Hi everyone, Meredith and Lale here. This week's episode was recorded before the horrific mass shooting by a white gunman in Atlanta on Tuesday, March 16th, which killed eight people, six of whom were women of Asian descent. Between 2019 and 2020, hate crimes targeting Asian Americans have increased by 150% in the US, a large number of which have been

reported by women. We encourage all of our listeners to spend time reading about the ongoing

impact of racism on the Asian American and Pacific Islander community. And if you can, donate to

any number of the AAPI organisations working to end this violence and provide support

for their communities. We'll leave links to these resources in the show notes.

Systematic racism permeates all industries, travel included. Back in June, we passed the mic

over to Avita Robinson, Jessica Nabongo, and Wembley Sewell for a discussion on how the industry

as a whole can and must step up for black travelers. Now, nine months later, Avita, founder of

the No Madness Travel Tribe and Audacity Fest, and Jessica, the first black woman to visit

every country in the world, are taking over the podcast once again. This time, they're joined by

Martinique Lewis, founder of the Black Travel Alliance

and a Kanias Traveler Advisory Board member to take a look at what actionable change has

taken place across the industry since then and what work still needs to be done.

We'll let it be to take it from here.

All right, so it's an absolute pleasure to have both Jessica Nabungo and Martinique Lewis here.

It's always lovely to see your faces and most importantly to hear your voices.

Everybody on this conversation today has been impactful when it comes to the plight

and also the celebration of the Black Traveler of the movement and us showing

up in this space, right? So to kick things off with this discussion, I really just kind of want

to look from a personal and professional stance, what does the last 12 months look like for everybody?

And I'll answer this too, but I'm interested because we're in a unique space

now, right? When we first had this conversation, you know, Jessica, you, Wembley, and myself,

...