Women Travelling Alone: A Tourism Perspective of Bangladesh

Abstract

Women are the inseparable part of tourism market. For the
development of tourism industry we should ensure the equal participation of
women in travel activities. But this decision of travel in a women life involves
many issues. Most of the women are not independent to take a travel decision.
Besides, lots of issues prevent them to take decision to travel. In case of any
destination, it lost its female target market for these constraints. But
interestingly, women now-a-days prefer to travel alone rather than being in a
large group (Chiang and Jogaratnam, 2005). This paper focuses on why and
how women travel alone and further, what factors foster this solo travelling or
what hinder their participation in tourism development of Bangladesh. Though
the research on this distinctive market segment of the travel and tourism
industry has emerged increasingly, it is limited and fully absent in the context of
Bangladesh tourism. Starting with an In-depth interview and surveying the solo
women travelers from major cities of Bangladesh reveals that some constraints
do subsist and influence on their lives to make a trip and gather rich experiences
in an innumerable of ways. Thus, this study put effort to highlight and facilitate
with policies and guidelines to the stakeholders for such women travelers who
travel single and thus will contribute in the future tourism sector of Bangladesh.