At our Women in Travel Awards last Thursday, not only did we celebrate the cream of the crop of inspiring women who are kicking-butt in all things travel, we also got to listen to some fantastic speakers.

See also: “We need structural change” Ann Sherry calls out “boys’ club” at WIT

Intrepid flew in one such speaker, all the way from Morocco for the occasion.

Zina Bencheikh, who is responsible for all Intrepid Group trips in Europe and North Africa, as the general manager of Peak DMC Marrakech, shared her story in front of a mammoth crowd of the best and brightest women in travel and a sprinkling of supportive men.

Photography by andre&dominqiue

Bencheikh is a trail-blazing woman who is tackling stereotypes for women in travel on the front line.

“I love Morocco, it’s a great place to visit and it’s very diverse. But it’s a hard place a woman to live,” Bencheikh said.

Despite growing up in Morocco, Bencheikh lived and worked in finance in Paris for many years before moving back home.

“I was living in Paris with an easy life and a good job but I had to return [to Morocco] because my husband found a very nice job. So I looked for a job in Marrakesh, which is not really an easy place to find a finance job.”

“I couldn’t find a job that was suitable for me for a while until I found this advertisement for Intrepid. They were looking for a finance manager and I got the job.”

“I was 25 years old and in morocco, at 25 you don’t get a finance manager job. This company really gave me my big chance.”

Bencheikh rules her success up to having a strong female mentor who pushed her to fight for what she wanted. That mentor is Peak DMC managing director, Natalie Kidd.

“I’ve always been hungry for opportunities and when I found one I would talk to Nat and she would push me to go for it until I got it. I was promoted a year ago as the general manager for Europe, Morocco and North Africa.”

“We have 27 girls and 14 boys in our office. We’re not discriminating we just found that they were better. Very ambitious, highly educated and intrepid gave them the opportunities.”

“One of the girls in the Marrakesh office has been appointed as the head of the finance office for Turkish office DMC for intrepid. She was an intern 2 years ago but she said Zina did it, it’s possible.”

She said the best thing about her role is that she’s able to really make change.

Intrepid’s aim is to double female tour leaders by 2020, but in some nations, this is a tough ask and cuts to the core of women’s role in society – especially in Bencheikh’s home turf, Morocco.

Just 25 per cent of the Moroccan workforce is female, and only three per cent of tour guides in Morocco are female. But Bencheikh is paving the way for a new way to travel, with gender parity the priority – and has already experienced a plethora of success.

After one year in the role as general manager, she took the number of female guides from zero to 10, which works out as 15 per cent female to male.

“When I became general manager, we had 52 leaders in Morocco working for us and we were the biggest company of tour leaders in Morocco. But we had no female leaders,” she said.

“Tour leading was seen and is probably still seen as a job that was not suitable for women since you have to spend time outside of the house with travellers, including men, and that was a bit challenging for a country with a culture like Morocco.”

“However, I took different steps, talked to tourism universities and government representatives, tourism especially to try to understand what was going on.”

“I found out we really needed to work hard to deliver more licenses. So we did. A few months after we spoke to them [government officials], we managed to get them to organise a test and deliver licenses to more people and we sponsored and helped a lot of women that we knew.”

Initially, Bencheikh and her team were able to get five women sponsored to obtain their licences. After that, brave women began seeking Bencheikh out because they too wanted to become tour guides.

“We’re employing 16 now. But it’s just a start.”

Bencheikh wrapped up her speech by paying homage to her parents who always encouraged her and her sisters to get an education.

“They [her parents lived all over the world before returning to Morocco,” she said.