Shifting landscape of DEI in travel

Almost as suddenly as having a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) program became a corporate must following the racial reckoning of 2020, a backlash has seen a wave of challenges and lawsuits to those policies. 

And travel companies have not been exempt.

In one of the most high-profile cases, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ appointees abolished DEI programs at Walt Disney World after taking control of the theme park’s governing district last summer. 

On Nov. 1, the nonprofit America First Legal filed complaints with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission calling for investigations into DEI initiatives at American, United and Southwest airlines. 

Even the Alaska Airlines door plug incident prompted Elon Musk and other conservative commentators to question whether DEI policies had contributed to issues at Boeing.

Behind many of the challenges is the hope among those who are opposed to DEI that after a Supreme Court ruling last year ended affirmative action in college admissions, a similar precedent could be set in the corporate world.

Stephanie Jones, CEO of Blacks in Travel & Tourism, said it is difficult to quantify whether companies in travel have pulled back on their DEI programs because there is no central listing. A 2023 study from consulting firm DDI found that, overall, the number of companies without DEI programs in place increased 33% since 2020 but does not single out travel. 

Martinique Lewis, president of the Black Travel Alliance and the co-founder of the new tour company Black In, has been issuing Diversity in Travel Scorecards since 2018 that measure how the travel industry addresses diversity, including race, gender, ability and sexual preference. She said that many travel companies have retreated on the DEI commitments they made in 2020.

“The industry gets a D for fulfilling those pledges,” she said. “Whereas we know budgets are lower, there is still no excuse not to have [diversity, equity, accessibility and inclusion] top of mind in everything you do. It’s 2024, plain and simple. Do better.”

Lewis said there are many brands and destinations that are “doing things right” when it comes to DEI, including Tripadvisor, Expedia Group, United, Alaska Airlines and Hurtigruten, as well as destination marketing organizations (DMOs) from Milwaukee to Jacksonville, Fla., and New York. 

Corporate social responsibility expert Bea Boccalandro, who has consulted for both Caesars Entertainment and Disney on their DEI strategies, cited data showing progress: Bloomberg research indicates that since 2019, more than 80% of S&P 500 companies have increased the percentage of employees of color and the percentage of Black directors on their boards from 4% to 8%. 

“So, let’s be clear: Businesses have made meaningful progress on DEI over the last four years,” Boccalandro said. She added that while the challenges “complicate the DEI path forward, these hurdles are unlikely to reverse or even stall progress, for two reasons. First, the anti-woke critique is spurring more effective ways to pursue social justice. After all, some of it is legitimate. Second, companies know better than to capitulate to the demands of those opposing DEI. Their employees, customers and investors have made it clear that they are pro-DEI.”

Rather than curtail DEI, she said, some companies are changing their approach. 

“The business leaders I know might be adjusting what DEI they do and how they communicate it, but they are not retreating,” she said, recalling a technology company executive who said: “Many more people would dislike us for not enough DEI than for too much.”

Jones also noted a change in how DEI is communicated, saying at least one prominent travel industry entity is “reconsidering no longer using that term, instead referring to it as ‘social impact,’” which she speculated was because some of its members that received federal funding “would rather distance themselves from DEI to avoid any political ramifications.”

Many travel brands and destinations are not only continuing to prioritize and expand their DEI initiatives but are doing so loudly. 

Elliott Ferguson, CEO of Destination DC, said that pushback or not, the travel industry “will never go back to not having this as a part of the conversation.”

“What we focused on was empowering individuals who are working for companies at all levels to make sure that this is a part of the conversation. Period,” he said. “And that’s not going to change.” 

Commitment to DEI often depends on why and how those programs were implemented to begin with, Ferguson added. 

“It’s a matter of which companies are taking this seriously and doing it because it’s the right thing to do versus doing what they think will satisfy or appease an individual audience for a period of time,” he said. “Did you do this because in 2020 you were mandated to jump on the boat because everybody was doing it, or is it now a part of the curriculum?”

Ferguson said that one of the big parts of the conversation he has had with people, especially when he was chair of the U.S. Travel Association, is that while the travel industry overall is very diverse, a lot of that diversity is on the lower end, similar to the rest of corporate America.

“It still remains an issue as you go closer to the top of the pyramid,” he said. “Are the CEOs, which skew white male, truly understanding and taking responsibility and making this a priority and having the conversations that are necessary as we look at moving forward?”

Initiatives that show progress

Destination DC is among the DMOs that have expanded their DEI missions.

In 2022, it launched the DEI Business Fellowship to support small, local travel and tourism businesses owned by people of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community, women and persons with disabilities. The program, which accepted 45 members for 2024, offers complimentary marketing, mentorship, education and networking opportunities to help those businesses reach travelers.

