Black travelers contributed $63 billion dollars to the U.S. travel and tourism industry in 2018. Yet until recently, too few offerings catered specifically to them. “The travel industry has not considered Black people,” says Cherae Robinson, the founder of boutique travel company Tastemakers Africa. Finally, that has begun to change.
Over the past decade, the demand for safe, curated experiences that connect Black travelers both to each other and directly to African heritage and culture—which has never been an option offered by mainstream travel organizations—has been met with a range of offerings. Boutique travel companies like Robinson's Tastemakers Africa and Black Girls Travel Too, launched in 2013 and 2015, respectively, offer group trips to South Africa, Thailand, Ghana, India, Senegal, and more. Nomadness Travel Tribe, which began as an online community for Black and brown travelers, has also begun responding to this interest with group trips of their own. Millennial travelers, part of a growing Black cosmopolitan class, are eagerly booking.
“I’m a little less worried about how my Blackness is going to impact my trip when I go on these group trips,” says travel influencer Alex Hooks, 28, who has joined trips both to Pennsylvania with The Weekender, and to Antigua with CDE Antigua. There’s also solidarity when entering traditionally white spaces with other Black travelers. “I felt less like a token or like I was going to stand out in a negative way because I was with a group. There’s a level of comfort to the [group] trip that you just wouldn't get when it's a solo trip to the Poconos as a Black person.”
Collin Devon Williams, the founder of CDE Antigua, which brings Black travelers like Hooks to the island via all-inclusive group experiences, says this is exactly why such group trips resonate, in destinations around the world. “These group trips afford a space where you are not the only Black person at the resort or hotel or in a country that doesn't accept you.”
Safety and comfort aren’t the only motivation for joining these Black travel groups, though. Black travelers are also looking for certain types of experiences. According to a study done by Mandala Research, 64 percent of Black American travelers decide where to go for their leisure travel based on the availability of Black American culture and heritage attractions in the destination. The chance to experience those places, alongside other Black travelers, is a motivator for booking.
This is largely why Cherae Robinson began Tastemakers Africa in the first place. After spending time in Black travel groups on Facebook in the early 2010s, where she would share photos of visits to Kenya and Senegal, Robinson saw both immediate interest in travel that could connect Black people in the U.S. with Africa—and a lack of awareness of how much the continent has to offer in the present. “A lot of us [Black people] were just as dated, if not more, about Africa than the larger mainstream white population,” says Robinson. “[But] what the travel industry brands as culture is usually coming from Black people all around the world.”
In the destinations her groups visit, like Ghana, Robinson focuses on both connecting visitors to their heritage (whether they are aware of exactly where their ancestors come from or not), and with emerging Black creatives—the artists, the DJs, the entrepreneurs—worth traveling for and getting excited about. Ultimately, most travelers want to be able to feel safe and connected with one's African Diaspora heritage or community when traveling—while also having a really good time.
Ashley Johnson, a food and travel blogger at The Little Bite Kitchen who has joined group trips with Passport Society, says these trips also create space for real connections to be made with other Black travelers. “I went to Thailand in March and became extremely close with four of the women I traveled with, and have traveled with them since. [You can] let your hair down, let loose, and enjoy the fruits of your labor.” Johnson says she chooses her trips based on good word of mouth marketing, and by using trusted trip planners.
These group trips are on hold due to COVID-19. But, Robinson, Williams, and their communities cannot wait to get back to exploring the world with other Black folks, and taking a bigger share of the travel market. There are still barriers to Black people’s mobility, including racial profiling, systemic injustices, and a lack of Black-owned hospitality brands, but these trips are a reminder that the Black travel movement is only growing.
“You can go anywhere," says Gaëtane Garcon, owner and travel specialist at Stella Travel. And that's the message she wants fellow Black travelers to walk away with, whether they join a group trip or not. "The world is your oyster.”
