Hey all, Jalisa here, Founder of BOOKED Trips *waves* I just got back from an incredible adventure at the Women in Travel Summit (WITS) hosted by Wanderful in Park City, Utah.

What is WITS?

WITS is an annual event designed to empower and connect women travel entrepreneurs, influencers, Destination Management Companies (DMCs), and industry experts. It’s a space for sharing travel industry insights, social media and blogging tips, building collaborations, and advocating for a more inclusive travel landscape.

Why Attend WITS?

This year’s conference was held in Salt Lake City, Utah (next year it’s happening in Lower Manhattan, NYC!). WITS brings together hundreds of attendees, from budding social media influencers to renowned travel personalities like Martinique Lewis and Jen Ruiz and authors like Anu Taranath, author of Beyond Guilt Trips: Mindful Travel in an Unequal World and Wanderful Founder, Beth Santos who just came out with a new book “Wander Woman: How to Reclaim Your Space, Find Your Voice, and Travel the World, Solo.” This book is a perfect guide for women who are new to solo traveling. It’s also a fantastic opportunity to connect with international travel brands, small businesses, and fellow travel enthusiasts. and dozens of brands — from international travel corporations to small emerging businesses and startups.

I didn’t have many preconceived notions about the conference or Salt Lake City having been to neither before and I was pleasantly surprised by both! WITS is one of the most welcoming and supportive environments I’ve ever been in. Everyone was genuinely so happy to see and support one another. Salt Lake City is AMAZING. It is such a clean and cute city. We also got to spend the day in Park City and it’s built for a hallmark movie. Will definitely be back to attend Sundance. But before I get there, here’s some highlights from the conference.

The Bessie Awards: Honoring a Legacy of Trailblazers

The conference kicked off with the prestigious Bessie Awards, honoring remarkable women who are redefining leadership in travel. The Bessie Awards are named after aviation trailblazer: Bessie Coleman, the first woman of African American and Native American descent to ever hold a pilot’s license. In an era where racial and gender barriers were firmly in place, Bessie’s determination to soar above them all was nothing short of remarkable. Facing prejudice at every turn, she refused to be grounded.

Bessie traveled to France to pursue her dream of flight training, something unavailable to her in the segregated America of the early 20th century. She earned her license in 1910, paving the way for generations of women of color to take to the skies.The Bessie Awards embody the spirit of Bessie Coleman – honoring those who push boundaries and redefine what it means to be a leader in the travel industry. These awards celebrate the achievements of influencers, creative entrepreneurs, writers, and other inspiring individuals who bring unique voices and perspectives to the travel landscape.

This year’s list of winners included:

• Most Impactful Piece of Writing: For an inspiring, engaging, and community-oriented piece of writing that has encouraged dialogue and interaction in the last year. I was of course most excited about this award and there were GREAT nominees. Winner: ​Call You When I Land, Nikki Vargas. Also check out the other nominees pieces: “Can travel help save the world’s most threatened languages?” by Joliene Carolina and “Dear Air France: My Wheelchair Is Like My Legs, Not My Luggage” by Tanzila Khan
• Collaboration of the Year Award: In support of working together, this award celebrates a successful collaboration by or between creators and brands to develop meaningful partnerships and accomplish shared goals. ​Winner: Gabby Beckford x Intrepid Travel​
• Creator of the Year Award: Honoring a creator who has gone above and beyond in the past year to challenge the status quo as a thought leader in the industry. Winner: Martinique Lewis​
• Inclusion Award: For a brand that has shown outstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion in the last year, whether in the form of a campaign, piece of content, partnership, or other initiative. Winner: ​Vanessa Fondeur-Adams, Latino World Travelers/Latino Travel Fest​
• ​JourneyWoman Award:For a person who has demonstrated long-term commitment to working in and making the travel industry better. Winner: Stephanie Jones, Blacks in Travel and Tourism​
• ​Social Impact Award: For an activity, campaign, or other initiative by an individual or brand that has shown innovation in ways that have positively impacted the travel community, or has developed their marketing in a sustainable and impactful way. Winner: ​Packs Light, Study Abroad Redo Grant (SARG)
• ​Trailblazer Award: For the go-getter who has thrived in the past year in building her own empire and carving out a path for future leaders in the travel space.  Winner: Catarina Rivera, Blindish Latina​
• Travel Startup of the Year: For an engaging, innovative and impactful startup that we as a community of influencers believe is changing the way we travel. Winner: SoloTrvlr​​
• Wanderful Award: For a brand that has gone above and beyond to support, empower, and represent women in the past year. Winner: ​The Solo Girl’s Travel Guide, Alexa West

