▶ Networking sites that help women traveling solo find each other.
Tanja Lindermeier, left, used Global Dinner Network, her networking site, to find other German women in New York like Gudrun Fischer.
By HILARY HOWARD
For Carolyn Pearson of Leeds, England, the decision to start a social-networking Web site for businesswomen who travel came down to the need for safety and a desire to relieve loneliness and boredom on the road.
“It was all about me being in Los Angeles on a business trip and wanting to go to Venice Beach and thinking, was this a safe thing for me to do?” she recalled. If only she had known other women in the area with whom she could explore the town, she recalled, she would have felt more comfortable about leaving her hotel room.
Last fall, she began Maiden Voyage (www.maiden-voyage.com), a network for women interested in, for example, tips on female-friendly hotels or sharing dinner in faraway cities.
The free service invites members to submit their travel dates and destinations so that other members simultaneously visiting the same place might contact them securely and privately. Ms. Pearson screens each new member with an Internet search and a phone call. “So far I haven’t had a lady with a deep voice, so I haven’t had a problem there,” she said.
The travel industry has been paying more attention to women, with hotel floors dedicated to them and girlfriend-getaway promotions among the trends. And with the continued rise of social networking Web sites, those aimed at women who travel for business have not lagged far behind.
A hesitation to network with unfamiliar men is partly what drove Kerstin Hoghielm, executive director of the online company BPeople Coaching Community in Verbier, Switzerland, to start the Executive Women’s Network Lounge within SkyLounge. com, a networking site for both male and female executives who travel.
“If you call up a woman out of the blue you can go out to dinner, but if you call up a man there are too many stories about sexual harassment,” she said. “Regardless of what people say, those are the facts. There is a risk involved with networking with men.”
Ms. Hoghielm said she believed that women, who “are not as used to networking as men,” should not shy away from meeting others and should practice with one another what she deems a relatively new skill for them.
Rhonda Reece, who lives in Nashville and is a member of the Executive Women’s Network Lounge, said she appreciated the women-only aspect because she works in a field dominated by men.
“Being a developer in the technology field, it’s always great to run across another female developer,” she said. She met a British executive who often traveled to Nashville to meet with business partners. “I gave her great tips on local restaurants, some real gems in the area,” she said.
In 2004, Ray Lehky started Ladies- Away.com, an online service for traveling businesswomen, after learning of a colleague who hid in her hotel room when she traveled. “I thought there must be tons of women in the same spot,” he said.
Tanja Lindermeier was in the same spot when she started Global Dinner Network (global-dinner-network. com), based in Gutersloh, Germany, in 2005. As a product development chemist who traveled constantly and describes herself as an extrovert, she was loath to “take a taxi to explore the boulevards of Paris alone,” she said.
Her site now has 2,000 registered members from 44 countries, and she said it appealed to “cosmopolitan women who are curious and selfconfident and want to learn.” When Ms. Lindermeier found out that she would be relocating to New Jersey in 2007, she used her own network to reach out to other German women in the New York area.
She ended up having brunch in Manhattan with Gudrun Fischer, a German product manager. “She was the first person I met here,” Ms. Lindermeier said.
The two have been friends ever since.
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