12 November 2009

Trade told to grab slice of gay and lesbian travel spend

Gay and lesbian tourism is growing annually but travel providers who don’t cater to the market will not capture this business, according to a leading thinker in the sector.

Ian Johnson, founder of gay marketing consultancy Out Now, told a World Travel Market audience on Wednesday that a whopping £4.7 billion was spent by the lesbian, gay and transgender market in the UK alone in 2007 (the last data collected) and that figure was growing annually. But he added that this market put feeling comfortable and safe at the top of their wish-list when choosing a travel operator and destination.

He said: "We have spent a great deal of time talking to the people who matter most in this equation - the consumers themselves - and from that we know that they want to go everywhere and do everything, not just go to known gay-friendly destinations - and it is their goal to travel with operators who understand their comfort zone and stay at hotels and resorts in destinations that are tuned into them.

He added: "They want to use companies that are on the same page and are don’t want to have to out themselves to access the products that everyone else has access to."

Johnson played a series of video clips of talking heads discussing their travel experiences as gay travellers, with many recounting tales of travel providers failing to make them feel welcome. One example showed two gay men relating how they are made to feel awkward whenever they booked into a hotel and are offered two beds instead of one, as a straight couple would be.

Johnson added: "If you are a travel provider, you should be thinking hard about the fact that £47 million a year is spent on gay and lesbian honeymoons and that the buying power of the UK gay, lesbian and transgender market is £81 billion. You should be talking to these people and finding out how to access that. This market wants to get out and travel but they want to feel they are being looked after and not made to feel uncomfortable."

By Dinah Hatch