Organizational Governance

New Research Offers Pathway to More Inclusive Travel Industry

First-of-its-kind study from Expedia Group takes an intersectional approach to uncover barriers to travel for underserved communities and help industry eliminate barriers including access, discrimination and lack of personal safety.

Published 9 months ago | About a 4 minute read

Image: Freepik

Expedia Group has released Journeys for All: An Expedia Group Study on Inclusion in Travel — a first-of-its-kind study that equips the travel industry with key insights and evidence-based recommendations to improve the travel experience for underserved groups.

With a focus on barriers facing multiple population segments, Expedia sought perspectives from four communities of underserved travelers: Black travelers, Latino travelers, LGBTQIA+ travelers and travelers with disabilities. These underserved communities are projected to grow significantly in the US* — hence, increasing their impact on the travel market. As such, the travel industry has an obligation to understand and meet their needs and develop efforts that eliminate barriers including bias, discrimination and lack of personal safety.

The study also sought to understand the experiences of individuals with intersectional identities — examining race and ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation and disability status to understand how these overlapping identities affect travel experiences — and the report includes recommendations for the industry based on these insights.

Insights

Journeys for All highlights several urgent industry challenges and key insights to drive progress:

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42 percent of underserved travelers feel limited by their identities when planning travel.
Underserved travelers spend an average of 5+ hours of extra time researching to plan trips — including to ensure services and destinations are safe, welcoming and accessible.
Only 16 percent of travelers feel that travel advertising and promotions represent them authentically.
71 percent of underserved travelers say it is important that travel company staff be well-trained on diversity and inclusion issues and topics.
Nearly 3 out of 4 underserved travelers are more likely to book with companies demonstrating a commitment to diversity and inclusion.

The study assesses the needs of these underserved communities across all three stages of the travel journey — planning, in-transit and at destination. According to the report, 20 percent of LGBTQIA+ travelers with disabilities say travel advertisements do not represent them at all. More than a quarter (26 percent) of Latino travelers with disabilities say they feel a need to hide their identities when traveling to and from their destination, compared to just seven percent of the general population. This data reinforces that most travelers identify with more than one underrepresented group and thus, have multiple reasons for concerns when traveling — from safety to accessibility to feeling welcomed.

“Evolving business strategies to create more welcoming and inclusive travel experiences should be an industry imperative,” says Greg Schulze, chief commercial officer and president of Travel Partnerships and Media at Expedia Group. “It not only improves the traveler experience, but it’s also good for business. This study invites the industry to come together and take action because everyone should be able to experience the joy of travel and its ability to strengthen connections and broaden horizons.”

Recommendations

By integrating an inclusive focus throughout their operations, travel companies can enhance their brand appeal, deepen customer loyalty and unlock new growth opportunities among these valuable customer segments. To create meaningful and sustainable change that improves experiences for all travelers will require a collective effort from all corners of the travel industry. The intersectional study, with firsthand insights and actionable recommendations, invites the whole industry to address these barriers so more people can experience more joy in travel.

“It’s critical to understand that creating a more equitable and inclusive industry can’t be viewed as ‘one more thing to do,’ but rather as a foundational through line that informs everything we do as an industry,” Adam Burke, President and CEO of the Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board, says in the report. “It’s our fundamental responsibility as leaders and good for business.”

Underserved communities are not the ‘minority’

Another important point is for travel operators to stop thinking of these underserved groups as “minorities” — as Lethabo-Thabo Royds, Head of Content & Program at the World Travel & Tourism Council, points out: “Diverse groups actually make up the average traveler demographic — more than people realize. These travelers are very much part of our core customer base.”

For its part, Expedia Group launched its Open World™ strategy in 2022 to begin addressing inequities across the travel industry, as part of the company’s larger commitment to remove barriers and open access to travel to all. Since then, the company has launched two signature programs — its Open World Accelerator and Made to Travel Fund to continue working toward this commitment.

“You need to be in the spaces travelers are in,” Royds added. “Work with the organizations they look to for inspiration. Work with community organizations. Look at social media and prominent voices in travel. That helps a lot, because then you’re in front of the audience that you want to be in front of.”

All demographic data presented here refers to the United States population and is based on projections and characteristics sourced from the US Census and the Human Rights Campaign.