African American Tourism Internet Research

by Michael Bouman, May 2, 2005

The Central Problem of Finding Anything These Days

If you type African American at Google’s prompt, you will get almost 97 million results. But if you use quotation marks, “African American,” you create a single entity and Google reduces the result to a mere 28 million web pages. I typed “African American” Tourism at Google and was informed that 4,900,000 pages matched my criteria. “African American” Heritage yielded 2, 640,000 results.

Three Points About Web-Authoring

The title of the page is very important.  The page title is what appears at the top of the browser window.  If your page is titled, "Main Page" or "Home Page," you begin the path to obscurity with a very strong start.  The address of the page is significant, too.  A page address "explorestlouis.com" does nothing to help Google know that "The Black World History Museum" is at that address.  Equally important is what the home page actually says.  What words are there? 

The internet is so thick now that web page designers build hidden “finding aids” into each web page to help Google. Google assigns higher priority to a web page that contains a “meta” tag in which it finds a term you are searching for. But writing a META tag well is an act of intuition and mind-reading.

A web page can help Google by including in its hidden code a "meta tag" of general description, like this: <META NAME = "description" CONTENT = "Museum at 2505 St. Louis Avenue in St. Louis, Missouri.  (314) 241-7057.  Devoted to African American history, particularly in Missouri and the city of St. Louis, with a scale replica of a slave ship, a walk-in log cabin, many objects and displays, and life-size wax figures of important people in Missouri history.  Handicapped accessibility, ample parking for school busses.">

Beyond a brief general description, the web author can think about how people might query Google for search results.  The author can write another meta tag with carefully selected keywords, like this: <META NAME = "keywords" CONTENT = "African American history, African American heritage, Black history, Black heritage, Missouri, St. Louis, museum, cultural tourism, heritage tourism, exhibit, slave ship, slave quarters, clothing, gift shop, museum store, school program">

A web page with a tag like that would pop up toward the top of a Google list of results if I ask for “African American” Heritage or “African American” Museum Missouri. That tag would also help me find that distinctive museum in St. Louis whose name I heard in passing but didn't remember.

Alas for African American Heritage Tourism. Not only are there too few web sites in Missouri, but we can't find them!  We need a systematic campaign to put the right kind of finding aids into the web pages that already exist. We also need new web pages that describe realistic, interesting itineraries for people who want to take a small or large self-guided driving tour.  These itineraries should be interpretive, not just maps.  The Missouri Humanities Council would welcome ideas for accomplishing these objectives.

My Day of Research

I wanted to compare African American Heritage Tourism support in Missouri with support elsewhere, so I googled for “African American” Tourism and then for “African American” Heritage. After looking at the first 250 results, out of the millions of pages found, the high-probability hits ran very thin. I organized what I found by state. Missouri is somewhat behind other states in organizing web sites that point to defined itineraries, and the state tourism web site doesn't have a meta tag with keywords within the HTML code. Such a hidden finding aid would allow a search engine like Google to find the Missouri Tourism page at http://www.missouritourism.org/ where, in fact, you can search for “African American” and obtain useful results about sites and events. So, for many intents and purposes, the Missouri Tourism page is currently invisible to the web surfer who used the search terms I did and omitted the word “Missouri.”

Overview

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0126/p14s01-trgn.html is an article in the January 26, 2005 issue of Christian Science Monitor. It references a variety of African American tourism resources. Missouri is among the states not on the list of examples.

Arkansas

http://www.arkansas.com/things-to-do/history-heritage/afric_amer.asp State tourism web site

http://www.clt.astate.edu/dsc/african-american.htm is a tourism development project at Arkansas State University

California

http://www.culturecalifornia.com/culturecalifornia/af_amer.asp 2003 focus of the CA Coalition for Cultural Tourism
http://onlysf.sfvisitor.org/itineraries/recommended_7.asp is a San Francisco tourism page.

Connecticut

http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/amistad/connecticutfreedom.htm is a National Park Service web site on the Connecticut Freedom Trail project.

