How does social media impact how female university students view solo travelling?

Abstract
This paper aimed to find out how social media can influence the way women feel about travelling alone, specifically focused on university students. An interview took place with a female student who had previously wanted to travel alone but was talked out of this by friends and family and was affected by the stories she had seen online.

Key words
Feminism, solo-travel, social media, gender, solo female travelling

The main aim of the conference paper was to identify how social media can affect the way that women feel about solo travel. There was a gap in the literature regarding the views of younger, university educated women and their views on this topic which the conference paper aimed to fill.

In the 18th and 19th century women who took part in solo travel were considered social outcasts- while the men earnt such titles as ‘adventurers’ (Harris and Wilson, 2007). Women in this time were expected to take on traditional gender roles like cooking or taking care of children, and it was a taboo if they wanted to travel. Despite the fact that in modern times more women are choosing to travel they are still met with a stigma from friends and family and ideas perpetuated through the media that it is not safe for women to travel alone.

Stories of women who have been harmed while alone are commonplace in the media, and women are brought up believing that they should always be on their guard, for example they are taught they shouldn’t walk home in the dark. This kind of guidance can even be seen in official government websites, where women are told how to best conduct themselves abroad in a way that men are not. Valentine (1989) referred to this as the ‘geography of women’s fear’ and suggested that women feel safer in areas and cultures they are more familiar with as they can understand how to navigate the culture. This fear can limit women to the countries they feel they can visit alone and the time of day they can go out in. Women have been scare mongered out of solo travel by the media because they fear they will be attacked while travelling. Before women have even set foot out the door, they are faced with cultural messages that are there to remind them of their own vulnerability. A common problem for young women wanting to solo travel is the opinions of family members and friends because of these constructed narratives. Female safety has been the topic of many articles, blog posts and literature, some focused on how these women can protect themselves and others challenging this stereotype (Ahokas, 2017).

For this study it was decided that primary data in the form of an interview with a female university student who had previously expressed a wish to solo travel to Rome but did not feel able to go through with the trip. The data collected from this interview was analysed into themes and the main topics that occurred were: the impact of social media, the participants experiences, the impact of family and friends, preparation of women travelling alone and stories in the media. The data was then compared to the findings of the literature to prove or disprove the theories found.

The interview with the participant brought up some interesting information regarding the ‘geography of women’s fear’ (Valentine, 1989) as the participant had never travelled alone herself, and her friends had only ever had positive experiences. Despite this, the participant still felt too unsafe to partake in solo travel because of the negative stories she had seen in the media. This fear even meant that despite the fact she stated she would most like to visit Thailand, she wouldn’t feel able to visit by herself as she is too unfamiliar with the culture and couldn’t protect herself. She also felt that women had to prepare more for tourism, and that she had done a lot of research while planning her trip to ensure that she would be safe- but still ultimately decided not to go. The opinions of friends and family were a large impact on her decision not to go, as well as the sensationalised medias stories that highlight the vulnerability of women on their own.

This was an interpretivist piece of work so would not reflect the experiences of all women, but it aimed to take the views of a female university student and compare them to the theories. Every woman is different and would have a different viewpoint on solo travel and their own reasons for partaking in a trip. There were some limitations to this project as it was constrained by the word count and further research could benefit from exploring this topic in more detail.

References
Ahokas, S (2017) Safety of female travellers.
Harris, C. and Wilson, E. (2007) Travelling beyond the boundaries of constraint: Women, Travel and Empowerment. In: Pritchard, A., Morgan, N., Ateljevic, I. and Harris, C., Tourism & Gender: embodiment, sensuality and experience, 235-251.
Valentine, G. (1989) The geography of women’s fear. Area 21, 385–390.

I have chosen to write a commentary on this paper as it is a personal interest of mine and would have been my second topic choice to write my conference paper on, therefore, I am intrigued to discover how the author assesses this topic.

Overall, this paper was interesting to read. I feel it is significant to talk about the fears as a female solo traveller, and how social media plays such a big role in implementing fear into young women’s minds which automatically deters them from solo travelling. The interview provided the paper with a good explanation as to why so many women decide to not solo travel due to social media making it seem unsafe. It was also interesting to see that it was not only social media that deterred the interviewee from travelling alone, it was also her friends and family who also felt that it was an unsafe decision.

