Rio de Janeiro will host the 2025 edition of the Black Travel Summit, an event that promotes the debate and development of afrotourism, a growing segment within the global travel industry.
The announcement was made by Embratur’s coordinator of Diversity, Afrotourism and Indigenous Peoples, Tania Neres, on Saturday, November 23rd at the Black Travel Summit 2024, which took place in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., U.S.A.
The information was confirmed during the panel “Afrotourism Experiences in Latin America.”
For Neres, the event represented a way of reconnecting foreign tourists with Brazil through its history, and will help increase the country’s visibility as an Afro tourism destination.
“At the invitation of Banco CAF, a great partner of Embratur [the Brazilian Agency for International Tourism Promotion] and Afroturismo, we were at this event that promised to be a deep dive into essential information for the development of Afrotourism globally,” Neres says, who showed how Afrotourism has gained more and more support, visibility and strength in Brazil.
Embratur has invested in Afrotourism as one of the flagships of the current management, which began in 2023. Several actions, such as activations at international fairs and press trips in destinations where African heritage is the protagonist, and support for companies and Afro-centered projects, have helped boost the segment in Brazil.
One of the most recent reports on the importance of the segment in the United States was produced by the travel and tourism marketing agency MMGY Global and shows that black travelers spent in the current host country of the event, in 2019 alone, US$ 458.2 million in stays on leisure trips. The number corresponds to 13.1% of the U.S. leisure travel market. Also according to the document, “The Black Traveler: Insights, Opportunities and Priorities Report,” in the year before the Covid-19 pandemic, African American tourists spent $109 billion during these trips.
We were at this event that promised to be a deep dive into essential information for the development of Afrotourism globally.
For Neres, these numbers demonstrate the potential of the segment, and the arrival of the Black Travel Summit to Rio will bring foreign tourists even closer to the part of Afro-Brazilian history.
“The choice of Rio de Janeiro as the venue of the event, negotiated by Embratur’s MICE team, aims to show the country to these travelers and professionals. Rio stands out for its excellent air connectivity, which facilitates participation in the event and, at the same time, offers the opportunity to explore other destinations in Brazil, with flights up to two hours away,” she says.
The president of Embratur, Marcelo Freixo, celebrated the announcement of the Black Travel Summit in Rio.
“Afrotourism is one of the priorities of our management and we have been able to advance, in the last two years, on several fronts to expand the visibility and development of the segment in Brazil. In addition to the representativeness of the Black Travel Summit itself, which brings together identity and diversity concepts defended by Brazil and Embratur, the edition in Rio will be important to show the attractions of afrotourism of one of the places in the world where the African heritage is most extraordinary. The arrival of the event shows the strength and potential of afrotourism to grow more and more and means the generation of new businesses in tourism led by the black population, in its territory, also contributing to the economic and social development of Brazil, and fighting racism,” he said.
