GIRLFRIEND GETAWAYS & THE FUTURE OF THE SOLO WOMAN TRAVELER- visit Tampa Bay Marketing summit

December 14, 2018

Here at EFTI, we are working with the state of Florida in a number of different ways to push tourism and development progress. One of our EFTI Faculty Members, Dr. Heather Gibson spoke at Visit Tampa Bay’s 4th Annual Marketing Summit on behalf of the institute and gave a presentation on “Girlfriend Getaways” and really hammered on the importance. Dr. Gibson then gave the group some ideas on how to market to the niche segment.

A “Girlfriend Getaway” is defined as an, “all female leisure-travel consisting of female friends, relatives, colleagues, members of sport teams, or other female acquaintances” according to Dr. Gibson. This niche market of the industry that seemed to draw a lot of discussion once the presentation was finished, but Dr. Gibson stressed the importance of the woman traveler in the future as we can see a gradual shift into solo travel, especially among women. But what many debate is whether or not an individual, in this case women travelers are safe when traveling internationally alone. To strip the presentation down to its core, Dr. Gibson was talking about her discoveries through her research and her ideas on what the next steps are toward application of marketing for these specialized groups.

At the end of it all, this means that there is still a growing popularity for these “Girlfriend Getaways” and they are becoming more and more present across the industry. Gibson explains that there is a generational gap between the two groups because different opportunities were available for each generation. But this part of the market has become a major asset to the overall growth and development of tourism as a whole because it is an untouched piece of the market. The discussion ultimately ended with a further explanation of the importance of “Girlfriend Getaways” and their part in the overall economic development of the state of Florida.

Dr. Heather Gibson discussing marketing strategy of “Girlfriend Getaways” and their role in the tourism industry within the Tampa Bay Area.