The Association of Women Travel Executives (AWTE) has revealed plans to attract members from outside the UK and encourage them to set up sub-committees globally.
The AWTE global membership package, which costs £25 a year, will be unveiled at World Travel Market in London next week. It comes under a new membership tier called AWTE International.
The association is hosting a presentation at WTM to raise its profile among women travel executives from around the world who are visiting the show.
The AWTE has 318 members, all in the UK, which includes individuals and company members.
Chairman Debbee Dale said the association decided to “go global” after demand from female executives at last year’s WTM.
She said: “There is an appetite all around the world to share what we do. It’s not going to happen overnight, but we want to get the message out to other countries.”
The AWTE plans to upload presentations, updates and information from all its events on the members’ part of its website.
“We want to engage with members online globally,” said Dale. “The first stage is to benefit members with good content in countries where they don’t have the same sort of network and events.”
Members will also be encouraged to post more offers for other members to use and put photographs of themselves and biographies online to increase online networking opportunities.
The next stage will be to encourage women travel executives in other markets to set up AWTE sub-committees and organise similar networking and speaker-led events in their own countries.
The association is running an event in Ireland this week for about 45 female travel executives. “There is no reason why we can’t do AWTE [events] in Ireland and then globally. We would furnish them with the information to find experts or help them. It would be tailored to their market,” she said.
The AWTE presentations at WTM are at 10am and 12.30pm in North Gallery Room 18 on November 8.