For many travelers, the first passport stamp offers a sense of escape — a step into a world that feels unfamiliar and unscripted. Yet as I began exploring destinations across Central America, the Caribbean, Europe, and parts of Africa, something unexpected kept happening. Amid the new landscapes and languages, I repeatedly encountered a reflection of myself.

I met people whose features, mannerisms, or expressions echoed those I knew at home — individuals shaped by entirely different cultural histories, yet instantly recognizable in their familiarity. In markets, on beaches, in bus terminals, and in small neighborhood cafés, these moments accumulated until they became impossible to ignore.

They pointed toward a truth that rarely appears in glossy tourism campaigns:

**Blackness is not confined to one nation or narrative.

It is global.
But in the imagery that drives tourism, it is almost entirely absent.**

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A Tourism Landscape Built on a Narrow Ideal

The modern travel industry is animated by cultures that are overwhelmingly Black and Brown — music, foodways, language, style and social rhythms that influence global tourism at every level. Yet the visual language of the industry has remained strikingly narrow.

Tourism advertisements continue to center a familiar depiction: white couples strolling along white-sand beaches, white families embracing local customs, white adventurers hiking uncertain terrain. These images persist even in countries where a majority of the population is Black or Indigenous.

The discrepancy becomes more pronounced when measured against the economic impact of Black travelers themselves. According to MMGY Travel Intelligence, Black U.S. leisure travelers spent $145 billion in 2023 and took 184 million trips, representing 11 percent of the total American leisure travel market. A separate report found that despite spending more than $100 billion in 2019, Black travelers remain largely unseen in travel advertising campaigns.

One industry assessment summarized the contradiction succinctly:

“Despite the $109.4 billion Black travelers spent… they’re still not seen in most advertising.”
— Crowdriff Diversity in Tourism Marketing

These gaps are not accidental; they are structural.

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A Diaspora Hidden in Plain Sight

Travel exposes what marketing obscures.

Across Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast, in Panama’s port cities, in Lisbon’s historic neighborhoods, in London, Cartagena, Accra, Mexico City, and Marseille — everywhere I went, the same pattern emerged. Afro-Latino, Afro-Indigenous, Afro-Arab and Black European communities exist in substantial numbers, yet rarely appear as the public face of the places they call home.

They are integral to the cultural fabric of these destinations. Their histories shape local identity. Their presence is undeniable to any traveler willing to step beyond resort walls.

Still, they remain largely invisible in the international conversation about travel.

This absence has consequences.
Representation isn’t merely cosmetic; it influences where people feel welcome. A USTOA study found that 54 percent of Black Americans are more likely to visit a destination when they see themselves reflected in its marketing. And within the industry’s leadership, where decisions are made, only 2 percent of executives are Black, according to the American Hotel & Lodging Association.

The result is a tourism landscape that benefits from Black cultural influence but often sidelines Black people themselves.

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Creating the Visibility That Is Still Missing

Over time, the disconnect became too large to ignore. I kept meeting travelers of color whose experiences never appeared in brochures. I met small, local vendors whose livelihoods depended on tourism but whose businesses remained invisible online. I watched as destinations adopted the sounds, style, and energy of Black culture without acknowledging the communities behind it.

This is the void that led to the creation of The Modern Green — a platform built to document and elevate the travel experiences that mainstream tourism has long overlooked.

The goal is simple:
to offer a space where travelers can see themselves reflected;
where local Black and Brown vendors receive recognition;
where trusted connections replace guesswork;
and where travelers share the knowledge, resources, and insight that help others navigate the world more safely and confidently.

It is, in many ways, an attempt to counterbalance decades of selective visibility. A digital record of the communities that exist even when the industry chooses not to acknowledge them.

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A Shift That Travel Itself Already Knows

No single platform can reshape the entire global tourism ecosystem. But travel — real, lived travel — already tells a far more complex story than the one offered by conventional advertising. Travelers of color are not marginal participants in the global movement of people; they are central to it. Their presence is shaping destinations, setting trends, and defining cultural moments long before tourism boards recognize the shift.

The numbers affirm it.
The diaspora reflects it.
The lived experience of countless travelers confirms it.

The disconnect exists not because the world lacks representation,
but because the industry has yet to acknowledge what is plainly visible on the ground.

Until that changes, the work continues — documenting what travel has already revealed:

**They not like us,

but across continents and cultures, they actually are.
The tourism industry just hasn’t learned how to show it.**