Being the female leader of a travel company featuring an all-woman team of six travel counselors, London-based Crossing Travel CEO Sangeeta Sadarangani is quite aware of the challenges women face when traveling for business.
Besides offering bespoke travel services by working with corporate and leisure travelers, Crossing Travel is a specialist in advising and facilitating safe travel conditions for its clientele, and especially its female clients.
“This is exactly what our focus is and why the business was created,” Sadarangani said. “We have an all-woman team, so we understand better what the needs of the female traveler is, whether it be for business or leisure. This is a topic that is very close to my heart.”
The company’s services can be deployed to aid women executives traveling for meetings, especially to international destinations where its expertise can be critical in ensuring a safe journey to and from.
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“I think it’s very important for a female business traveler, when they decide to go to a meeting or business trip, to have a very detailed agenda—the times, the dates, who’s going to pick them up—it’s all about safety,” she said. “It’s very important to have a lot of information on the destination to empower them—Information doesn’t lead to fear, but to freedom.”
Other tips for female business travelers include having a local person accompany her at all times, as well as a personal concierge and a telephone number to reach help 24-7.
“That’s what we do for all of our travelers, regardless, but it’s especially important for our female travelers,” she said. “Also important are the kinds of hotels that female travelers are booked into. There are hotels around the world that have taken care to meet female travelers’ needs, such as a female-only floor, and also a closed-circuit camera inside the room so they can see who’s knocking at the door.
“A lot of hotels are taking a special interest in taking care of female travelers, such as someone meeting them at the airport to take them to the hotel, which is especially important at night,” Sadarangani continued, adding that Crossing Travel also advises clients on tours that are appropriate for specific destinations, things to do or not to do, and neighborhoods to avoid.
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Travel is in the DNA of the Mumbai, India-born Sadarangani, whose father was an air commander in the Indian Air Force, and who as a child lived in nine different Indian cities and four different countries.
Sadarangani’s professional journey also mirrors the many women who have perhaps delayed their career path in favor of tending to their families.
“I started my company just before my 50th birthday,” she said. “I found that there were a number of women like me who have raised their families and then started their careers.
“There were very few corporations that would take women back after a 15-year gap, even though they had a fantastic resume,” Sadarangani added. “I was one of them as well.”
“I decided, why not work on my passion and hire women to work who also had that passion?”
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