7 Lessons Learned from Running a Women Only Travel Company
On June 5, 2024, Patch Adventures turns 5 years old.
And wow, we have certainly had a mix of wild and wonderful moments since starting down this path.
The idea came to us in a very simple way – I (Rebeca) found a women only tour company and after reading their itineraries, we knew we could offer something different and unique.
Mat had a travel marketing background and in our previous company, I had worked with dozens of tour operators, helping them refine their itineraries.
We knew there would be a lot to learn, but we also knew we could offer a lot. With our network of contacts around the world, we would be able to access experiences that are just not available to other operators.
What’s great is that these assumptions turned out to be correct.
We’ve learned a lot along the way, though. Which is why I wanted to share the seven biggest lessons we’ve learned along the way…
Figuring out which trip will be popular is the hardest thing
I never expected this, but easily the hardest part of managing this business is that before launching any trip, we have no idea if it will be successful or not.
Ireland was our most requested destination, for example. We had SO MANY people request an Ireland trip!
We put lots of work into it, but when we actually launched the trip.. only one of the 55 people who had registered their interest actually signed up. (Yes, just one!) After months of marketing and selling, we had just 5 people who came.
The trip itself was great. Those people who did come had an absolute whale of a time and really enjoyed themselves, but it was a tough lesson to learn. After all, if you ask people to register their interest in a destination, doesn’t that mean they actually want to go there?
On the other hand, we had a lot of success in marketing trips to Myanmar (before the civil war, of course). So much so, in the end we ran 3 of our first 4 trips to Myanmar. No-one ever requested Myanmar, but the trip was so special, and just captured people’s imagination.
Overall, we’re building a nice collection of trips that are popular and that our Patchies really love, but it’s taken a lot of work to get to this point.
And even now, we still can’t predict which ones will sell better.
People underestimate women
When we tell people that we have a women-only travel business, they think that we must do nice and easy wine trips to France, or spa trips to Bali.
So, when we tell them that we do trips to places like Uzbekistan or Iran, they can’t believe it!
This is one of the things that makes me so proud of Patch. We choose not to underestimate the adventurousness of our Patchies and have received the rewards for it.
Balancing shopping v non shopping is really hard
This is one thing I seriously was not expecting; but I should have seen it coming.
One of the hardest aspects of designing a trip is trying to balance the desires of those who love shopping, and those who have no time for it. It’s one of the most common items of feedback that we receive (‘More shopping time is needed! Too much shopping time!) but honestly… as hard as we try, I don’t think we’ll ever please everyone when it comes to this topic.
The number one feedback we receive is not what you’d think
Hands down, the number one item of feedback that we receive is that our trips have too much food.
At first, we’d laugh and say ‘well, I guess this means we’re doing a good job!’ but we have now received this piece of feedback dozens of times. So much so, that we’re actually re-jigging some of our itineraries to have more light meals so that less time is spent in restaurants. This is something that is quite hard to cater for (forgive the pun!) but we’re gradually figuring it out.
Health issues are really hard to manage if they’re not disclosed
All Patchies reading this post will know that we enjoy having a phone call to get to know people before they book. Unfortunately, we have had several instances where people haven’t disclosed health issues while booking, because these ladies have been worried that we’ll reject them.
And when those health issues have surfaced on a trip, it has caused some pretty major headaches!
I know that being restricted by health issues is frustrating, but it is triply worse if you’re in the middle of nowhere dealing with a situation that we didn’t come prepared for. Please, always disclose any health issues that might impact on a trip!
Group Dynamics is a tricky topic
Not everyone in a trip gets along.
This is normal and to be expected. Imagine if you took your closest 12 family and friends on holiday for 2 weeks. At some point, you’re going to be feeling frustrated with at least someone!
So, it’s just natural that you won’t become best friends with everyone.
We haven’t many issues on this front, thank heavens! The large majority of trips either go off without a hitch, or with only minor hitches.
However, if we’re to be transparent – we have had a couple of instances across our many dozens of trips where some people in a group haven’t gotten along. And when I say that, I mean really haven’t gotten along.
This is another issue that we haven’t quite figured out. Because if someone reports an issue, you can never quite know how many details have been left out. In the end, we rely on our trip leaders to advise us and manage any issue that arises, as they have the clearest view as to what is happening.
Female guides aren’t always available
As much as possible, we work with female guides. In some countries, we’re blessed to have found some amazing trip leaders. Across countries such as India, Jordan, Sri Lanka and Morocco, for instance, we’re fortunate to have a wonderful team of female guides.
In other countries, it’s been more difficult. Female guides are extremely rare in some countries; and in others they’re not even allowed to work!
Iran, on the other hand, allows female tour guides, which is wonderful. However, many of them are relatively new to the industry and need mentoring. For this reason, our Iran trip has both a male and female guide, and this combination has worked really well for us.
Overall, it is very difficult to find female guides who are willing and/or able to leave their families for 10, 15 or 20 days. For this reason, we also work with male guides on some of our trips. We’ve had very little negative feedback about this, but the occasional person does get upset with us. It just is how it is, and there’s not much we can do to change.
Overall, most people are good
What we’ve found in this journey is that the huge majority of our guests are lovely, warm, and friendly people.
Sure, not everyone clicks with what we’re doing, but the ratio of ‘difficult’ guests is very low – much lower than what people expect. And for this reason, we’re grateful.
Want to learn more? View our women only trips.