AFRICAN-AMERICAN TRAVEL AGENTS

Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 29, No. 4, pp. 1022–1035, 2002  2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Printed in Great Britain 0160-7383/02/$22.00 www.elsevier.com/locate/atoures PII: S0160-7383(02)00022-1 AFRICAN-AMERICAN TRAVEL AGENTS Travails and Survival David L. Butler University of Southern Mississippi, USA Perry L. Carter Texas Tech University, USA Stanley D. Brunn University of Kentucky, USA Abstract: Social science research on the struggles of early and contemporary independent African-American travel agents represents a void in the literature. These agents experienced serious

obstacles to survival during the past half-century, not only during times of racial segregation, but more recently with airlines and government regulations, expensive techno- logical innovations, and significant industry demands. Six agents describe their histories, successes and failures, and the futures of independent Black travel agents; serious difficulties remain, including access to capital. A scenario identifies the start-up costs for an independent Black travel agency in a medium-sized Middle West metropolitan area to illustrate the prob- lems that remain. Keywords: race, entrepreneurs, travel agent, African-Americans.  2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Re´sume´: Agents de voyage afro-ame´ricains: labeur et survie. La recherche des sciences humaines au sujet de la lutte des agents de voyage afro-ame´ricains d’autrefois et d’au- jourd’hui repre´sente un vide dans la litte´rature. Ces agents ont duˆ surmonter de grands obstacles a' la survie dans le dernier demi-sie'cle, non seulement pendant la pe´riode de se´gre´- gation raciale mais plus re´cemment avec des compagnies ae´riennes, des re'glements gouver- nementaux, des innovations technologiques one´reuses et des demandes importantes de leur industrie. Six agents racontent leur histoire, leurs succe's et leurs e´checs, et parlent de l’avenir des agents de voyage noirs inde´pendants. Il reste des difficulte´s importantes, y compris l’acce's...

Website: www.centerforurbanstudies.com | Filesize: 112kb
No of Page(s): 14
Download AFRICAN-AMERICAN TRAVEL AGENTS.pdf