Delaware

http://www.visitdover.com/tours/af-am.html is the Kent County tourism web site.

District of Columbia

http://www.culturaltourismdc.org/info-url3948/info-url_show.htm?doc_id=204666&attrib_id=7976 is an African American Heritage Trail Database sponsored by DC tourism office.
http://www.wamu.org/programs/mc/features/travel/african_american_historical_sites.php is a page of cultural tours on the web site of a public radio station, WAMU.

Florida

http://www.flausa.com/cms/index.php/id=202 “Must sees” for African American history and culture. State tourism site.

Illinois

*** is the state tourism web site. Poke around to find a “search” window and type “African American Heritage” and get only one hit. Type “African American” and get 6 hits, if you can tolerate the inconvenience of finding a way to search.
[Editor's note: Since the publication of this newsletter, there is a new main site for Illinois Tourism, at www.enjoyillinois.com]

Iowa

http://www.blackiowa.org/ is the African American Historical Museum and Cultural Center of Iowa. Site contains a virtual tour of the museum, but not of the state.

Kentucky

http://www.kentuckytourism.com/interestresults.aspx?IntID=102&IntName=African-American is the page of “hits” on the KY tourism web site.

Maryland

http://www.mdisfun.org/planning_a_md_visit/rtt_african_american_culture.asp is the African American Cultural Tour proposed by the state tourism agency.
http://www.baltimore.org/visitors/v_it_aa.html is the City of Baltimore tourism web site, which mentions the Great Blacks in Wax Museum that inspired the St. Louis Black World History Museum.
http://www.rockvillemd.gov/historic/AAHwalkingtour.html Rockville, MD walking tour with good map.

Mid-Atlantic Region

http://www.takeafuntrip.com/grpcatlistall.cfm?id=41&specloc=2 appears to be a commercial tour site centered in Washington, D.C.

Michigan

http://www.visitdetroit.com/tourprofessionals/sampleitineraries/africanamericanheritage/ Detroit tourism site

Missouri

http://www.umsl.edu/~libweb/blackstudies/afamtour.htm is a 1997 article by Angela Da Silva.
http://www.missouritourism.org/pdf/African_American_Research-Exec_summary.pdf is the executive summary of a 2002 research project of the MO Division of Tourism.

See the section below this state listing to notice the variety of additional pages that come to the fore when typing “African American Heritage Missouri” at a Google prompt.

Mississippi

http://www.visitmississippi.org/itineraries/themes_african_american.asp is a state tourism theme page.
http://www.familytravelguides.com/articles/southeaststates/Mississippi/natzaa.html is the Natchez family travel guide on a commercial site.

New Jersey

http://www.nj.gov/travel/Perfect_Tours/aatour.shtml is on the NJ Tourism web site.

New York State

http://www.iloveny.com/travel_ideas/culture_urr.asp is the State Tourism Site. The only African American theme they show is “Underground Railroad.”
http://www.buffalocvb.org/attractions_afam.html is a Buffalo CVB site focused on “end of Underground Railroad” status of the city.
http://www.blackny.com/ is the web site of Black New York.

North Carolina

http://www.ncculturetour.org/ is a site on African American cultural tourism. Hosted by the N C Arts Council.
http://www.cmhpf.org/driving/AAheritage.html is a page on the Charlotte-Mecklenburg heritage tour.
http://www.durham-nc.com/visitor/things_see_do/self_tours.php#AAH is a Durham cultural tourism site.

Ohio

http://www.travelcleveland.com/Media_Center/cvb_pubs.asp is a publication page of the Cleveland CVB. There’s a link to a pdf file of an African American Visitor’s Guide. The guide looks big as a download, about 1.4 MB.

Pennsylvania

http://www.visitpa.com/visitpa/thingsToDoSearch.do?searchBy=region&searchRegion=Southeast&name=African%20American%20Heritage Philadelphia tourism site showing search results when the user selects the SE region and then clicks on African American Heritage.
http://www.visitpa.com/visitpa/regionsLanding.do PA tourism main page
http://www.visitpa.com/visitpa/regionsDetail.do?region=Northwest Regional page on the PA site, showing various tourism themes, including African-American.

