Andy Ingraham
Andrew “Andy” Ingraham is a current resident of Broward County, Florida and a native of Nassau Bahamas. He has fused culture and commerce throughout his professional life. Andy came to the United States in 1972; successively he became interested in becoming an entrepreneur and establishing a business in the U.S. He has over twenty-six years in the tourism industry, developing specific expertise in multicultural and Caribbean tourism.
Andy Ingraham first started by marketing South Florida’s merchandises and services to the Caribbean islands. He launched, Horizons Marketing Group Intl., Inc. his first company in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The focus of his company was to provide car rental, hotel and flight packages for Caribbean travelers to South Florida. As President/CEO of Horizons International Group Inc., Andy has been instrumental in expanding its marketing and public relations with special emphasis on African American and multicultural tourism. He has over twenty-eight years in the travel & tourism industry, developing specific expertise in multicultural and Caribbean tourism. Horizons created a number of programs for international, domestic and Caribbean destinations seeking to access the growing African American and multicultural market. Andy has worked with many clients to create conferences including the Vibe Music Conference, FUBU, Impact and Revolt Music Conference. He was responsible for recruiting the American Tennis Association (ATA) to Fort Lauderdale and the Acapulco Black Film Festival to Miami when they changed the name to American Black Film Festival.
Later, he saw the opportunity for multicultural tourism and began searching for ways hotels could cater to a more diverse population. He founded the National Association of Black Hotel Owners, Operators & Developers, Inc. (NABHOOD) in 1999 which was officially incorporated in 2001. Andy is President/CEO of NABHOOD. He has created partnerships with many of the hotel brands including Marriott, Hilton, Choice, Starwood, Wyndham, IHG, Best Western, La Quinta and others, with a purpose to grow African American ownership. Today NABHOOD members have more than 525 hotels both domestically and internationally with an expectation of that number increasing to over 1,000 hotels in the next five years. The National Association of Black Hotel Owners, Operators & Developers, was formed with its mission statement “to increase the number of African-Americans developing, managing, operating and owning hotels; increase vendor opportunities and executive level jobs for minorities thereby creating wealth within the African- American community”.
Here are just a few of Andy’s accomplishments:
- Appointed to the National Tourism Advisory Committee for the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP) - Appointed by Congressman Alcee Hastings to the White House Conference on Tourism
- Founded and hosted the Annual International African American Hotel Ownership/ Multicultural Tourism Summit
& Trade Show - Created & designed the first multicultural tourism collateral piece in the State of Florida for Greater Fort
Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau to attract African American tourism - A consultant for the Dutch Island of St. Maarten working specifically to increase the islands visibility among
African Americans.
Because of his knowledge and expertise, he is a constant source for articles and has been featured or quoted in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, National Public Radio, Hotel Business, Lodging Magazine, Hotel Management, Black Enterprise, Black Meetings & Tourism Magazine, Pathfinder Travel and a host of other publications. He has spoken or participated as a panelist internationally and domestically on hotel investment & development and multicultural tourism. A few of the conferences include the American Hotel & Motel Association, ALIS, Congressional Black Caucus, The Lodging Conference, National Coalition of Black Meeting Planners, Governor’s Conference of Florida, Caribbean Ministers Conference and National Association of Black McDonald’s Owners Association.
Andy began his education in the Bahamas and then attended school in Jamaica at Northern Caribbean University and later in Miami at Florida International University (F.I.U.)