Women are different. And they want different things from their hotel experiences. It’s not about the stuff—the amenities—but the overall experience, says Judi Brownell, professor and dean of students at Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration.

Brownell recently published an academic research report: “Creating Value for Women Business Travelers: Focusing on Emotional Outcomes.” For her work Brownell conducted online interviews of 116 hotel managers, asking their perceptions of what women want.

“Rather than try to identify an amenity or service or facility women particularly prefer, managers need to provide a requisite cluster of services, facilities and amenities,” writes Brownell.

Those cluster under four categories: safety, comfort, empowerment and being valued.

• The first part of the overall package, says Brownell, is safety. “Hotel managers should review the ways they can reinforce their hotel’s safety, including covered parking, secure locks, well-lit hallways and thoughtful room locations.”

• “To women comfort is more important than to men. The ‘how it makes me feel’ is more important to women,” she says. Among other things that includes comfortable beds and bed pillows, as well as a place to get, and feel better after, a good night’s sleep.

• Empowerment flows from the significance of travel itself for women. “Women see travel as an opportunity to focus a bit on themselves,” says Brownell. Feelings of satisfaction can be enhanced by giving women opportunities to exercise on-site, request roomservice or use the executive lounge.

• The need to feel valued is addressed in many hotels’ use of flowers, herbal teas and upscale amenities. These are the things hotels can do to go the extra mile. However, Brownell cautions: “Specific amenities are less important than an overall ‘luxurious ambiance.’

“Hotel managers can use these categories to see where they’re strong and where they may want to focus,” she says. “They can take their property and take the four categories and say: ‘We can put that in the room.’”

“I’m suggesting that managers who can make decisions about things that could be done for women business travelers, don’t have to worry if one thing, like covered parking scores high and they can’t provide it,” she says, ‘It isn’t one particular thing, it’s the holistic sense of being safe.”

Addressing the women’s needs doesn’t have to cost money. “In some cases, hotel managers could do more with the training of their staff to help them pay attention to the things women want,” she says. For example, offering to escort a woman to her room after she checks in may address safety concerns.

She continues, “Ambiance, generally, is more important to women. Without making stereotypes that are positive or negative, there are just things that each gender will notice.”

In an age of political correctness and gender enlightenment, why should women be addressed differently? Because they respond differently to their environment and, from a business perspective, they’re an important, emerging market.