HOME > NEWS > LOCAL
COMMENTS |
| 
After reading in his local newspaper that Pittsburgh officials were recruiting gay tourists using a 16-page guide dubbed “City NaviGaytor,” Bob Stamer asked his fellow residents, “What’s this world coming to?”
“This city has enough problems; we don’t need our normal kids to see this disgusting and abnormal behavior,” Stamer wrote in a letter to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that was published June 2. “Keep it in California.”
Unfortunately for Stamer, gay travelers long ago expanded their getaways beyond gay Meccas like San Francisco or Key West, Fla.
Of course, gay men and lesbians have always traveled across the U.S., but municipalities across the country — from Atlanta to Bloomington, Ind. — are rolling out welcome mats to gay travelers, and the estimated $54.1 billion they spend each year on vacations.
Philadelphia officials are spearheading a campaign featuring Benjamin Franklin and Betsy Ross that invites gay visitors to “Get your history straight and your nightlife gay.”
The three-year, $1 million pitch by the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corp., includes a first-its-kind television ad featuring two men anticipating a rendezvous at Independence Hall. The ad began airing in June 2004 on stations in Philadelphia, New York, Boston and Chicago, according to Jeff Guaracino, regional communications and gay marketing director for the Greater Philadelphia Marketing Corp.
In September, the ad is scheduled to appear on the new gay cable network Logo, Guaracino said.
“For every dollar we spent on gay advertising in 2004, it generated $153 in direct visitor spending, which is a huge return on our investment,” Guaracino said.
He added that the return rate for the general population is $92 spent in Philadelphia per $1 spent on advertising.
Guaracino is scheduled to attend the International Association of Convention & Visitors Bureaus annual conference Aug. 3-6 in San Diego, where he and other panelists are slated to discuss key strategies and benefits for targeting gay travelers.
The various efforts to attract gay tourists to Philadelphia inspired Pittsburgh’s “NaviGaytor,” which includes information on gay organizations and destinations, as well as general tourism interests, said Beverly Morrow-Jones, communications director for the Greater Pittsburgh Convention & Visitors Bureau.
As Pittsburgh reshapes its tourism image, it wants to assure gay travelers that the environment is tolerant. But city officials do not see themselves competing against cities like San Francisco for gay tourists, Morrow-Jones said.
“We just wanted to make sure everybody who has an interest in the things we have to offer would feel welcome in this community,” Morrow-Jones said.
She added that marketing research showed gay male couples were Pittsburgh’s second largest segment of tourists, behind families with two children. Stamer’s complaints about the effort to the daily newspaper were one of the few negative reactions to the campaign, Morrow-Jones added.
The fight for gay civil rights paved a road to many destinations not usually known as queer vacation spots, said Bill Gerhman, vice president of strategic services at the Altus Group, a gay tourism marketing agency that produced Pittsburgh’s “NaviGaytor.”
“Gay travelers are always thrilled to have more options, and now that society is more open and the gay lifestyle is more in the mainstream, the gay travelers don’t want to be segmented into particular resorts anymore,” Gerhman said.
The emergence of gay media and Web sites, along with an increasing ability to more accurately gauge the number of gay men and lesbians, spurred tourism and other industries to try to capitalize on a previously ignored market, said Ken Bernhardt, chair of the marketing department at Georgia State University.
“Many product categories have begun to discover the gay and lesbian market,” Bernhardt said. “The trade literature has made it clear that this is a market that is getting increasing attention from the convention and tourism industry.”
About 50 cities across the globe offer formal gay tourism outreach, and most of the efforts came about in the last decade, said John D’Allessandro, interim executive director of the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association.
 |
| The Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corp., embarked on a $1 million, three-year campaign in 2003 to attract gay tourists, including running print and television ads with bold gay-friendly messages. |
Individual travelers make up the majority of tourists, which makes measuring the financial impact of gay and lesbian tourists difficult to do with any certainty, D’Allessandro said.
“But the cities wouldn’t continue their efforts if they didn’t see results,” D’Allessandro said. “Des ...
| 
