Doha has been ranked as one of the safest city for solo women travellers by a top UK based search engine for holiday rentals.
According to ranking by ‘Holidu’ website, Doha is ranked 15th safest city for women to travel alone and is the only place within the region included in the list of 50.
Holidu has put together a brand new ‘Post-Pandemic Solo Female Travel Index’, ranking the safest cities around the world based on several factors including street safety and crime levels, as well as attitudes, culture and cost of being a solo traveller in each destination.
In the index, Doha is perceived by women as the 5th safest city at night when alone, and as the third most lit-up city in the night.
According to Holidu, women’s perceived safety at night looks at the percentage of females that felt safe walking alone at night in the city or area where they lived.
Brightness at night analyses radiance data in the respective city and uses this as an indication of how light it is at night (street lights/artificial lighting) for women when walking alone, said Holidu in its analysis.
Montreal in Canada, Colombo in Sri Lanka, and Ljubljana in Slovenia were ranked as first three safe cities for solo women travellers. While, Doha is ranked ahead of cities like Toronto, Singapore and Tokyo.
The index also explores the handling of COVID-19 in the country each respective city is located and how much the levels of crime have increased over the last three years.
Holidu has said that data highlights that 49% of solo female travellers deem ‘the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic’ as an ‘extremely important’ or ‘very important’ factor when it comes to choosing a travel location.
“To analyse this, we looked at data that explores how countries have managed the pandemic in the 43 weeks following their hundredth confirmed case of COVID-19,” it remarked in the report.
According to Holidu, women’s solo travel is one of the biggest trends to have emerged over the last decade, with more and more women taking the plunge and deciding to explore the world alone.
“To compile the global ‘Post-Pandemic Women Solo Travel Index’, we first collated a list of all of the main cities in each country in the world and then analysed,” it said. Holidu has also analysed the women’s mobility rights relates to constraints on women’s agency and freedom of movement and other factors.