Alice Fauveau is the founder of ‘Focus on Women’, a travel agency created in 2009 in order to empower and increase the visibility of women around the world through travel. A passionate traveller, Alice saw the need to create a new kind of tourism, one that was focused on the global culture of womankind. At the agency, the focus is on trips which allow travellers to meet the valuable women who make destinations so unique and great. Through cultural immersion travellers get to experience how women worldwide work to support, strengthen and enrich their local communities.
The idea behind the foundation of Focus on Women is simple: traditionally organised by men, tourism initiatives often fail take unique female perspectives into account. Alice wanted to offer women the opportunity to travel as women, incorporating spiritual, artistic, cultural and humanitarian elements into their trips. Focus on Women also actively encourages women travellers to build networks and solidarity with other women they meet, rather than simply consuming a tourist package.
With this focus, many of the agency’s clients travel alone, opting instead to meet other women in their destinations and seeking out dialogue and shared experiences. Alice and her team have built up a global network of female ‘Cicerones’, local guides from various backgrounds who introduce travellers to their culture. Found in over 100 destinations, these guides are women architects, artists, photographers and journalists, women who work in the arts, science and the humanitarian field – all united by the desire to build bridges and nurture deeper understanding.
Focus on Women also actively seeks out and participates in projects that favour the female economy in order to minimise their economic exclusion. An example of this is their product sourcing policy – the agency preferably contracts hotels and hospitality service companies which are run by women. They also encourage donations to local causes by travellers, and 7% of the agency’s profits is donated to organisations which work with women and children.
Learn more about the Focus on Women experience at http://www.focusonwomen.es and listen to Alice’s TEDxBarcelonaWomen talk here [Spanish].
