Moving from hashtagging #MeToo to hashtag feminism: Rethinking the responsibility of hotels for female guest safety

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Yang, Chiao Ling
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2020
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Wakayama, Japan

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Female travel safety has been repeatedly discussed in academic research, industry reports and social media. Despite the significance of social media campaigns (e.g., #MeToo) to female travel safety, limited research has investigated the meanings and impacts of digital movements in mobilising changes in the tourism and hospitality industry. This presentation will address the gap by engaging hashtag feminism to identify the extent to which female travel safety is featured in the #MeToo movement and whether the movement has generated meaningful outcomes in addressing the safety issue of female travellers. The presentation is based on an exploratory qualitative study of social media posts related to female travel safety within the #MeToo movement. The presentation will focus on one of the key findings emerged from the study, which is the sexualised imagination of hotel space that renders female guests at risk and at fault of sexual violence. The social media posts revealed gender-based violence in business travel where women were invited by managers or co-workers to meet in hotel rooms, which developed into events of unwanted advances and assaults. Other posts reported assaults of female guests by hotel workers. However, there were posts that opined that rape in hotel rooms should be decriminalised because victims should not accept meeting invitation in hotel rooms, check-in alone or consume alcohol in the first place. The presentation will unpack the sexualised and transgressive nature of hotel space, and question if hotels should take the responsibility for the safety of their female guests and not condone any forms of sexual violence within their compound. The discussion has an activist agenda, which is to mobilise meaningful changes towards a safer tourism space for women, or in other words, to move from hashtagging to doing hashtag feminism.

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2nd International Conference of Critical Tourism Studies Asia Pacific Conference

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Tourist behaviour and visitor experience

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Yang, CL, Moving from hashtagging #MeToo to hashtag feminism: Rethinking the responsibility of hotels for female guest safety, 2020