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How a Tour Company Is Elevating Females in Honor of Women’s Equality Day

Intrepid Travel is working to promote women all over the world by hiring more female tour leaders and helping women in countries they visit earn a living.

August 26th is Women’s Equality Day. (Shouldn’t every day be Women’s Equality Day? But we digress ….) This is an opportunity to salute companies that are working hard and succeeding at elevating females in the workplace and the culture. The day was established two years ago to recognize the anniversary of the 19th Amendment—which extended the right to vote to women here in America—but it’s also an opportunity to applaud the work being done everywhere to help women gain true equality.

One Australia-based company has used Women’s Equality Day as an inspiration and impetus to change the way they work and the goals they set. Its name is Intrepid Travel, and it’s the world’s largest B Corp travel company—a B Corp is a form of certification that a business meets high standards of social and environmental performance and transparency while balancing profit and purpose. Nice!

Read More: This Company is Catering to the ‘Professional Wellness’ of Women in the C-Suite

Working to Elevate Women

Here’s some of what Intrepid Travel has done in the name of women’s equality—it’s impressive!

  • They doubled the number of female tour leaders over the last year and a half, going from 153 to 314. This has been quite an achievement because in many of the traditional countries where Intrepid operates—throughout Africa, Central and South America, and beyond)—this is not a given, and sexism is well-entrenched.
  • They launched Women’s Expeditions to great success. These are four tours that visit countries where women have historically been oppressed but are now finding opportunity through tourism. 
  • The company’s general manager, Zina Bencheikh, spearheaded the fight to create the first tour licenses for women in Morocco. Intrepid now has a dozen licensed tour guides in that country and employs more women as it introduces travelers to the beauty of its culture.  
  • Intrepid’s staff is now 60 percent female, and it provides work locally around the globe, from home-cooking experiences in Turkey hosted by women to supporting Syrian refugees through a jewelry-making project.  

 Is there a company you know of that deserves a shout-out for how it’s helping women? Tell us about it in the comments.

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By Janet Siroto

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