THE INAUGURAL WOMEN IN TRAVEL AWARDS ARE STEAMROLLING ALONG WITH ENTRIES CLOSING SOON. ONE MAJOR SPONSOR OF THE EVENT IS NONE OTHER THAN EXCITE HOLIDAYS.

Excite Holidays is an innovative, leading online global travel wholesaler working exclusively with travel agents only.

Hot off the heels from their big NTIA 2016 win for Best Wholesaler International Product, Excite Holidays continues to work tirelessly to build trust and loyalty with their travel agency partners in Australia since its inception in 2002. Today, Excite Holidays has grown from strength to strength, enjoying significant year on year growth. It offers agents an extensive range of travel products, including accommodation, sightseeing tours, activities, transfers and ferry tickets and 24hr agency support, innovative technology and an easy to use booking system to maximise productivity and efficiency.

Travel Weekly caught up with Excite Holidays’ Head of Marketing, Vanessa Richards to chat about their sponsorship of Women in Travel.

What does the Women in Travel event mean to you?

This award means quite a lot to me. I think it is a wonderful and a much needed initiative. Women are multi-talented, full of ideas; they drive innovation and change, and lead our companies into new periods of success. It is not often though that we recognise the strength of their power and undeniable passion for this industry publicly.

Being a strong and independent career woman myself I know too well how challenging it is being female and wanting to progress and be recognised in other industries. My leadership career has seen me work in many male dominated spaces, media and marketing agencies predominately. Female career recognition, particularly at leadership level is still something that proves to be a work in progress for the industry.  As a female in these industries, you need to be dedicated and resilient. Things don’t come easy.

In saying that it has been an eye opener and a breath of fresh air to come across into this wonderful industry and see women empowered so seamlessly. Travel celebrates women, encourages, and supports their growth and success without any archaic thinking towards gender and how that impacts leadership or roles. It is beautiful and the norm, which I think in itself is inspiring. The Tourism Industry should take a bow and be proud of how they provide equal opportunity to women. While there will always be plenty of work to be done in this space, this industry has set the benchmark on how things should be. Just walk into any travel agency, or attend an industry event and you’ll notice that women dominate. Travel organisations have long embraced girl power and the unification of bringing brilliant female minds together.

My tip for every other industry: Follow this way of thinking and start embracing the female leader. Through adversity comes greatness.

Why did Excite Holidays sponsor the event as the “Launch Sponsor?

We believe very strongly in gender equality, women’s empowerment and providing equal opportunities to all staff within Excite Holidays. From the moment we spoke to yourself and Dan about this concept, we knew this was something we had to be a part of as it promotes a topic that we as an organisation are so passionate about. We wanted to join you on your journey from the launch, to the event and beyond. Beyond is really the key here, this awards night sets the tone for the industry. It will start needed conversations and ensure that daily recognition of female contribution is being had across the board.

We are very fortunate at Excite Holidays to have two great men leading our business, our co-founders, CEO George Papaioannou and MD Nicholas Stavropoulos, who allow the women in both their personal and professional lives to guide them in achieving their goals. They embrace female thinking and encourage development opportunities, no matter what department or role. Both Joana Bonto our Director of HR, Customer Experience & Operations and myself, Head of Marketing sit on Excite Holidays Executive Team. We are very committed leaders who push for female empowerment and recognition within our business. So much so, that we have women leading the charge across the board at Excite Holidays, even in spaces that are traditionally male dominated such as tech and development.

– 28.57% of women in executive positions

– 50% of women in department manager positions

–  50% of women in team leader positions

–  44.44% of women in leadership positions at Excite Holidays

We also offer all of our staff flexible working arrangements and run a salary benchmarking exercise to ensure we pay based on experience rather than gender.

As you can see we value the female mind at Excite Holidays.

This is the inaugural Women in Travel Awards in Australia. Why do you think this is an important event the travel industry should embrace? 

The travel industry needs to embrace these awards as they are about unity, sisterhood and the cultural and socio-economic success females can bring to organisations. It is about honouring and supporting these women who constantly serve as a catalyst for change, development and education in travel and for those delivering this industry outstanding results year in and year out. This event provides the industry with a platform and allows other industries to see just how well we, recognise our women. It is something to be proud of and to promote.

For myself and the entire Excite Holidays team, this is more than just an awards night. This night is a beacon of hope for young up and comers, existing industry professionals who may feel unnoticed or unappreciated or those who like myself, have recently joined this industry. It gives us as women a voice and an opportunity to shine.

These awards start a very important topic of conversation for the industry, one that needs to be had. I think they will encourage organisations to have a greater look into their own actions on gender equality and empowerment, ensuring the women of their organisation are being supported and recognised for their efforts. It all starts internally. These awards are wonderful for industry wide recognition; however we need to take these awards as inspiration and start implementing a similar thought process at the office.

What are you looking forward to most about the event?

So much! Personally, it will be about celebrating and honouring the dedicated and talented women of our industry. I look forward to being with the travel sisterhood and sharing our stories with one another. Learning about others trials and triumphs, and promoting professional achievements. There will so much inspiration and experience in one room. It will be quite emotional to sit back and watch the nominees shine and take in all of that limelight that they are so deserving of. It will be one very magical night.

What’s the most important thing to focus on when it comes to women’s role in the travel industry?

Development, diversity, promotion and putting a stop to traditional adversity.

Although, 70-80% of the travel industry employees are now female, leadership roles still remain largely dominated by men. The time is now to start driving change and building women’s empowerment.

Within our organisations, leaders must empower and encourage equal opportunity. We all need to up-skill and develop the next generation of talented women and provide them with opportunities to run for more challenging and non-stereotypical roles. As female leaders our goal is really to make those women within our teams more visible to the greater industry eye. Women are still being overlooked for leadership roles and not because of lack of experience or skill. It is our duty as an industry and as leaders within, to start to slowly changing this. Gender equality and female empowerment is smart economics and we will not be able to transform our industry or further yet the world unless the place for women within it has been transformed.

Entries are now open across a range of 18 categories. Entrants can self-nominate to go into the running in one (or more) categories, all entries are free and close soon.

Also, if you know any inspirational Women in Travel, acknowledge their excellence by nominating them to enter the awards.

Click to Nominate Now

Awards will be presented at a gala cocktail function on 17 November in Sydney – reserve your seat now with Earlybird rates on offer.

For all queries or sponsorships contact Daisy Melwani on 0401 216 294 or daisy@travelweekly.com.au