Attitude magazine has included high-profile travel industry executives in its list of ‘100 LGBTQ+ Trailblazers’.
The list includes Juha Jarvinen, chief commercial officer of Virgin Atlantic; Melissa Tilling, Charitable Travel chief executive; Alan Joyce, chief executive and managing director of Qantas; and Jo Rzymowska, vice-president and managing director of Celebrity Cruises.
Other travel executives on the list include John Tanzella, president and chief executive of International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association; Arnaud Champenois, senior vice-president and global head of brand, marketing and communications at Belmond; and Lipian Bongani Mtandabari, founder of Ntsako Travel Africa.
It is the first time Tilling has been included on the list.
She said on LinkedIn: “Sharing with my LinkedIn network with pride that I’ve been included, in illustrious global company, in Attitude magazine’s ‘100 LGBTQ+’ Trailblazers for 2020!
“Thank you everyone who has supported the Charitable Travel journey, what a wonderful way to end the most challenging of years.”
The magazine said she is one of the bravest women in the travel business.
She told the magazine: “I’m proud, as a transgender woman, that we launched our social enterprise at the start of Pride month in the middle of a pandemic.”
The magazine also highlighted Virgin Atlantic’s Pride flight to New York in 2019 to celebrate the anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, and the airline’s work to show the economic impact of anti-LGBTQ+ laws around the world.
Rzymowska is hailed for her work to make Celebrity Cruises as LGBTQ-inclusive as possible, with the line having hosted the first legal same-sex marriage at sea, and celebrating Pride at Sea every June.
Qantas boss Joyce was one of the leading voices campaigning for same-sex marriage in Australia.