“Exploring the Transformative Power of Group Tourism for the African Diaspora with the Diasporan Tourism Experience”

Imagine this: On a sunlit afternoon in Elmina, Ghana, a circle of African American travelers gathers in solemn silence before the weathered walls of Elmina Castle. They hold hands, heads bowed, as the guide’s voice echoes through the dark corridors where ancestors once walked in chains. The pain is palpable, but so is something else, a quiet strength, rising not from isolation, but from togetherness. They are not alone in their grief, their awe, or their questions. They are walking this path together.

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This is the essence of group tourism for the African diaspora. It is not just travel. It is a pilgrimage. It is a return with purpose, shared among those whose histories were scattered by the winds of slavery, colonialism, and migration.

For cultural storytellers and heritage advocate Obehi Ewanfoh, this kind of journey holds transformative power, not only in the stories it uncovers but in the communities it knits together. Group tourism, for Obehi, is a living act of Sankofa: returning to the source, reaching for what was left behind, and carrying it forward together.

This vision led him to create the Diasporan Tourism Experience (DTE), a transformative initiative designed to reconnect African diasporans with their roots through immersive, culturally rich journeys that honor ancestral legacies.

DTE is more than a travel experience; it’s a bridge that links global African communities by celebrating shared history, identity, and culture. Through storytelling, heritage tours, and meaningful cultural exchange, DTE invites participants to not just visit Africa, but to come home.

The Return Made Communal

Unlike solo travel, group journeys offer a rhythm that mirrors the African heartbeat: collective, circular, connected. In many African cultures, the individual is never alone—they are always part of a family, a village, a people. Group tourism reflects that indigenous logic. It revives communal learning, emotional solidarity, and ancestral honoring.

You might also like Reclaiming Roots Through Agritravel & Storytelling: A Powerful Gathering of African Diaspora Voices.

Here are three key benefits of group tourism, especially in the context of cultural and heritage travel:

• Shared Emotional Support and Connection: Traveling in a group—especially with those who share cultural or ancestral ties—provides a supportive environment for emotional reflection. When visiting powerful heritage sites or engaging with complex histories, group members can process experiences together, creating bonds and fostering healing.
• Deeper Cultural Immersion: Group tours often include curated experiences like local storytelling sessions, traditional meals, workshops with artisans, or ceremonies with community elders. These collective encounters allow for more meaningful cultural exchange than individual travel typically offers.
• Collective Empowerment and Legacy Building: Group tourism can lead to long-term relationships, collaborations, and investments. When diasporans travel together, they often return home not just inspired, but organized. This collective momentum can support local economies, preserve heritage, and amplify community impact.

Obehi believes that memory should not be a private burden. It should be shared, echoed, danced, and healed through community. When diasporans travel together, they process their emotions aloud, support one another through moments of grief, and witness each other’s transformation.

What begins as a trip becomes a rite, a shared ritual of identity reclamation.

This communal framework is not only therapeutic—it is deeply African. “I am because we are,” says the Ubuntu philosophy. Group tourism brings Ubuntu to life. It restores what was fragmented, through collective remembrance and collective joy.

Healing in Sacred Spaces

Returning to ancestral sites like Gorée Island, Badagry, or the Slave River is often overwhelming. The air is thick with untold stories. The stones whisper. These places hold more than history; they hold pain, resistance, and spiritual reckoning. Group travel offers a container for that reckoning. Within that container, something sacred happens; healing becomes a communal act.

In 2019, during Ghana’s Year of Return, thousands of diasporans came to the continent as groups—sharing naming ceremonies, drumming rituals, and prayer circles. They did not simply observe history; they entered it. Together, they wept. Together, they danced. Together, they listened to their ancestors.

Academic research supports this experience. Studies in heritage tourism affirm that shared visits to memory-rich sites facilitate identity work and emotional restoration. For Obehi, these rituals are not performative; they are spiritual technologies, ancient and still alive, meant to realign diasporans with the heartbeat of Africa.

Stories as Bridges, Not Baggage

Group tourism also opens space for storytelling, not just from guides or curators, but from the travelers themselves. Within groups, people feel safer speaking. They recount family histories, share migration tales, reflect on racism, triumph, language loss, and cultural rediscovery.

See also Exploring Africa’s Historical Sites: Tourism as a Pathway to Ancestral Knowledge

But this sharing is not one-sided. Obehi insists on reciprocity. Just as diasporans bring their stories, African communities offer theirs in return, through song, hospitality, proverbs, and ancestral wisdom.

In Rwanda, for instance, group tours have evolved into workshops where diaspora youth teach digital skills and learn traditional crafts. In Nigeria, group tourists collaborate with schools and storytellers to preserve endangered languages and folk practices.

These aren’t simply cultural transactions; they’re cultural collaborations. The past becomes a platform for co-creation.

And this exchange embodies what Obehi calls “the storytelling circle of return”—where African and diasporan voices sit together in truth, and both are changed.

From Tourism to Transnational Kinship

When diasporans travel together, they don’t just leave with new memories—they leave with new missions. Some launch scholarships. Others fund libraries, build schools, co-invest in land, or support African-owned enterprises. Group tourism plants seeds. And when watered with purpose, those seeds grow into long-term networks of trust and care.

Travel collectives like Birthright AFRICA, The Adinkra Group, and Obehi’s own cultural initiatives have gone on to create mentorship programs, heritage media archives, and diaspora festivals. These are not just follow-up events; they are continuations of the journey. They transform tourism from a moment into a movement.

Local communities, too, shift their perspective. Hosts no longer see tourists; they see relatives returning. Families prepare homestays. Elders welcome visitors with ceremonies. Community tourism becomes relationship-building, not transaction. It becomes a ritual economy, rooted in kinship, not commerce.

Conclusion: Not Just a Journey—A Collective Return

In the end, group tourism is not about photos or itineraries. It’s about re-membering, putting back together what was broken. It is about walking side by side through the landscapes of memory, language, dance, and resistance. It is about finding, in each other, the missing pieces of our own stories.

For Obehi and many others, the group journey is not a tour; it is a return with intention. It is a chance to gather the stories, the people, the dreams scattered by history and bring them home, not alone, but together.

Because when the African diaspora returns in groups, it returns in strength. And when it returns to the story, it returns in truth. And from that return comes something extraordinary:
 a new community of memory, rebuilding the bridge between what was, what is, and what can still be.

Learn How to Leverage Your Story through our Story To Asset Framework.