TAAI & WITT hold conclave on empowering women

Shakti symbolises women empowerment (Photo: Divya Sinha)

Under the theme ‘Mission with a Vision’, TAAI, the Travel Agents Association of India in association with Women in TAAI & Tourism (WITT) organised a conclave in New Delhi to promote empowerment of women, not just in travel, tourism and hospitality sector, but also in all other sectors of Indian economy.

In her opening remarks, Jyoti Mayal, President of TAAI said that TAAI had always had a vision to create women empowerment amongst themselves. Mayal said that as she herself was the only woman to be part of the 35 managing committee members in the association, she felt the urgency to empower women.

“Women are a very important part of the travel tourism and hospitality sector, though we have got a very small meagre number of 12.1 pc of all workers. Especially in the hospitality sector they are mostly in the back end or are at the offices working behind the scenes. So, we want them to come in front for leadership roles for becoming entrepreneurs and to become entrepreneurs in the organisations they are working in and work in a format they can empower more women to work in the industry,” Mayal tells Media India Group.

In the programme, many of the women entrepreneurs present shared their experiences and struggles on becoming one due to social and economic pressures such as marriage, parents, money or social barriers. They were later presented and honoured with ‘Shakti’ awards for their achievements in their fields.

“For women during the pandemic it was an eye opener to see that the first segment to get affected were them. The jobs were less and women had to miss out in the formal economy. We are not even talking about the informal activity. Women in the northeast that were in the agriculture, handloom and handicraft sectors saw that even after the sector died with tourism, women still continued these activities which were in their day to day life in the informal sector. It was an eye opener to see that women are trained better in the travel and tourism industry. Now that tourism sector has opened up, women can be at the forefront of the sector, because an industry such as tourism absorbs the largest segment and that is women. And 55 pc of women are engaged in the sector alone,” Jahnavi Phookan former president of women’s wing of FICCI, the industry association, tells Media India Group.