Women leave families to go on tours

BANGALORE: Till the other day, they were dismissed as travelling kitty parties. Now, the entire travel industry is scrambling to cater to a trend that is growing at a furious pace — women travelling in groups. Mind you, this is no mahila samaja or women's club taking its annual trips, but of friends, colleagues, school and collegemates, teaming up to chill out. Also, this is no singles' party, but often consists of working women and housewives, having husbands and children, who prefer to team up and travel, leaving behind their families. "In the last one year, I have assisted 15 such groups. This is a new trend and a growing one at that. All the groups were of women who knew each other and were very sure of what they wanted," says Girija Chandran, a city-based travel solutions provider. Worldwide, this trend is on the rise. Though in the US and Europe travel agencies offer packages for single women to travel together, it is yet to catch on in India. "At the moment, the groups approach agents or operators for packages. We've found that women are not very comfortable travelling with other women who are not known to them. Also, they prefer to do domestic trips with the family and foreign tours with their 'buddies'. Such groups were sniggered at just a few years ago, but the industry takes them very seriously now," says Mridula Pai, a freelance travel agent. Informal statistics bear this out. According to a survey by the US-based travel company 'Women Travelling Together', catering exclusively to women's travel, on an average women took one trip with the husband/boyfriend and at least two with other women in a year. So much so that some hotels are establishing women's only floors, while a houseboat in Kerala's backwaters in Alappuzha is run entirely by women and is for women only. "A lot of factors have contributed to this: financial independence, urge to travel, need for space away from the family and time with friends. I travel a lot on work and I've noticed such groups increasingly noticeably in the last few years," says city-based travel writer Susheela Nair.