Diversifying the face of travel, one TikTok at a time

“I blame the city because we’re terrible with our own message,” Thomas said. “Everything great about America comes from Chicago, and I’m probably the only dude that ever says that.”

As a Black man who has spun his online success into a real-life tour business, Thomas stands out in a travel industry that predominantly centers the White experience. From airline pilots to travel start-ups, tourism authorities, advertising campaigns and influencing marketing, people of color have long been underrepresented. Internet personalities of color interviewed by The Washington Post say they don’t receive the same attention as their White counterparts, and some Black content creators have pointed out that brands have excluded them from trips.

In recent years, police killings, a rise in anti-Asian violence and massive protests have drawn attention to racial injustice in the United States. For aspiring travel experts who feel their communities are ignored by media that covers the industry, social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram have provided a way to wrest control of the travel narrative.

“People are noticing it these last three years,” said Teia Collier, who created the blog Dallas Single Mom and an accompanying DFWSingleMom Instagram account. “It’s America looking at America. Some of it is a response to all the things that have happened, people are ready for something different.”

In Thomas’s case, that means assuming a role people might otherwise associate with wool slacks and tweed blazers.

“I’m aware that it’s shocking to see a dude with an arm full of tattoos and dreadlocks calling himself a historian; that’s not what we’re accustomed to seeing,” he said. “So I think that’s part of the draw. I think what keeps them there is that I actually research.”

Following a TikTok on the history of Lower Wacker Drive that blew up with more than 80,000 views, Thomas became a hit overnight. He has gone on a media blitz, appearing on the “Today” show, “The Kelly Clarkson Show” and Chicago’s PBS station. He has also been pitching a scripted show on Netflix with Oak Park, Ill., native and “Night at the Museum” writer Thomas Lennon, that will follow the story of an illustrious Chicago politician. And those are just side hustles on top of his full-time job as an area operator testing equipment on the downtown power grid for ComEd, not to mention as a father to seven children.

Answer @life_is_b_e_a_utiful greatest city on earth 🙏🏿💯. #chicago #chicagohistory

As Thomas wracked his brain for ways to parlay his online celebrity into the real world, he realized he could convert his short history lessons into tours.

“It dawned on me that most Chicagoans are aware that the city exists past Cermak [Road] but they never go see it,” he said of the city’s north-south dividing line. “I thought that would be the way that I could impact my city and help the image by showcasing it.”

Last Juneteenth, he started bus tours of the city’s historically overlooked South and West sides, where he highlighted Provident Hospital, the nation’s first Black-owned hospital and the site of the country’s first open-heart surgery, and the Wabash Avenue YMCA, the birthplace of Black History Month.

Those sites are often unknown to Thomas’s tourists, who he says are mostly White Chicagoans from the North Side, and the places are barely mentioned by the local tourism industry. After returning from a trip to Los Angeles, Thomas noticed that a travel magazine produced by the city only suggested two South Side neighborhoods, Beverly and Pullman, to visit.

“While Pullman is very historically significant, so is Bridgeport, so is Roseland. Why aren’t you telling people to go visit the Stockyards Gate?” he said of the last vestige of the Union Stock Yard, the sprawling slaughterhouse that inspired Chicago’s bloody moniker, “Hog Butcher for the World.” “It’s for those reasons I continue to advocate for the South Side because I think tourism is a great way to bolster the overall economy of the space.”

Across the country, other social media entrepreneurs are generating likes with personal brands that represent their own communities.

Rory Lassanke, an influencer from South Lake, Tex., has curated her Instagram for a Hispanic and bilingual audience. Lassanke, whose mother is Chinese and Dutch and whose father is from Venezuela, identifies as Latina. About 70 percent of her blog is written in Spanish but she’s planning to write more English content in the coming year.

“Latinos, we travel big: with grandmas, uncles and cousins,” she said. “So when you plan a trip for Latinas, you have to travel with everybody in mind.”

Kathleen O’Heron, an L.A.-based influencer who is half-White and half-Asian, often looks up #SoloTravel or #TravelingWhileAsian before embarking on a trip. After she discovered another influencer, Taramilktea, who identifies as mixed, she visited several places on her account.

“There’s something comforting about following someone online who reminds you of yourself,” O’Heron said. “It allows you the space to imagine yourself in their shoes and recreate their experiences, which feels so profound.”

Yatzuri Thomas, a D.C.-area mom who started the Instagram account kidsquarantineandme, found it took extra effort to find a person of color while she researched travel destinations. With a little digging, she discovered the Facebook group for Black Kids Travel and a Black Moms Who Travel page.