 

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You can see a full recap of the Bessie Awards above.

You can learn more about Bessie Coleman on the Women Who Travel Podcast: Amelia Earhart and Bessie Coleman’s Record-Breaking Flights. Dorothy Cochrane, a curator at the National Air and Space Museum in D.C., joins Lale to talk about the pioneering pilots, their record-breaking flights, the risks they took, the individual challenges they faced, and the ingenious ways they advocated for themselves.

Women in Travel Summit Excursions: Gin-Distilling in Park City, Utah

WITS partnered with Visit Park City for an incredible day of excursions for that fell into three categories (Active, Education, and Spiritual) and offered a mixture of physical activities, educational experiences, and spiritual journeys ranging from skiing, snowshoeing and fly fishing, to day spas, sustainable tourism visits, and chocolate tours. It was an AMAZING DAY. I went to an Alpine Gin Distilling experience and it was one of the most memorable parts of the conference.

Alpine Distilling is a gin and whiskey distillery in Park City, Utah co-owned by Sara Sergent and her husband Rob. Sara  is the most decorated botanical distiller in the country. Her botanicals are sourced from around the world and she’s been awarded “Gin of the Year” in London, 3x Top Gin Distillery by USA Today, “Best in Class” at the TAG Awards Las Vegas, Double Golds at Women Wine & Spirits in London, SIP Awards California and TOP50 in New York. In addition, she has crafted botanical spirits for Stein Eriksen Lodge, St. Regis Deer Valley, Auberge Properties, and Capital One. She’s even made private batches for the Rock and Jason Momoa. She is a BAD ASS and she gave us a personal blending experience!

We started by learning about botanicals – smelling and tasting to craft our own individualized gin batch. We were able to try cocktails at Alpine Social Club and make our own full size bottle of gin based on our personal tastes. We got to watch the distilling process from start to finish and left with a custom bottle.

Also when you’re in Park City, Utah make a stop at Dolly’s Bookstore, an independent bookstore in the Historic Park City Main Street community — connecting customers with books and gifts — since 1972. Bonus it’s attached to a chocolate shop!

Women In Travel Summit Session Recaps: Insider Tips for Travel Businesses & Influencers

There were also sessions at the conference led by leaders and creators in the travel industry that shared invaluable tips and tricks. Here are a few sessions I attended and my takeaways:

​Creators as Business Owners: An In-depth Look at Financial Stability Beyond Sponsorships and One-off Deals with Youmie Jean Francois

Top priorities for creators and travel business owners:

1. Build your email list & make sure your emails sound authentic, not automated (followers are vanity metrics on platforms you don’t own)
2. Optimize your LinkedIn profile
3. Get certifications (ex. minority women business owners cert for government contracts).
4. Get a mentor that has different skill sets than you.
5. Focus on SEO and ensure you have a Google business profile
6. Remember that money exists outside of the U.S. and people want what you’re offering outside of the U.S.