South Carolina

http://www.discoversouthcarolina.com/whattodo/africanamerican.asp is the State tourism page with ways to see 20 sample itineraries.
http://www.sc-heritagecorridor.org/html/r4coastal2.html is the “heritage corridor” page.
http://www.charlestoncvb.com/tour/news_article.html?id=358 is a web page from the Charleston CVB
http://www.pendleton-district.org/historic_aa.asp Pendelton heritage tour site

Texas

http://www.thc.state.tx.us/publications/brochures/AfrcnAmrcn.pdf links to a 48-page brochure promoting African American cultural tourism in Texas.
http://www.thc.state.tx.us/publications/pubbro.html links to a page of downloadable publications related to eleven cultural tourism themes in Texas. The site is hosted at the Texas Historical Commission.
http://www.traveltex.com/tx_cul_aa.asp?SN=1118472&LS=0 is the African American page of Travel Texas.com, which lists a good number of ethnic themes for Texas travel.

Virginia

http://www.virginia.org/site/features.asp?FeatureID=16 Heritage tour proposed by state-operated web site.
http://visit.wytheville.com/aadtour.htm is a Wythe County African American History driving tour.
http://www.gloucesterva.info/pr/tourism/AAHTT/cover.htm Gloucester area African American heritage driving tour.

West Virginia

http://www.callwva.com/heritage/africana.cfm State Tourism Web site. No keyword on the page’s code for “African American” so this page is 22 pages into the Google list of 15 million web pages related to African American Tourism.

Wisconsin

http://agency.travelwisconsin.com/PR/Travel_News/OtherKits/Heritage%20-%20AfAm%20Attractions.shtm is the state tourism site.
http://www.milwaukee.org/multicultural/index.cfm?action=african is a Milwaukee tourism site.

“African American Heritage Missouri” as a Search Term

http://www.umsl.edu/services/library/blackstudies/slplndx.htm is the electronic version of a printed guide produced in 1992 by the St. Louis Public Library.
http://stlouis.missouri.org/government/heritage/history/afriamer.htm is a historical overview of African American experience in St. Louis on the City Government web page. No author is credited.
http://www.umsystem.edu/upress/otherbooks/greene.htm is a University Press description of the definitive history of African Americans in Missouri by the late Lorenzo Greene, Gary Kremer, and Antonio Holland.
http://www.mid-mo.net/bigmuddy/stnswstlstps.html is a history web site of the Missouri River Heritage Corridor. It contains a large section on African American heritage.

http://www.dnr.mo.gov/shpo/EducAwar.htm MO State Historic Preservation Office web site of publications, many of which are relevant to this topic. The page’s code contains a “Meta content” tag with assorted keywords, but not with “African American,” to the page is #100 on the Google hit list, bottom of the tenth page of results. Who would look that far?

http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/resources/africanamerican/guide/introduction.asp is the Guide to African American History at the Missouri State Archives. The page’s code contains no “Meta content” tag, so it is #102 on the Google hit list. Too bad.

http://www.blindboone.missouri.org/ is the page of the John William Boone Foundation in Columbia. The page’s code has no “Meta content” tag to indicate that “African American Heritage” is what the page is about.

Not Found In The First 200 Hits:

http://www.nlbm.com/ The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City. The web page doesn't’t have “Meta content” tags saying “African American Heritage.” You can see some of my search terms on the home page, but they are not text.  They are images.  Google doesn't see images.

http://www.experiencekc.com/18thandvine.html The 18th and Vine District in Kansas City. The page contains no “Meta content” tag to make Google find it.

http://www.explorestlouis.com/factSheets/fact_blkHist.asp?PageType=4 is a page at the St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission pointing to The Black World History Museum. But the page has no “Meta content” tag to help Google find the distinctive museum on African American history.

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