would be a challenge, as there were complex cultural and social issues at play in many of our destinations. But we also knew it was important for our people, our customers and our business.

Our goal took us in directions we never expected, including the highest level of government in Morocco where we lobbied to change legislation to allow women the opportunity to pursue tour leading as a career. In 2017, we had 50 tour leaders in Morocco, but none were women. Today, we have 13 female tour leaders there who, for the first time, are able to pursue a career they’re passionate about, while sharing their country and culture with our customers and earning an income for themselves and their families.

We didn’t only have success in Morocco – we’ve met – and exceeded – our goal to double our number of women tour leaders. As of the start of this year we have 342 female leaders, which represents more than 30% of our tour leaders globally.

The growth in the number of female tour leaders has also helped support our Women Only Expeditions, which launched in 2018. We now have 36 of these trips, including the recent addition of Pakistan and Israel and Palestine. These trips don’t only offer women an equal go – they’re among our fastest selling trips of all time and a clear signal that our customers – 65% of whom are women – support an equal opportunity for all.

We’re proud of what we have achieved, but there’s more to be done to achieve Each for Equal. To that end, we’ve set ourselves three new goals:

• Double our number of female porters globally by 2022. This will create new jobs for women in countries like Nepal, Tanzania and Peru. Becoming a porter is often the first step to becoming a tour leader so this will create new career pathways and progression for these women. • Support our 200 largest suppliers to reduce gender inequality to create conditions that benefit both women and men, sharing best practice and provide mentoring. • From 2020 we will report on our gender pay gap to support an open conversation about the issues that might exist.

We hope this will help us, and other businesses in the travel sector, talk about how to move forward to create Each for Equal in our companies and throughout the industry.