Two well-known women in the travel industry, Lindsay Garvey-Jones of Holiday Extras and Julie Nunes of Silversea Cruises, have joined forces to help educate colleagues about the menopause and support those going through ‘the change’.

Travel Talks Menopause, launching this month, will include regular meetings – Menopause Cafés – with guest speakers, plus podcasts with tips, an Instagram page and a Facebook group where people can seek support and be signposted to professionals if needed.

Initially the meetings will be held virtually to enable more people from across the country to attend, and to allow people to participate anonymously if they wish.

The meetings will be available to all ages and gender identities in the travel, leisure and hospitality industries.

Here’s Lindsay talking about why she felt the need to launch Travel Talks Menopause:

Why now?

“With mental health and wellbeing very much supported within the industry, we both felt that the conversation around women’s health was missing and, because of that, we are at risk of losing women from the workforce.

“We decided we needed to take the bull by the horns and get the conversation started, and that has to be an adult conversation, one that will take away the stress and anxiety women feel about coping with the menopause at work.”

What are you hoping to achieve?

“We want to normalise the language and conversation around the menopause and we want to provide help and advice to women experiencing it.

“We will have fantastic guest speakers to talk about things like health and fitness, who can share their experience and advice.”

How big a problem is this?

“Every woman will experience the perimenopause and menopause in their lifetime, and with 34 symptoms and counting we all have a unique experience with some finding the transition very hard to cope with.

“Figures from Unison show that one in three women are experiencing one of the symptoms of the menopause, eight in 10 of those women have noticeable symptoms and that leads to 10% – about 900,000 – leaving their jobs due to the negative impact on motivation and performance.

“With a workforce dominated by women, the importance of normalising the language and conversation around perimenopause and menopause is paramount to the success of women in our sector who need support both in the workplace and at home.”

Julie adds: “Sharing my experience of my menopause journey, I have found that a lot of my colleagues and peers simply don’t know that some of the symptoms they were feeling was indeed were menopause related and more importantly, they’ weren’t getting the support they needed.”

When will the meetings launch?

“We hope to have the first one before Christmas, and then they’ll take place throughout the year.

“They’ll be held virtually at first and possibly in person later if there is an appetite for people to meet up.

“We also have in mind, industry round tables with senior members of our industry to discuss effective frameworks for those who need a productive start within their own business.” 

How can I find out more?

Check out the Travel Talks Menopause Instagram page, traveltalksmenopause.