Blavity takes you around the wold

The San Diego Monitor3

THE BLACK MILLENNIALS MEDIA MILLENNIALS, STARTUP THAT’S FOR BLACK RUN BY

THE MEDIA STARTUP THAT’S RUN BYBLACK MILLENNIALS, FOR BLACKMILLENNIALS

In 2017 Blavity, the media and events startup focused on black millennials and black culture, has acquired travel startup Travel Noire for an undisclosed amount.

Travel Noire, which offers up traveling tips and guidance for black millennials, reaches over 2 million millennials a month. Next month, I’m heading to Nairobi with some TechCrunch colleagues. Thanks to Travel Noire, I now know to hit up the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, an elephant orphanage located inside Nairobi National Park.

Travel Noire marks Blavity’s second acquisition of year. A few months ago, Blavity bought media platform Shadow and Act. As part of the acquisition, Travel Noire founder Zim Ugochukwu is joining Blavity and will continue to lead TravelNoire as its chief brand officer.

“Travel and culture are a huge part of the black millennial experience and an important part of how we interact with the world,” Blavity cofounder and CEO Morgan DeBaun said in a statement. “Zim has shifted the conversation about travel and showed the world that we can and should be represented wherever we are. I’m thrilled to add her vision and expertise into the Blavity ecosystem.”

Millennial Travel of African Americans

• The economic value of African American travelers has increased in 2018 to $63 billion from $48 billion in 2010. African American “cultural” travelers are the highest spenders, with an average per trip spend of $2,078 versus $1,345 for all African American travelers.

• More than half reported that their most recent leisure destination was between 100- 500 miles from home with Florida, New York City/New York, and Atlanta being top US destinations and Caribbean/Bahamas (38%) and Mexico (26%) mentioned as leading international destinations

• Food and shopping are leading spend categories with nearly half of travelers spending on local and/or regional cuisine on their most recent leisure trip. Shopping continues to be a popular activity for vacationers, most often at malls (41%) and outlet malls (34%), but also downtown (28%).

4 The San Diego Monitor

Study Proves Black Millennials to Travel, are Looking for Companies That

We know that black millennials love to travel.

Understand Them

Look around at your friends and family and countthe amazing trips they've taken recently. But newresearch from DigitasLBi, shows that more than70 percent of black millennial travelers (blackpeople between the ages of 20-36 who considertravel a priority and who are involved in bookingtheir own travel) would pay more to travel with abrand that understands them and their identity.

Black millennial travelers make up a pretty largesegment of the travel industry. There are nearly 5million black millennial travelers in the U.S. alone— which is approximately 43 percent of the U.S.

So, it's time for companies to step up to the plate and give black millennial travelers what they want — safe, inclusive travel with relevant messaging and a strong community. “Black millennial travelers are a significant and

And these travelers are active — 94percent have taken a personal trip in thepast two years, while 76 percent havetraveled in the past six months. But theywould travel even more and spend moremoney doing so if marketing andexperiences were more targeted towardtheir identity. And these feelings aren'tjust superficial. Almost a quarter of blackmillennial travelers polled said they haveexperienced racial discrimination whilebooking travel, and almost 30 percenthave experienced discrimination in thepast two years during travel.

influential segment of the travel industry, who for some time have been underserved," says Ronnie Dickerson, VP/Group Director at DigitasLBi, "For the last several years, we’ve witnessed the emergence and growth of black: NEXT PAGE