IN a year of no travel, the Solo Female Travellers Club managed to grow its members base from 15,000 to 80,000. “Engagement was really high,” said Mar Pages, co-founder of the group that started on Facebook six years ago and is primarily run on the social network.
“I think people were really nostalgic about travel, and had time on their hands. We feel that engagement will explode when people start travelling again.”
And when it’s time to travel again, bucket list destinations are Italy, Japan, Greece, Australia, New Zealand, Iceland, according to the latest survey run by the group. “We found that Greece was favoured by Gen Z, New Zealand by millennials, Australia by Gen X and Italy by boomers.”
As to how they pick a destination, cultural sightseeing and immersion is top of the list, followed by safety and crime rate. The club defines solo female travellers as not just those travelling alone but with groups of women.
Pages, who’s lived in Singapore for the past decade and who left her job at Google to pursue life as a travel blogger, took over the club in January 2020 with partner Meg Jerrard, based in Tasmania. Their original idea was to organise group trips for members but when that plan was scuttled by you-know-what, the two quickly turned to content and community building, seeing it as an opportunity to grow the club.
Pages said they will go back to organising group trips when that’s possible again. “It’s after all the reason we started this. We love to travel and we love to do it as solo females. We want to do trips in a different way, make them interesting and specific.”
So while it waits out the pandemic, the two have been busy communicating and engaging with its members. It’s run so far 42 live sessions with experts on Facebook on subjects ranging from zero waste travel to animal and wildlife tourism.
“We want to share content that matters to them, how to be more responsible and respectful travellers. We allow the difficult conversations and facilitate them,” said Pages. “We are an inclusive community and when somebody’s English is not as good, we always make sure they feel safe. We are always moderating – it’s the biggest issue of online communities, to be misunderstood and to understand, because you don’t hear tone.”
Tone is of course addressed on the fast-exploding Clubhouse and Pages has been experimenting there “to see if there’s a role for us”. It’s started two weekly rooms on the topics of responsible travel.
From running social groups, it’s turned its sights to running events with a difference. On March 8, its Empower Festival went live, offering 30 recorded sessions and featuring 35 speakers. Members pay US$100 for year-round access to the content (includes goodie bag) while US$49 gives you two-week access. Content is added every month and is downloadable.
Topics include sexual well-being (dating on the road, dangers of STD, etc) and self defence lessons taught by Qin Yunquan of the Kapap Academy of Singapore.
The biggest concern of solo female travellers is safety, revealed in a recent survey it did. “One of the most interesting findings was the distrust of influencers,” said Pages. “I always thought that to be the case and it was interesting to have it verified in our study.”
Asked if she was concerned about the vulnerability of a business built on Facebook, given the increasing backlash against tech giants as well as not knowing when it might change its algorithm and rules, Pages admitted it’s her number one concern. “I am very aware that if your business depends on someone’s platform, it can be scary. I come from online marketing so I know how it works and have heard stories of businesses disappearing.
“This is why we have become part of the Facebook Learning Labs, to have someone to talk to and to know what’s happening.”
Its Plan B is its website, as well as an email newsletter that goes out to 17,000 subscribers.
Said Pages, “We do content marketing with a purpose. I am not an artist. I like to create things for a reason. A community is different from a blog which is more SEO-driven while a community is purpose-driven.”
To monetise further, it has affiliate agreements with travel brands interested in targeting solo female travellers.
“This segment will be among the first to travel again,” said Pages. “And where women go, that means it is safe for families and other groups.”
• Featured image credit – Acropolis of Lindos, Greece: frantic00/Getty Images