Ferguson said the idea was to give small businesses, which don’t typically have the resources to engage with the market Destination DC attracts to the city, the opportunities that its members have. Those who are accepted to the program are educated on how to “work their membership,” he said, to take advantage of leads and relationships with other members. 

“There’s some synergy there that they can take advantage of, and there’s nothing more compelling to me than to hear the feedback from them that this is working and that they’re building relationships,” Ferguson said. 

Norwegian cruise operator Hurtigruten is also expanding its DEI efforts, said Anders Lindstrom, the company’s global head of public relations, who was behind the launch of Hurtigruten’s Black Traveler Advisory Board in 2022. 

The initiative has been so successful, Lindstrom said, it inspired the company to launch another speciality focused board this year as well as a “major project” stemming from its learnings. 

“Not only does our top management team now have a better understanding of the value of minority travelers and what is important to them, but they also have tangible suggestions, some of which we are now working on implementing,” he said. 

For example, Hurtigruten is more aware of language and photography that is more inclusive of travelers of color in its imagery and videos, he said, and for the launch of its West Africa itinerary, support from board members drove development of programs to engage and support local communities. “The advice provided by the Black Traveler Advisory Board is a long-term focus for us,” Lindstrom said. 

Caesars is among companies that had DEI programs in place before 2020: the first Caesars DEI Summit was held in 2019 at the Paris Las Vegas resort and has been held annually ever since. In 2022, Caesars set what it described as the “aggressive” target of having 50% of management roles held by women and 50% of leadership roles held by people of color by 2025. 

Intrepid also set goals related to DEI. In 2022, the tour operator unveiled what it called the first ethical marketing guidelines in the travel industry, designed to hold itself accountable to becoming more diverse and inclusive. The guidelines contain five commitments and 23 measurable actions, including that at least 50% of Intrepid’s content partners be Black, Indigenous and people of color; 10% be plus-size; and 10% be members of the LGBTQ+ community. 

One of the areas that some larger travel companies have found success in is more diverse recruitment: Royal Caribbean Group in 2022 launched the Search for Excellence and Adventure University (SEA-U) internship program, which put strong focus on recruiting from historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and Hispanic-serving institutions. One year in, the program had more than 200 interns participate in an 11-week summer program: Royal extended employment offers to two-thirds of those interns. 

Disney, which as a whole still operates many DEI initiatives, in 2020 launched Disney on the Yard, a program that seeks to deepen relationships with HBCUs to improve workforce representation and the workplace experience for Black employees through the development of internships, mentorship programs and career growth opportunities. 

Disney on the Yard’s Innovation Challenge gives students from those HBCUs the opportunity to pitch ideas to Disney, which awards scholarships to all members of teams that finish in the top three spots. 

Nicholas Mesite, vice president of finance for Disney Media Distribution, served as a judge for the Innovation Challenge in 2022 and said in an online post, “I personally left the event with a list of future candidates. I sincerely hope to see some of you in the halls at one our Disney offices in the future.”

Struggling to meet goals

Some companies have found that fulfilling DEI goals is not easy.

Alaska Airlines said in a 2023 DEI update two years after establishing a goal of 30% racial diversity at all levels by the end of 2025 that “while we’re making progress, it’s a bit slower than we’d like it to be.” 

The airline said its frontline work group had seen an increase of 3.7% in racial diversity over 10 months, while leadership representation increased by 0.5%, putting the company “at risk of not meeting our goal.” To catch up, the carrier pledged to focus on process improvement, education, leader engagement, reassessing the promotion process and building a diverse bench. A spokesperson for the airline said it plans to release its latest numbers in March. 

Mikey Sadowski, vice president of global communications at Intrepid, said the company reached most of its DEI goals but was under the target of at least 10% of its content partners identifying as Indigenous, reaching 8%, due to what it found was a lack of Indigenous voices in the influencer world. 

“We hope that our efforts like our influencer mentorship trips will create opportunities for more Indigenous people to break into the industry who may be facing barriers or biases,” he said. “We’ve made progress, but we also have more work to do to ensure travel becomes a more inclusive industry.”

In other cases, companies learned to expand the idea of inclusion. 

“One of the comments from my team was that we put a lot of emphasis on Black History Month, but we don’t do the same in celebrating other ethnic opportunities,” said Destination DC’s Ferguson. “I said, ‘Good point, you’re right.’ And we rightsized that.”

Since then, the DMO has focused more on the Native American community and participants with disabilities. 

“I think we’re continuously evolving and making sure that we are moving the narrative in the right direction,” he said.