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Survey find new trends in gay travel
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Surprising gay travel trends released at the 10th International Conference on Gay & Lesbian Tourism.
With an estimated value upwards of $80 billion, the US gay travel industry is big business.
New research released by Community Marketing, Inc., a San Francisco-based gay travel research and communications firm, finds a number of emerging trends.
Results from the 14th Annual Gay & Lesbian Tourism Study, released at the International Conference on Gay & Lesbian Tourism held in Boston, November 1 to 4, 2009, found a substantial rise in "staycations." The survey found tremendous growth in regional vacations over the past 12 months, but the growth was most pronounced to destinations that were drives of two to six hours away from home. The study also found small increases for vacations within the travelers' own cities.
When asked to specify how many regional drive vacations with at least one night in a hotel, 65% of survey respondents took a longer regional drive vacation of more than two hours, with 42% took a regional drive vacation where the drive was two hours or less, and 14% took a trip where they stayed in a hotel in their own city.
This trend is predicted to benefit resort destinations like Palm Springs that are close (but not too close) to major metropolitan populations, and major cities like Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington DC, which are all close to each other, trading stays among LGBT residents. "Gay and lesbian staycations ought to be a focus for tourism offices and hotels looking to make up for decreased long-distance arrivals," said Thomas Roth, president of Community Marketing.
With regard to restaurants, the study found increased interest by LGBT tourists to seek out independent neighborhood restaurants as a preference over upscale and chain restaurants. 78% indicated they visited neighborhood restaurants while traveling, while 29% indicated they visited high-end establishments.
Overall, LGBT leisure travel was only slightly down over the past 12 months, but held reasonably steady despite the recession. "Less affected by economic downturns than their mainstream counterparts because the majority are dual-income-no-kids consumers, LGBT leisure travelers remain a important niche market for tourism and hospitality," Roth said. However, business travel among gay men and lesbians saw substantive decreases, mirroring trends in the mainstream business travel market.
More than 5,000 LGBT consumers participated in the survey.
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