Racial discrimination in tourism: the case of African-American travellers in South Carolina

ABSTRACT

African-American tourists are one of the fast-growing segments of the travel sector, but very little is known about this consumer group. What we do know from previous research is that African-American travellers are different to travellers in general, and their travel decisions are closely related with their feelings of welcome and racial acceptance. This study employed a mixed method approach in order to explore issues of racial acceptance in South Carolina, two years after removal of the Confederate flag from state capitol grounds. The results of both qualitative and quantitative research show that the fear of racial discrimination is still a key barrier preventing African-American tourists from visiting and enjoying their vacations in South Carolina. Eradicating such racial discrimination in tourism is a formidable task, but not unsurmountable, and the final section of the paper makes recommendations for establishing a programme to do so.

Highlights

• African-American tourists are one of the fast-growing segments of the travel sector

• Their travel decisions are closely related with their feelings of welcome and racial acceptance

• The study employed a mixed method approach in order to explore issues of racial acceptance

• The results show that the fear of racial discrimination is still a key barrier preventing African-American tourists from visiting and enjoying their vacations

• Eradicating such racial discrimination in tourism is a formidable task but not unsurmountable

KEYWORDS:

• African-American travel
• racial discrimination
• cultural tourism
• minorities
• racial acceptance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by South Carolina Parks, Recreation & Tourism [Grant number 14000-GA01].