How the Philippines is becoming safer for female solo travelers

A woman traveling is a woman empowered.

Wandering to different places doesn’t just let her see the ever-changing world, it allows her to walk down different paths and come across different opportunities.

Solo travel is becoming more popular with women (who doesn’t want their own Eat, Pray, Love moment, right?). In the Philippines alone, 56% of those booking solo travel stays in 2022 are women, according to data from Airbnb.

That’s not the only statistic from the home rental platform that the ladies are dominating in. 2022 saw a collective earning of P2.5 billion from women who opened up their properties in the app.

Additionally, the Philippines is the second largest women-powered Host community in the world after New Zealand. Based on data from the company, two-thirds of hosts in the country are women.

In time for International Women’s Day, Airbnb hosted a forum with women in the travel and tourism industry to talk about how the gals are making waves. They also discussed how the Philippines is becoming safer for female solo travelers.

Creating safe spaces

For the government’s part, Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte, who revealed that she was a backpacker when she was younger, said she creates safe spaces for women with programs.

“In regards to safety of women travelers, [Quezon City has a] gender sensitivity program with our hotels, our accommodations, and restaurants as well. We impart all the laws that protect women and children to them, and we make sure that they have gender equality policies in place,” Belmonte said.

“Most especially that they have instruments in place so that when women feel that they have been harassed, abused, or maltreated, they can go somewhere and their issues will be addressed and given attention,” she added.

The mayor also said there’s an emergency hotline (122) for those experiencing violence against women, children, and the LGBTQ+ community.

Meanwhile, Airbnb contributes to safety by “risk scoring” to make sure hosts and guests are safe.

“It’s very important to us as a platform that peace of mind is something that travelers have when they travel,” Airbnb’s Head of Public Policy for Southeast Asia, India, Hong Kong, and Taiwan Mich Goh said.

“We do a whole range of things. For example, we risk score every single reservation that happens on our platform,” Goh continued, sharing that the app also uses machine learning to spot suspicious activity.

What risk scoring does is use predictive analytics and machine learning to “instantly evaluate hundreds of signals” that help flag and investigate suspicious activity before it happens. It scans people’s online presence to predict whether they’re trustworthy or psychopaths, according to a patent.

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Source: we the pvblic