How women are driving Intrepid's exploration of Saudi Arabia
Intrepid Travel has opened up to TTG on the new partnerships it has forged with female-run businesses in Saudi Arabia, allowing it to operate "true Intrepid experiences" to the country for the first time.
The operator earlier this week confirmed the launch of its first female-only tours to Saudi Arabia, which will be led exclusively led by women for other women.
Running from late November to April, Intrepid’s tours to Saudi Arabia have been designed to support female-owned businesses – and bring together women from different backgrounds.
“This will be a true Intrepid experience where we can go off the beaten track, create connections with the local communities and experience the food, the history and the culture,” Intrepid Travel managing director EMEA Zina Bencheikh tells TTG.
Ranking 131st in the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap index, Saudi Arabia remains a conservative society where women continue to have less rights than men. Women, though, have in recent years been granted certain rights in recent years, such as the right to vote and to drive.
Since 2018, women have been permitted to launch their own businesses without the consent of a male guardian, which has led to the creation of a number of female-owned travel, tourism and hospitality businesses.
Women too have become and increasingly significant and important part of the country’s tourism economy, now representing 30% of the sector’s workforce.
Bencheikh believes the most interesting and intriguing part of the trip will be to give women from other countries and cultures the opportunity to experience authentic insights into the lives of local Saudi women.
The tour has been developed by Intrepid in partnership with local operator and mother-of-two Sara Omar, who has herself travelled to more than 70 countries and worked in the country’s outbound tourism sector, taking Saudi women to places like South America and Europe before starting her own destination management company.
Starting from Riyadh and winding up in Jeddah, the 12-day trip features excursions to the likes of Madinah – Islam’s second-holiest site after Mecca – and Unesco World Heritage site Hegra. All tours and excursions are led by female guides.
Other experiences include a stay at a female-owned hotel, a visit to a citrus farm run by two sisters where visitors will eat lunch under the trees, and a trip to a female-owned beauty salon.
Guests will also visit a shop that sells abayas, a traditional female Muslim robe, and go on a Red Sea cruise before relaxing at a female-only, private beach.
“There’s a lot of fun in this trip that involves learning about a new culture, cooking, snorkelling in beautiful waters and visiting a holy site which has recently opened to non-Muslims,” Bencheikh reveals.
She tells TTG all businesses involved in the tour have been vetted to make sure they’re truly female-owned and operate with respect to international labour laws, such as paying staff fairly.
“We have guidelines, for example it’s pretty clear the guides will be female and they are probably the most important part of the trip because they are the storytellers, they are the ones connecting us with the locals,” she adds.
Looking ahead, Bencheikh doesn’t rule out the possibility of opening the tour to men, but stresses it will take time with Saudi Arabia still emerging as a destination. She adds the Saudi tourism industry “still has a lot to learn” in terms of operations.
“We’ll do some research and see if we can add tours for both genders and those will most likely be run by Sara because she gets our brand,” Bencheikh continues.
Overall, Bencheikh insists Saudi women are starting to take advantage of Saudi Arabia opening to tourism and the opportunities it brings – adding this was core to Intrepid's ambitions with its tour. “30% of the guides in Saudi Arabia are women,” she explains. “It’s only 5% in Morocco, and that's a major tourism destination.
"We do not boycott destinations, we’ve never done that, it’s not the way we operate,” she concludes. “And as a result we’ve decided this is the best way to offer Saudi Arabia and give a real taste to people who are curious enough.”
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