The Association of Women Travel Executives is celebrating its 60th anniversary year by modernising its approach. Juliet Dennis reports
The Association of Women Travel Executives is ringing the changes. This year sees it rolling out a number of new events to ensure it meets the needs of its broadening membership and boosts its appeal to younger managers and executives.
The shake-up sees the AWTE’s Boardroom Ready and Business Ready sessions dropped and the introduction of ‘AWTE Angels’ to enable members to keep in touch with session speakers and ask them one-to-one questions after events have been held.
The changes are the result of the AWTE’s new three-pillar ‘strategy to success’: developing its members, increasing networking events and building business opportunities.
For vice-chairman Debbee Dale (pictured) the changes also signify a necessary modernisation of the AWTE to keep pace with the needs of a younger breed of female managers and to ensure it makes itself a relevant association to join.
The organisation has already opened its doors to men, who can join via its company membership, which allows three staff to sign up. And it continues to recruit younger members from the industry, who have different demands and needs to some of its existing senior management members.
Dale says: “This is our next new phase. There are a lot of significant changes in the organisation.”
Development sessions
The first of its relaunched development sessions has already started. The ‘An Audience With…’ event, first held last November with Jane Dyson, founder of The Network, has replaced the AWTE’s Boardroom Ready events.
“Boardroom Ready was really successful but then we started to get younger members who were not ready for the boardroom but wanted some development at a high-calibre level,” says Dale. “We felt a conversational event would be better and we wanted to do something for everyone.”
Two more of the members-only events are planned this spring and autumn. They feature an interview with a senior industry figure and tips on how to progress in the workplace.
Another new event is AWTE Talks Shop, which effectively replaces the association’s Business Ready sessions, and is open to non-members too.
These will be held every six months and feature a panel of experts talking about a specific business topic with a moderator.
The speakers at both new types of event will become AWTE Angels, whom members can contact for a month afterwards to ask follow-up questions, with answers also posted on the AWTE website. “The Angels will be informal mentors for a short period,” adds Dale.
Networking events
Another plank of AWTE’s strategy is to increase its focus on networking events. The association is well known for its Christmas lunch and Sunset Cocktails drinks reception at the Institute of Travel & Tourism conference, but now hopes to hold more simple, relaxed networking events for members and non-members.
The concept is already proving effective, according to Dale, who says: “In the past we’ve had four to five networking events a year but sometimes only with around 20 people. Last August we held a simple networking event and we had 80 to 90 people and a real mix of people.”
The major event of this year will be the AWTE’s 60th anniversary dinner on July 14, where its ‘60 for 60’ list of the most influential women in the industry, as voted for by the industry, will be unveiled. The after-dinner speaker will be Kim Winser, who was the youngest divisional director of Marks & Spencer before turning around fashion labels Pringle of Scotland and Aquascutum.
Business opportunities
Given the AWTE’s vast mix of members, there is obvious scope for members to do more business with each other, says Dale. The association plans to create a page on its website to allow members to give special offers or discounts to other members. “We have a diverse membership of PRs, tour operators, agents, tourist boards, so this would just be an added bonus for members,” she says.
The future
For Dale the changes can only help increase the AWTE’s membership, which currently stands at 211, including 31 company members. A new 12-strong board was due to be voted in at its annual general meeting on Tuesday this week.
Dale is confident the AWTE’s membership will continue to grow. “Having a clear strategy will only help us recruit more,” she adds.