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The Issue of Safety as a British Female Solo Traveller in Thailand.

The Issue of Safety as a British Female Solo Traveller in Thailand.
Author: Alice-Mae Bateman
1 Commentries
Abstract
This paper was created to explore the issue of safety as a British female solo traveller in Thailand. An interview was carried out with a 29-year-old experienced solo traveller who had been to Thailand multiple times for both leisure and business.

Keywords: Thailand, Solo Female Traveller, Safety, Risk.

Solo female travel is becoming more popular in recent years, with each solo female traveller experiencing different motivations and experiences in travelling independently. The single population is increasing, which is suggested to be closely linked to the increase of solo travel evolution. These recent social changes have created a new type of solo traveller who often have no one to travel with and do not seek to avoid touristy places. The female solo travellers within the market have largely contributed to this growth from an early stage through the development of gender equality which has allowed more women who have the social and financial means to travel independently, which in turn has empowered them.

As a Solo Female Tourist, safety is at the forefront of considerations when planning international travel, given the important of this conference paper focusing on The Issue of Safety as a British Female Solo Traveller in Thailand. It is thought that there are gendered inequities in men and women’s use, perceptions and accessibility to public places, focusing on how women can experience more constraints in freedom to use public places based on their perception of fear to violent or sexual attack. Khoo-Lattimore and Wilson, (2017) highlight the fact that there is no solid statistics of the attacks on female tourists, meaning it is difficult to relate this to the level of safety. This could be due to on non-reporting, data suppression or protecting the destinations image to other tourists by not being publicised.

Kelley, (1992) carried out a survey of solo female tourists’ travellers which discovered 77% of participants felt unsafe when travelling solo, although only 14% had actually experienced incidents of sexual harassment, resulting in female solo travellers fearful of their personal safety when travelling. Although there are yearly reports of missing or dead female travellers in the media who had been attacked, it only reflects a small number in comparison to the number of solo female travellers annually, on top of Khoo-Lattimore and Wilson, (2017), believing the reports are “exaggerated or mis-represented”.

A semi-structured interview was conducted to gain insight into the concerns and experiences in safety of a solo female traveller. The participant is a 29-year-old female from England, who has been travelling solo since she was 20 years old. The interview found the participant experienced no issues at all and felt extremely safe in Thailand, stating that there have never been feelings of danger towards personal health or wellbeing, however, there has been the sense of an ‘uncomfortable situation’. The participant believed that one of the main challenges faced as a female solo traveller in Thailand was gaining the local’s acceptance of the lifestyle to travel solo, as when meeting local people and speaking about solo travel, there was a lack of understanding why the participant would not want to find a boyfriend or travel with friends. The participant explained that the main concern experienced when travelling solo is the fear that if something was to happen, it could go unnoticed as she has no one in that destination to be aware. The participant recommends that other female travellers who want to embark on a solo trip should simply ‘go for it!’ although it might be scary to leave your comfort zone, the benefits of solo travel are immense such as learning to problem solve, gain confidence, and meet other young women doing the same. It is suggested when a solo female tourist challenges herself to be alone and leave a comfort zone to follow her motivations and prove that they possess the capabilities to enjoy freedom she will feel a high level of self-fulfilment.

This conference paper was designed to fill the gap in literature, as a number of the research papers were considerably dated, as well as a focus on women’s motivation and experience in solo travel, as opposed to the concerns for their safety. Over-all, it is believed that Thailand is a safe destination for British female solo travellers, provided they acted with the same safety precautions followed in England. One suggestion to continue to improve the safety of solo female travellers is to gain the support of the travel industry to provide more support and advice to ensure safety is not comprised to improve female solo travellers’ experiences, increasing the level of security felt when travelling to new places.

References
Kelley, C. (1992). Going solo: Why women are worried. Conde Nast Traveller, 27(2): 32–33.

Khoo-Lattimore, C. and Wilson, E. (2016). Women and travel. Historical & contemporary perspectives. Basingstoke: Taylor & Francis Ltd.

Wilson, E. and Little, D.E. (2008). The ``Solo Female Travel Experience: Exploring the “Geography of Women’s Fear.”?Current Issues in Tourism, 11(2), pp.167–186.
A commentary on: The Issue of Safety as a British Female Solo Traveller in Thailand.
Author: Wing Yin WAN
I have chosen to write a comment on this discussion paper as I really like Thailand and consider it as one of my favourite travel destination. Therefore, it has been intriguing me how the author investigate this topic as a female perspective.

The study has highlighted the safety issues about female solo travel, and how the female travellers experiencing their motivation and experience adopted into their travel independently, which also makes the trend become more popular in recent years. With the development of gender equality, it shows and empower that female has a strong self-efficacy in the area of financial and social (Farrell, Fry and Risse, 2015). As the world keeps changing, women’s empowerment has affected the single population and linked to the relation of solo travelling as well. The paper raised up the consideration of safety issues as there are inequities between male and female, women may experience higher rates of sexual, victimization and violent attack then male for these particular crime and females are substantially more fearful of crimes than male (Fox, Nobles and Piquero, 2009), which making it seems unsafe to travel alone especially female.

However, based on the paper it discovered that only 14% of female actually experienced the report of sexual incidents, missing or dead on social media, it indicated and compared that which is a small number of cases. From the data, it believed that there is a power for female travellers to access the countries alone, whilst they also think it is a bit unsafe. The author did an quite interesting interview with a 29-years old female who has 9 years of travelling experience, it found that Thailand is a very easy and safe place for travelling, although some of the locals did not understand why she travels by herself, she even encourages the young female travellers should leave their own comfort zone and achieve the self-fulfilment, as it is true that there has no 100% safe destination on the planet.

Overall, this study is a well-researched and it has shown the problem that female concern during travel alone and how they are being empowered simultaneously. In regard to the interview, it encourages everyone even myself to step out the comfort zone to experience the solo travel after the Covid-19 is over.

Reference:
Farrell, L., Fry, T,R.L. and Risse, L. (2015) The significance of financial self-efficacy in explaining women’s personal finance behaviour. Journal of Economic Psychology, 54, 85-89. Available from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016748701500094X [accessed 9 June 2021].

Fox, K,A., Nobles, M,R. and Piquero, A.R. (2009) Gender, crime victimization and fear of crime. Security Journal, 22, 24-39. Available from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/sj.2008.13 [accessed 9 June 2021].