Andy Ingraham had always wanted to work in the hospitality industry, but his mother had reservations about where he should start. He intended to work in the Bahamas, but his mother opposed him because many blacks working in the hospitality industry back then were doing menial work.
His mother favored an alternative professional path if he was looking for work as a laborer. However, she was willing to agree to his tourism objectives if Andy practiced at the highest level of the industry. When he became involved in the hotel industry, he couldn’t understand how the African American community spent more than $30 billion on travel to tourist sites yet was not recognized by the market for all of their contributions.
Following this revelation, he launched a campaign to direct African American tourists to the Caribbean islands. In 1990, he attended a session in New Orleans on how people of color may benefit from the tourism business, which sparked the idea. It took him nine years, though, for his idea to take shape and find its own path.
When he was working as a consultant for the Government of St. Martin’s tourist office in 1999, he was approached by Daymond John’s brand, FUBU, about organizing an event on one of the Caribbean islands. The difficulties he had in obtaining hotel rooms for customers fueled his desire to transform the hospitality business. According to the hotel industry, he believes that if black entrepreneurs had a role to play in the sector, he would not have had a problem finding rooms for the event.
After meeting industry players, worldwide brands, and accomplished business executives, he founded the National Association of Black Hotel Owners, Operators, and Developers (NABHOOD) during this time period. His job was to persuade them that they could become hotel proprietors. Andy spoke with athletes, auto dealership owners, and restaurant owners who had previously managed businesses and were eager to invest in the hotel industry.
Andy has dedicated the last two decades to assisting black businesses in owning the hospitality industry as well as assisting black vendors in controlling the supply chain in the tourism sector. Despite this, he feels that African American enterprises remain at the bottom of the value chain.
Andy attributes much of his success to his mother, who taught him that anything he could see and feel was achievable. His legacy is to inspire young entrepreneurs to aspire to be like Don Peebles; Don Barden, who bought the Fitzgerald in Las Vegas, Bill Pickard, who was the managing director of the MGM Grand Detroit Casino, and Tom Baltimore, the chairman and CEO of Park Hotels & Resorts.