These New Digital Tools Are Said To Be Helping Black And LGBTQ+ Travelers Avoid Discrimination

Black and LGBTQ+ travelers are leading the charge to build inclusive technologies that help their communities travel safely. One such digital program is the Green Book Project, which offers city guides from the perspective of Black travelers. 

It’s an app from software engineer Christian Lowe created that allows travelers to determine how inclusive a business is through a unique search system based on how users identify themselves, indicated by a hashtag they place on their reviews.

For example, a queer vegan traveler could filter a restaurant’s reviews for insight into how the staff addresses their specific needs.

And it’s not the only one available.

EatOkra connects users with more than 11,000 Black-owned restaurants. It was founded by Anthony & Janique Edwards in 2016 to support black-owned businesses in their neighborhood.

While Blapp and SupportBlackOwned.com, both launched by comedian Jon Laster, offer information on a host of different businesses, from yoga studios to retail stores, searchable by city. 

Beyond the latest apps and tech tools, travelers can search for specific hashtags on Instagram, Martinique Lewis, president of the Black Travel Alliance told National Geographic.

Looking up hashtags such as #BlackInParis, #BlackInAmsterdam, #BlackInNewYork, or #BlackOwnedNewYork and #BlackOwnedAmsterdam will, she says, help you “get a pulse on who’s there, what are they doing, where can you eat, where can you party, where can you take that Black history tour.”

GoogleMaps, OpenTable, and Yelp allow users to filter businesses by LGBTQ+ ownership—and on Yelp, users can also filter for gender-neutral bathrooms.

While Google’s “woman-led business” tag is searchable, tags including “LGBTQ+”, “transgender safe,” and “Latino-owned” and “veteran-owned” businesses are not. According to a company spokesperson who spoke to National Geographic, Google is working to make more of these attributes searchable.

Robert Geller, the founder of the LGBTQ+ vacation rental platform FabStayz, has provided gay travelers with a sense of ease.

Geller says his site and others, including Misterb&b and Ebab, provide a sense of security for travelers so that they don’t have “to look at a listing or a property and try to figure out: Is this a welcoming space?” he says. “The mystery is gone, the anxiety is gone. It’s like staying with a friend.”