Women Control 82% of Travel Decisions. So Why Are We Still Designing Hotels Like They Don't?

Here's a number that should make every GM in the country stop and think: women make 82% of all travel decisions. Not 82% of leisure decisions. Not 82% of family trip decisions. 82% of ALL travel decisions, including who books the room, which brand gets the loyalty, and whether that property gets a repeat visit or a one-star review. That's not a trend piece. That's your revenue base.

IHG put out some statements last week through their Holiday Inn Express marketing team about women shaping hospitality as consumers and emerging leaders. And look... I'm glad someone at a major brand is saying it out loud. But I've been in this business 40 years, and I can tell you the gap between a brand saying "women are important to our strategy" and a property actually changing how it operates is roughly the same distance as the gap between a brand's PowerPoint and a Tuesday night at a 180-key select-service with three people on staff. Women make up 52% of the hospitality workforce. They hold 30% of leadership roles. Seven percent of CEOs. Those numbers tell you everything you need to know about how seriously the industry has taken this up to now.

I knew an area director once... sharp operator, 20 years in the business, ran some of the best-performing properties in her region. She told me something I never forgot: "The brands survey guests and segment them into personas. I just watch the lobby for 30 minutes. Women traveling alone check the locks, check the lighting in the parking lot, and check whether the front desk agent makes eye contact or stares at a screen. That's your brand experience right there. No persona deck required." She was right. And the fact that she was an area director instead of a divisional VP had nothing to do with her ability and everything to do with the same broken system my industry has been running since I started.

IHG committed $30 million over five years to their LIFT program, which is supposed to support underrepresented groups in hotel ownership, including women. Thirty million sounds like a big number until you realize IHG has over 6,000 hotels globally. That's roughly $5,000 per property spread across five years. A thousand bucks a year per hotel. I spend more than that on lobby coffee. The real investment isn't a corporate program with an acronym. It's the decisions happening every day at property level... who gets promoted to AGM, who gets sent to the revenue management training, who gets tapped for the GM pipeline. That's where careers are built or buried, and no $30 million fund changes that unless the people making those decisions actually change how they think.

Here's what frustrates me. The $73 billion in annual U.S. travel spending by women isn't new money. It's money that's BEEN flowing through our properties while we designed lobbies, amenities, lighting, parking lot layouts, fitness centers, and service protocols primarily through a lens that didn't prioritize the person making the booking decision. The women-over-50 travel market alone is $214 billion, projected to hit $519 billion by 2035. That's not an emerging segment. That's THE segment. And if your property still has a dimly lit hallway between the elevator and the parking garage, and your fitness center has three broken treadmills and no lock on the door, and your front desk team hasn't been trained on the difference between being friendly and being attentive... you're leaving money on the table. Not because a brand told you to care about women travelers. Because 82% of booking decisions are being made by someone who notices things you stopped seeing years ago.