Her own guides to day trips around the D.C. area do not cater to one specific audience, though she believes it’s important to highlight Black businesses. In the fall, she searched for a Black-owned farm near her home and landed on Hidden Gems Farm in Centreville, Va. Her challenge for winter sent her on an adventure scouring for Black Santas across the region.

“The issue with the Black Santa is where do we find them?” she said. “I was getting a lot of people reaching out, and I did a lot of research, a lot of phone calls. It was a nightmare because I was trying to confirm; I drove to every single mall.”

That hard work has paid off. The popularity of the Instagram account — and the income it generated from sponsored posts from local companies — allowed Thomas to quit her corporate job in November and pursue travel blogging full-time. The shift also came after a pandemic-era realization: She was missing quality time with her children.

“One of the things my daughter shared with me is that she never got to spend time with me because I’m never home,” she said. “So it had me taking a look at my job and what I do for a living. I wasn’t there for little things, I missed my son’s third birthday, so this page gave me the opportunity to bond with my children and be more present with my parenting.”

Though many full-time influencers build their business on sponsored posts and branded partnerships, others are pursuing revenue streams they believe could be more sustainable in the long run.

Anela Malik, who started the blog and Instagram account FeedtheMalik, now produces subscriber-only content for a community she calls Magic at the Margins. On her ad-free platform, Malik organizes meet-ups for members and posts articles and videos that draw context from history, politics and her personal life.

She is also writing a book about the deep and enduring contributions of Black people to American cuisine. It is a continuation of her work in D.C., where she explored restaurants run by people of color and wrote blog posts and a comprehensive dining guide.

“I lived in D.C. for a long time and [it] was not accurately represented in local media,” said Malik, who referenced the lack of Black-owned businesses recommended by metro-area outlets, including The Post. She has since relocated to Northwest Arkansas.

Malik’s subscriber-based business model, which includes virtual and in-person events, has fostered a supportive network that helps her to dodge some Internet trolls that plague social media accounts. But many of the same pitfalls of traditional media, including lower pay for non-White creators, can be found in the influencer world too.

“The travel influencer space … is a space I’m still breaking into because it’s very expensive to make that content,” Malik said. “A lot of those partners want a demonstrated track record to show you’re ready for a partnership. The cost to do a piece of content about a trip is significantly higher. You do it at first on your own and then you can start to take on partnerships.”

Much of the corporate travel industry claims it has woken up to racial inequities and high barriers to entry, although some posturing amounts to little more than lip service.

The Black Travel Alliance, formed in 2020 to support Black travel professionals, launched an online campaign called #PullUpForTravel with the goal of holding travel brands accountable after they posted social media messages support #BlackLivesMatter or #BlackoutTuesday. By using the hashtag to solicit answers, BTA obtained diversity data from 67 of the 121 organizations it tagged.

The campaign found that 18 percent of respondents could demonstrate they included Black representation in TV, radio, print, and digital advertising or marketing campaigns in 2019. Among U.S. tourism authorities that responded, only six indicated they ensured Black representation while organizing press trips. Only five companies polled could show they made financial contributions to Black charities or community efforts.

Another front-facing job in the travel world faces a diversity problem: tour guides. According to 2019 numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 82.3 percent of tour or travel guides identified as White.

In August, the tour operating giant the Travel Corporation, which operates 40 brands and employs more than 10,000 people, and its nonprofit, TreadRight Foundation, began the Pathways Project, a program that recruits people from underrepresented communities into the guided travel profession.

Leon Burnette, CEO of Civil Rights Trail Tours and the managing director of the Pathways Project, has worked as a professional tour director for over 45 years, with 35 years of experience on tour with recording artists such as Rick James and Quincy Jones. Though some tourism groups will hire a personable candidate with basic skills such as CPR and train them on the job, other professional groups expect tour operators to come equipped as storytellers with logistical and safety experience.

“When I first tried to get into the business, I was denied because they weren’t sure I could handle the job, even though I was a concert tour manager for 30 years,” said Burnette, who is Black. “But after I got the certification, they felt more comfortable with me leading one of their premium tour products. And in getting the certification, I also learned more about the business of group travel experiences and how the industry worked.”

The Pathways Project provides a scholarship for professional tour courses from TripSchool, as well as professional mentoring and job placement.

“It was after the George Floyd incident, and a lot of companies didn’t realize they had unconscious bias,” he said. “Many organizations are getting on board because it’s important that we have authentic voices not just for civil rights tours but all kinds of tours, and that we provide decent economic opportunities in an industry that didn’t mean to turn out as lily white as it is.”