Virgin group aligns with Sydney Mardi Gras
SYDNEY – Virgin Blue Airlines Group has signed a new sponsorship deal with Sydney’s Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras.
The four year agreement, designed to target growth in visitor numbers to the Mardi Gras, will see airlines in the Virgin group assist in promoting the event across a growing domestic and international network.
“Mardi Gras is an amazing, spectacular, international celebration and across our network our team understand the significance and importance of it,†said Heather Jeffery, general manager of media and communications for the Virgin Blue Airlines Group.
New Mardi Gras CEO Anna McInerney said, “We have a very clear goal and that is to make the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras the world’s number one gay event for the benefit of locals and visitors alike.
“This partnership will help us get the message out to a much bigger international audience.â€
In August, Events NSW research showed that Mardi Gras brought more than 21,000 visitors into New South Wales in 2009, generating almost $30 million in new money for the state.
Of these visitors New Mardi Gras estimates that just under half are international travellers with the US and UK each accounting for just under a third of the total.
Speaking at World Travel Market in London this week, Ian Johnson, founder of gay marketing consultancy Out Now, urged the travel trade to work more closely with gay and lesbian travelers.
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 they don’t want to have to out themselves to access the products that everyone else has access to.”
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.â€
Ian Jarrett
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