Travel is not a man’s world, according to a leading travel businesswoman. And when it comes to how high women climb, it is down to choices, City Cruises managing director and Docklands Business Club chairwoman Rita Beckwith said.
Beckwith told the Association of Women Travel Executives summer lunch that it is not gender that is important in business life, but capability and character. Speaking at The Chesterfield Hotel in London, she said: “It is not how high are we enabled or allowed to climb up the business ladder, but simply the choices we make.
“All of us here are fortunate to work in one of the few industries in which women play a leading, if not a dominant, role. We are here because we have proved that we can do the job. Your presence here underlines that this is not a business where jobs for the boys is the rule.”
Beckwith told the audience how City Cruises started out almost 30 years ago with a barge taking passengers along the river Thames between Kew and Hampton Court. “I was a woman in a man’s world and I found that wearing a white bikini in a hot summer worked best – I had never seen so many boats visiting for fuel,” she said.
However, what really got her accepted by the riverboat trade and customers, she said, was her business acumen. “I brought skills to the business that enabled and enhanced the entrepreneurial skills of my husband, enriched our business and, I hope, earned the respect of our customers.”
Meanwhile, Beckwith said the domestic tourism business environment was “challenging”. The company saw a slowdown in passenger numbers at the end of last year and beginning of this year, but in March it started to edge ahead of last year’s traffic. That has continued since and it is now 11% up on the first half of 2008.
“On the inbound front, the exchange rate, particularly against the euro, is bringing huge volumes of short-break business from the Continent. In the domestic market, a number of trends and influences are coming together. The staycationers, as we’re learning to call them, are being cautious with their cash – spending modestly on days out and short breaks,” she said.
Although she was optimistic the sightseeing business would weather the storm, Beckwith admitted the corporate business had seen a “significant downturn”.