Tourism is choice, commerce, culture, money that circulates, knowledge, and it can and should be diverse as well. When you travel to a certain destination and prioritize getting to know places of black culture and history, you are doing Afrotourism. This aspect of cultural tourism has gained more strength in the last four years when it came to be called that. Until then, the name was ethnic tourism, but the movements of black companies and consumers made a point of remembering that ethnic tourism could be indigenous, white, in addition to the need to emphasize blackness in tourism.
Afrotourism is, therefore, the movement of anyone who wants to know more about gastronomy, fashion, museums, culture, monuments that focus on African heritage. It is a trend and a number of companies are already working with this focus, as well as large companies have realized that anti-racism in the travel world also involves investing in this aspect of tourism. A path of no return, I would say, both for companies that need to promote new destinations and experiences, as well as for those who practice and manage to see themselves represented in tourism or, simply, to learn about stories that were hidden by structural racism. Like the Palmares National Park (AL), one of the greatest symbols of resistance from the time of enslavement, and which is still not part of the travel wish list of most of the Brazilian population.
This is perhaps the biggest obstacle to the growth of the sector: the historical erasure of everything connected to blackness and the extent to which blacks have been sidelined from society. Equipment such as museums linked to black history are still left in the background, as there are no reasonably sized monuments that celebrate black figures and that arouse the desire of tourists to take pictures with them, as with Nelson Mandela, in South Africa. Most of Brazil’s cultural heritage, recognized by the Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e ArtÃstico Nacional (Iphan), are legacies of the African diaspora, such as ciranda, capoeira, acarajé, frevo, but which do not receive investment and dissemination. due, at the same time that they are in the imagination of those who travel to places that recover their origins.
An urgent agenda for the secretariats of State, Ministries of Tourism and large companies in the sector that still ignore a racial awareness movement – which has already reached the aesthetics sector, for example, where black people stopped straightening or shaving their hair and took over. your afros. A change that transformed the industry that today makes money selling products for frizzy hair. This new behavior is also occurring in travel.
Today, not investing in the black public limits the possibility of gains in tourism, since black and brown people in Brazil move BRL 1.7 trillion a year. In the United States, there is a movement called the Black Travel Movement, which highlights blacks and Latinos as part of the people who are traveling for leisure and not just for work. There are 54 million blacks there (equivalent to half of the Brazilian black population) and at least 10 million of them travel internationally each year. In the North American domestic market, this population moves US$ 48 billion, according to the Mandala Institute, which specializes in tourism.
Here in Brazil, Sebrae carried out a study on the growth of the sector in which it emphasizes that “Afro culture is one of the bases of Brazilian traditions, present in most attractions and tourist destinations in the country, such as churches built by enslaved people, museums, cultural centers”. Travel is also among the priorities of black people in Brazil and the preference of Afrotravelers is for capitals in the Northeast region and with a strong presence of black history. A recent survey, commissioned by diversity consultancy AFAR Ventures for the BAP Panel, found that 64% of respondents intend to take at least one vacation trip in the next twelve months. Among the desired cities are: Recife, São LuÃs, Maceió, Salvador and Rio, all with a strong black culture and legacy, but still, we have a lot of work ahead to promote more and give the same importance and investments, from the so-called traditional tourism, to afrotourism.
In addition to being a destination, Afrotourism is behavior, as recalls Tânia Neres, an operational strategy consultant for the sector who has been working in the area for 30 years. In participation in the Afroturismo podcast, Neres recalls that through trips in which places are visited to find out who really built them and who carries out the new cultural movements, there is an increase in self-esteem and, consequently, a change in the relationship with cities. Beatriz Moremi, from Brafrika Viagens, highlights that measuring the impacts of an Afrocentric trip is complex, since many people understand themselves as black from these trips, others use the experience as part of their racial literacy. In addition to the necessary reconnection between peoples of the African diaspora, who treat each other as brothers separated by an enslavement that has not yet been abolished from everyone’s mentality. In this sense, black people traveling together seek forms of settlement to strengthen themselves and feel part of the places.
Any tourist can favor a black woman’s restaurant, like Dona Suzana’s, in Salvador, instead of frequenting large chains; or staying at a place owned by a black person or that values ​​the hiring of black professionals. Afrotourism is also visiting the Afro Brasil Museum, in São Paulo; is to take the Linha Preta tour, in Curitiba; get to know quilombos; visit the Chateau Rouge, in Paris; travel to the African continent in search of ancestry and connections or even travel to places of the black diaspora, such as Cuba and Colombia or Harlem and Brooklyn, in New York. Afrotourism is, therefore, to know other stories, places and equipment that are not usually highlighted in tourist guides, but that undoubtedly provide unique experiences. It is a rescue of the Africa that lives in us and of the pulsating black powers that emerge and that have always been denied to us. Will be no more!
