• Washington Post/Associated Press, Monday, August 21, 2006 1:30 PM

Tour companies, hotels and other companies involved in travel marketing are increasingly offering vacation packages designed exclusively for women. The industry has no specific statistics on the trend, but Marybeth Bond, author of seven books on women and travel, estimates the number of companies that run women-only tours at 30--up from 21 five years ago. For example, Le Merigot, a Marriott beach hotel and spa in Santa Monica, Calif., offers a women-and-wine package that includes a bottle of wine, a dinner with wine pairing, massages, and guides to nearby wineries. Hotel spokeswoman Debra Rosenberg Matsumoto said she hopes the package will encourage women traveling for business to stay an extra night, or those who purchased the package to come back with their significant others or more girlfriends for even longer stays. Deanna Keahey founded a company that organizes such trips called Adventurous Wench when she parted ways with her partner and realized she was losing her primary traveling companion. "I went on an (organized) trip and was the only single. I was the odd person out," Keahey says. So she started a company that organized the kinds of vacations she would like to take--trips that offer some physical activity, such as white water rafting, but also include cultural excursions and stays in comfortable hotels.

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