15 Women Shaping the Way We Travel: International Women's Day 2024

08.03.2024 - 16:40 / cntraveler.com

How should we use our power, once we have it? As the CEO and founder of El Camino Travel, a company that organizes small group trips and builds community among women travelers, I am always thinking about what guests want out of their travels—and what direction we, as an industry, are headed. It's 2024, yet the CEOs of most major travel companies are still men, dictating the trajectory of a marketplace in which women account for 85% of travel planning decisions and spend $125 billion annually on trips. It’s no doubt the reason so many of our community members tell me they have struggled to find experiences that speak to them in the marketplace.

But this year’s Women Who Travel Power List, which I was previously honored on, is a vivid reminder that the people actually driving the wider conversation around travel, and the many ways we choose to define it, are by and large women. Change doesn’t only come from the corner office. It is inspired by influencers like Charlotte Simpson, best known for her IG account @travelingblackwidow, who is redefining the societal narrative about finding joy as a single traveler in later years. It’s model and activist Quannah Chasinghorse (Hän Gwich’in and Sičangu/Oglala Lakota), whose efforts for Native land rights and environmental protection hold me accountable to critically reassess our impact at El Camino, on both the places we go and the people we meet. There are also women who use their knowledge of the world to create greater cultural understanding. Take singer Kali Uchis, for example, whose music beautifully bridges American and Latin American cultures, blending sounds that are both exotic and familiar, depending on who you ask. I imagine a first-time visitor to Colombia, my parent’s homeland, finding comfort in the rhythms they’ve come to know through her songs.

There are also women who underscore the fact that travel transcends leisure. I think of Bisan Owda, the Palestinian travel creator, whose content was once focused on joyfully celebrating her culture—but who has now, out of necessity, become a civic journalist offering the world a look into her current reality in Gaza.

These women are changing the tides of a once gate-kept industry from so many different directions. They are the ones who get me fired up about what the next decade of travel could look like. In 2024, we aren’t just dreaming of a more representative future; it’s being built up, all around us, by the most impressive of women.

Katalina Mayorga is the CEO and co-founder of El Camino Travel, a community offering memberships and trips for women travelers.

“If I could sum up every single thing I do with just three words, it's, I see you,” says award-winning author and travel photographer Lolá