​Mastering the Marathon: Building Long Term Success and Staying Inspired in Blogging with Elena Nikolova

General principles of a successful blog:

• Be consistent and write helpful content (what sets you a part is showing up and providing value for years). Update your content regularly.
• Set measurable goals that you have control over
• Treat your blog like a business and create structure
• Keep a lean website. Pretty may not be fast.
• Niche your site
• Leave the comments open to create community. This also tells Google your content is helpful.
• Create articles based on keywords to rank. It usually takes 40-60 articles to rank.
• Learn your data to help create helpful content and monetizing
• Learn simple business funnels. Here are some great resources.
• Direct Message (DM) automations are gold (comment x and I’ll give you z). You can send followers to helpful content on your website or a freebie. Do a snippet of the resources as a reel and ask for a comment to send them to a blog post with more details.
• Your email list is gold. This provides the opportunity for the closest communication and value.
• Diversify your viewership sources: Send reels/posts to email list, use Facebook groups and IG channels to create community, etc.
• Look into creating products, use affiliate, run groups, go into coaching or consulting, start a YouTube.

Mastering the Art of Short-Form Video Content with Ashley Westbrook

Tips for Creators:

• Capture high quality content.
• Create content that people want to save and share (ex. create a video that makes people excited and gives them an experience of what a place is like, include text on screen about it’s affordability, and use the caption to share more detailed information about the place).
• Create content that is platform agnostic and then customize for each platform.
• Leverage multiple hooks to capture your audience (visual, audio, text).
• Put a compelling clip as the 1st hook, do a voiceover/use trending audio that has a connection to the video or nostalgia, and use text on screen.
• Make sure your content is SEO optimized & use IG and TikTok’s search feature to learn what people are looking for to help adapt the captions you use and words you reiterate in captions and on screen text. 
• Closed captioning so your content is consumable without sound

Preserving Your Voice: AI’s Role in Authentic Storytelling with Marissa Strang

Ways to use AI in your travel business:

• As a personal assistant -closed captioning for accessibility
• Writing content
• Editing photos

Top 3 AI tools:

1. ChatGPT/Google Gemini. In Google Gemini you can copy and paste links to scrub websites. ChatGPT is a better writer and storyteller.Use for answering emails, outlines, brainstorming content, editing/proofreading, reviewing contracts, SEO, etc.
   ChatGPT Best practices:

   – Provide clear context and directions

   – Define a persona (i.e. im a SEO specialist, you are a travel blogger, etc.)

   – Give a clear call to action (give me a numbered list, etc )

   – Inform the voice, style, and tone (be casual, be uplifting, be engaging)

   – Edit your prompts to add direction

   – Use the regenerate button

   – FACT CHECK!

   – Add to prompts: Ask me questions to make this prompt better.
2. Adobe Sensei/Creative Cloud:Built into Photoshop, Light Room, etc.Use for automated photo editing in Photoshop: content aware fill – Generative expand and fill (expands images to use as IG reel covers) – portrait presets – sky swapping – automatic recommendations of presets – make adjustments in lighting and saturation for just one part of the photo such as person vs. background – tools in premiere pro: automated color grading, motion tracking, and audio editing.
3. Canva’s Magic Studio – background remover – magic eraser remove objects – magic edit – generate/change objects – magic write – translation – mock ups & image generation – magic design and layouts – beat sync/video editing – there are also apps/widgets integrated into canva

More AI tools to consider:

• Captions (closed captioning and script generation)
• grammarly.com
• Descript (podcast editing)
• Capcut
• OpusAI

Women in Travel Summit Final Reflections

While WITS can be a bit overwhelming for introverts (like myself) with its packed schedule, the warm and welcoming environment makes it all worthwhile. The excursions were fantastic, and I left feeling motivated and inspired.

Ready to Join the Movement? The next WITS will be held in Lower Manhattan, NYC from May 16-18, 2025. Mark your calendars and grab those early bird discounts!

P.S. Looking for a book-inspired travel adventure? Check out BOOKED Trips curated itineraries in Cape Town, South Africa, Mexico City, Mexico, and Accra, Ghana! Our 2025 trip schedule will be announced in summer 2025.