This yr, Hurtigruten Group shaped the Black Travel Advisory Board, a six-member panel that met for the primary time aboard Hurtigruten Expeditions‘ Roald Amundsen because it cruised to Antarctica in February. Stephanie Jones, chairwoman of the board, a advertising and marketing strategist and the founder and CEO of the Cultural Heritage Financial Alliance, talked with cruise editor Andrea Zelinski about methods to strengthen variety, fairness and inclusion (DEI) in cruising on the whole and at Hurtigruten particularly.
Stephanie Jones
Q: How effectively do cruise strains method DEI?
A: A lot of them are nonetheless attempting to determine the place to start out. Who can we begin with? Will we begin inwardly? That’s at all times the place I counsel an organization to start out, as a result of it is much more tough so that you can present variety and inclusion outwardly if you happen to had not but addressed it inwardly. General within the cruise trade, I can not say that everyone’s on the identical web page with how they’re addressing DEI.
Cruise strains equivalent to Carnival, and even Royal Caribbean, most likely haven’t needed to do as a lot advertising and marketing to Black vacationers as a result of they have a tendency to supply cruises to hotter locations, which is usually the place Black vacationers or cruisers favor to go, equivalent to to the Caribbean. Then again, an organization equivalent to Hurtigruten could be very niche-based in the case of their sort of cruise adventures to chilly components of the world, equivalent to Antarctica. These are locations that historically many Black vacationers haven’t traveled to. It isn’t that Black vacationers haven’t got the will to, however if you happen to’re not marketed to in the case of a novel expertise, then you definitely’re unaware of it, and then you definitely’re not fairly sure if you happen to can entry it.
Q: What are a few of perceptions Black vacationers have about Hurtigruten cruises?
A: I at all times use myself for example. When Hurtigruten reached out to me and stated, “We wish you to go to Antarctica,” I am like, “Do I actually need to go to Antarctica?” The very first thing you concentrate on is the chilly, and that is not simply me. Lots of people assume it is such an unappealing place to need to go to as a result of it is so chilly. And what’s there to do in Antarctica? It was very good of them to ask the board on certainly one of their cruises in order that we may expertise it.
Q: Why is having firsthand expertise so essential?
A: For the board to be on that cruise and share with our networks and social media, and for different Black folks to see a bunch of Black folks in Antarctica, how usually does that occur? It actually began a dialog. Lots of people on all my social websites, whether or not they’re Black or white, are all like, “Wow, I can not consider you are going to Antarctica. I actually need to observe your journey. I need to study extra.” There’s an academic part that I feel Hurtigruten particularly must have — whether or not amongst vacationers on the whole, however particularly Black vacationers — to essentially perceive what the cruise encompasses and why it’s a vacation spot that individuals ought to take into account. For folks to have the ability to see that I may go along with my daughter and go along with one other group of Black folks and have a beautiful expertise, different persons are like, “I need to do that, too.”
We are able to, as a board, present some genuine suggestions to their advertising and marketing and gross sales division about actually market this expertise to folks of colour in order that it connects with them, so that they really feel such as you’re addressing the fears that lots of people have however do not speak about when figuring out the place they’ll go to.
Q: How do you obtain lasting change?
A: The important thing to DEI is sustainability. We’re there to carry Hurtigruten accountable, however we’re additionally working with them to advise them and to share thought management on: How do they market to Black vacationers? How do they rent extra Blacks who need to work on their ships? How do they contract or discover minority suppliers that may provide them with soaps or lotions and issues of that nature? That may equate to sustainability.
It is nice to be numerous and inclusive, however on the finish of the day, if these alternatives aren’t equitable in placing cash in folks’s pockets and creating income for companies, then they’ve missed the mark.
