The Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA) has released a new report on travelers of color. The Diversity in Adventure Travel Report: U.S. Travelers of Color, which was sponsored by Flywire and the Dominican Republic, shows the market opportunity that has been overlooked by the industry.
The data showed that 36 percent of U.S. outbound adventure travelers identify as a non-white race or ethnicity. That is 22 million travelers of color over the age of 18. The ATTA research found that it represents an estimated $51 billion annual market opportunity.
The findings also revealed that Black adventure travelers from the U.S. spent an estimated $19 billion between 2018 and 2019, while Hispanic Americans spent $16 billion and Asian Americans $13 billion.
"The consequence of doing a poor job of engagement with this community is making a brand-damaging mistake," said James Edward Mills, a journalist, author and key contributor to the report findings. "In the current 'cancel culture climate' many organizations would rather do nothing at all than risk, despite their best efforts, the prospects of doing something horribly wrong or offensive. The reality is the world is changing. If we fail to address the needs of these new customers, adventure travel destinations and the industry as a whole could become culturally irrelevant."
ATTA CEO Shannon Stowell noted the importance of representation and the opportunity showcased by the data.
"For too long the travel industry has not spent time or money on meaningful quantitative and qualitative research on travelers of color, including adventure travel. The findings clearly show what a miss this has been in terms of economic opportunity, and highlights why representation matters in all facets of our businesses," said Stowell. "We're excited about the power of this data and the expert insights to show how important it is that the Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA) and our industry work for better representation of the diversity of people in the world in which we live."
The research also gauged activity interests and preferences of travelers segmented by the race or ethnicity they most associate with, including Black, Hispanic, Asian and other non-white Americans.
The survey found that outbound U.S. adventure travelers of color are spending comparable amounts to white adventure travelers from the U.S. They take two-plus trips a year on average, and they spend more in-destination on things like dining, tours, shopping, entertainment and transportation.
Twenty-nine percent of adventure travelers of color said that they traveled on a group package tour on their last trip. A majority indicated that they participated in soft-adventure activities (with hiking and camping at the top). More than half (51 percent) of Black Americans surveyed said that they had participated in a hard adventure activity such as mountain biking, climbing, kayaking, rafting or scuba diving.
Survey respondents were likely travelers who taken at least one international adventure leisure trip in the previous 24 months and intended to take another adventure leisure trip in the coming 24 months. The data was collected in the summer of 2019.
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