However, it would have been interesting for this paper to have explored how social media can also impact female solo travelling in a positive way. Sparks (2019) has written an article on a popular tourism site named ‘Lonely Planet’. This article shares the reason why females should solo travel including the benefits of solo travelling and how it is not so scary after all. It has also been suggested that 54% of British female solo travellers are now more likely to travel alone and part of the reason has been due to the spread of social media, in which gives female travellers the ability to contact friends, family, and access travel information from anywhere (Shankman, 2014). These figures show that although social media is one of the main sources of fear towards solo travel, it also has the power to make female travellers want to travel alone more, whilst also making them feel safe through social media platforms.

Nonetheless, this paper was well-researched and has shown the fears of being a female and wanting to solo travel using suitable references and primary data.

References

Sparks, E. (2019) Going it alone: five benefits to solo female travel. Lonely Planet. 4 November. Available from https://www.lonelyplanet.com/articles/best-reasons-to-travel-alone-for-women [accessed 08 June 2021].

Shankman, S. (2014) What Social Media Means for Women Who Want to Travel the World Alone. Skift. 29 April. Available from https://skift.com/2014/04/29/what-social-media-means-for-women-who-want-to-travel-the-world-alone/ [accessed 08 June 2021].

I selected to provide a commentary on this paper because of its importance and significance in today's society. This work was a pleasure to read because it is both clear and informative. The paper as a whole is nicely written and succinct, and it remains on topic.

I admire the author for emphasizing the importance of female solo travel and how social media influences how women see solo travel. The interview was an excellent addition to this piece of work since it provides a genuine context for the title and allows for a more in-depth approach to research. The fact that social media does impact women when it comes to solo travel is intriguing because it demonstrates the extent to which social media may impact day-to-day living. Furthermore, one thing that stood out to me when reading this paper was that the interviewee was not only discouraged from solo traveling because of social media, but their family and friends felt the same way as well.

To supplement this paper, it would have been fascinating to focus on a specific form of travel, such as leisure travel. It is believed that around 47% of US travelers are female (Chiang and Jogaratnam, 2006), an intriguing number given that social media is regarded to be a major force behind solo travel phobia. It would have also been interesting to investigate how travel companies sell tourism to female travelers, given Collins and Tisdell (2002) state that women have become the major target market for travel agencies. It should also be mentioned that university educated women wanted to relax and socialize when traveling (Pennington-Gray and Kerstetter 2001), and with socializing comes a plethora of hazards.

Overall, this has been a really interesting read, and it is evident that substantial research was conducted in order to satisfactorily address the paper's issue.

Chiang, C. and Jogaratnam, G., 2006. Why do women travel solo for purposes of leisure?. Journal of Vacation Marketing, 12(1), pp.59-70.

Collins, D. and Tisdell, C. (2002) ‘Gender and differences in travel life cycles’, Journal of Travel Research 41(2): 133 – 43.

Pennington-Gray, L. A. and Kerstetter, D. L. (2001) ‘What do university-educated women want from their pleasure travel experiences?’, Journal of Travel Research 40(1): 49 – 56.

This commentary helps support the same chosen topic as mine in terms of how being online can affect how a female feels about being alone, and especially when wanting to travel in many different ways which is what grows an interest here in terms of online being the now, which is why I would like to review this topic further.

This paper shows existing proof of the roots of male and female history and why females feel negatively in today’s society and in the century of modern day society which shows there needs to be change in terms of how women are viewed as in society, and especially online and I think this commentary shows clear information in terms of this. Currently, it has been identified that women are particularly targeted at in terms of how they can keep safe which is exemplified through multiple sources and shows that it is a dangerous outlook for society and therefore, on social media. As a result, I think that this paper can back up necessary factors well in relation to how women are portrayed on social media and how this affects how women feel when travelling, especially the interview, which shows that countries that are the furthest away are likely to stray women from travelling there, such as Thailand which is interesting to know as its not something many people would realise or think about which defines the fear in women also in relation to how safe they feel about travelling.

Sources found show benefits of females solo travellers which could have been included although this commentary does show that there are many articles proven to show how women can be safe and responsible when travelling due to found sources and that currently, there are sources online on social media that are supporting women more as a society which could have been stated (America House, 2020). There are many webpages, campaigns and support from celebrities across the platform of social media on women empowerment which discuss many different categories, also I think this paper is able to identify something that society is not aware of.

Reference:

House, A. (2020) How Social Media Has Empowered Women — America House Kyiv. [online] America House Kyiv. Available at: https://www.americahousekyiv.org/ah-blog/2020/8/27/7oa987evpi5kuc57j51827oxmqydyp [Accessed 11 June 2021].