November 2018
Regional General Manager for Europe, Middle East and North Africa Zina Bencheikh was honoured to speak on the 100 Years of Suffragettes: International Perspectives for the Travel Industry panel at WTM London.
Zina was joined by the First Lady of Iceland, Eliza Reid; June Sarpong, co-founder of the WIE Network and DNA Network; and Jo Phillips, VP of Talent and Culture at Carnival Australia.
The panel, which was hosted by Women in Travel’s Alessandra Alonso, discussed the key challenges facing women in the travel industry and what opportunities exist to make improvements. Zina, who is based in Marrakech, spoke passionately on how her team are working to improve gender equality in Morocco.
“Businesses have a responsibility to acknowledge that they have a gender equality problem and to set goals to address the problem,” said Zina. “18 months ago, we had no female tour leaders in Morocco. We now have thirteen as a result of lobbying the government to reopen the license test and today we have more female tour leaders than any other business in the country.”
Alessandra, whose company Women In Travel is a social enterprise dedicated to empowering women through employability and entrepreneurship, invited Zina to participate in the session due to her unique perspective. “Zina brings a diversity to the panel being from a part of the world that is not usually referenced when it comes to gender equality. Her passion and authentic voice was very well received by the audience.”