Luxury travel has been running hot since the pandemic. Demand is up. Expectations are higher. Margins matter.
While the comeback has been celebrated, behind the scenes leaders have been operating at a sprint for several years now. And many of those leaders are women.
That leadership can be isolating, shares Katie Ferrari, Hyatt’s regional vice president of global sales for luxury, lifestyle and leisure.
“It can feel like a competition within our industry,” Ferrari said. “It is still a predominantly male profile across leadership in luxury travel, and as careers evolve, peer groups get smaller.”
(Verité)
To counter this, Ferrari hatched the idea for Vérité, a one-time retreat held after ILTM Cannes at the Park Hyatt Marrakech for female luxury travel leaders, long before the invitations went out.
It started in quiet, one-to-one conversations she was having with other women as she rose through the leadership ranks that highlighted similar challenges: As careers advance, circles tightens. There are fewer people to bounce ideas off, fewer safe spaces to talk through day-to-day challenges specific to the role. Add in caretaking responsibilities, relentless travel schedules and the 24/7 nature of hospitality, and meaningful connection becomes harder still.
Meanwhile, women make up more than 78 percent of travel advisors, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In hotels, women now hold roughly half of director-level roles, yet progress to the highest levels of leadership has stalled since 2022, according to data from Penn State’s School of Hospitality Management.
When women do reach senior leadership, representation gaps widen. The sense of being the only one is not symbolic. It shows up in meetings, in decision-making, and in the emotional math of what to say and what to hold back.
Ferrari set out to create something new and different.
(Vérité)
Vérité means truth in French. In film, cinéma vérité emphasizes realism and naturalism. That alignment resonated with her. She wanted to create an environment where women leading in luxury travel could show up as their true selves and have real conversations that might lead to real impact.
Hosting Vérité at Park Hyatt Marrakech was a deliberate choice. Park Hyatt is the brand where Ferrari first stepped into a leadership role, and it remains deeply connected to her. Its ethos, “Luxury is Personal,” mirrored the tone she hoped to set.
“My goal was not to sell our attendees on the Park Hyatt Marrakech. It sells itself,” she said. “I wanted to create something immersive and thought-provoking.”
Marrakech was close enough to Cannes to make the add-on after ILTM feasible, but far enough to feel worlds away. Many in our group had never been, including me. She wanted a destination that would pull everyone out of their routine so they could be fully present.
She was also intentional about the guest list.
“All of the women in attendance have had a personal or professional impact on me,” she said. “This first cohort included women I trusted to elevate it while also providing honest feedback.”
She is also quick to credit the people who backed her: a former boss who believed in the concept when she first pitched it as well as Franck Sibille, the general manager of Park Hyatt Marrakech, and his team, who embraced it fully from the start.
(Verité)
From Research to Real Conversation
Saturday morning was the heart of the gathering.
Ferrari sent a survey to participants long before anyone boarded a plane. She wanted to understand what issues women were actually wrestling with. The answers were consistent: Ambition. Burnout. Boundaries. Confidence. Self-advocacy.
Not theoretical leadership themes. Real ones.
She opened the session with three quotes that have shaped her.
Ferrari began with her own vulnerability, her ongoing negotiation with imposter syndrome and the pressure to continually prove herself professionally by quoting Brené Brown: “You either walk inside your story and own it, or you stand outside your story and hustle for your worthiness.”
She transitioned to fashion trailblazer Diane von Furstenberg: “I didn’t always know what I wanted to do, but I always knew the kind of woman I wanted to be.”
That, she said, represents her north star. Still figuring out what she wants to do when she “grows up,” she added with a laugh, but very clear on the kind of woman she intends to be.
And from Indra Nooyi, former CEO of PepsiCo: “At the end of the day, don’t forget that you’re a person, a mother, a wife, a daughter. What helps you succeed at work should never cost you the parts of life that make you whole.”
By that point, everyone in the room was nodding in agreement.
Then it was my turn. I was invited not only to attend as a journalist, but also to collaborate. My keynote drew from hundreds of interviews conducted through hertelier, focusing on five themes that repeatedly surface among successful women leaders: Curiosity. Self-advocacy. Boundary setting. Community. Joy.
From there, we moved into working breakout sessions. What unfolded was raw and honest. The group spoke openly about real leadership challenges: how to push back without being labeled difficult. How to advocate for compensation. How to sponsor younger women without burning out.
“I learned so much from the others in the room and never once questioned if I shared too much or said the wrong thing,” Ferrari reflected afterward. “Their conversations were free of judgment.”
Why It Felt Different
For Alice Mafaty, a France area vice president at Hyatt, the distinction was immediate.
“This weekend felt fundamentally different from a traditional FAM or sales-focused event because it wasn’t transactional in nature,” she said. “There was no agenda to sell, no expectation to perform. Instead, the focus was on creating space for genuine connection.”
Without the pressure to pitch, conversations deepened. Haisley Smith, a senior vice president of partner relations at Internova, felt the shift.
“Once trust was established and guards dropped, the conversations shifted from polished responses to real, lived challenges,” she said. “That kind of grit and honesty sticks with you.”
She has already applied techniques discussed that weekend and has become more direct about her own growth and trajectory.
“You don’t get what you don’t ask for,” she said. “I’m also more intentional about using my voice for women who are early in their careers.”
For Anne Scully of Embark Beyond, who has spent more than 45 years in the business and attended countless FAM trips, the difference was unmistakable.
“I loved the power of women in that room,” she said. “Women tend to share. They throw the words out on the table, and we all chew on them.”
By the final night, gathered for a private dinner at the Musée d’Art de la Parure in the Kasbah, closed exclusively for our group, the tone had noticeably shifted. Although some of these women had never met before and many operate as competitors in the same luxury space, in just a few days, real connections were formed.
Since returning home, the group has stayed connected through emails and WhatsApp. Ferrari hopes this is only the beginning.
“The purpose of the Vérité experience,” she said, “is to create an environment for women leading in luxury travel to explore the courage to live and lead in truth.”
In an industry where women drive the majority of travel decisions yet remain underrepresented at the highest leadership levels, that courage matters.
For me, Vérité seemed less like a one-off weekend and more like the early blueprint of a new way forward. And if this inaugural edition is any indication, many more women will want a seat at that table.
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