LGBTQ+ Travel Gains New Recognition After Long Challenging Evolution

25.08.2023 - 13:53 / skift.com / Rashaad Jorden / Skift Research / Long

The LGBTQ+ travel market has grown enormously in recent years, becoming one of the most lucrative segments in the industry. LGBTQ+ travelers were worth an estimated $218 billion worldwide prior to the pandemic, with the LGBTQ+ community in the U.S. alone spending roughly 10 percent of its purchasing power on travel.

With their clout in the travel industry is poised to grow even more in years to come, it’s a good time to examine how Skift has covered LGBTQ+ travel throughout the years. Skift Research said in a 2014 report that while LGBTQ+ travel might be booming, marketing strategies and diversity awareness were still evolving at a business level.

So have travel brands improved marketing to the LGBTQ+ community? How have travel companies responded to the needs of LGBTQ+ travelers? Are they running the risk of ignoring the market at their own peril as one travel executive indicated in a Skift guest column?

We provide answers to those questions as well as a glimpse into the challenges LGBTQ+ travelers have faced and more as covered by Skift.

Skift has frequently tackled marketing efforts toward LGBTQ+ travelers, with Skift Research noting in its aforementioned 2014 report that most players in the travel and tourism industry actively court the LGBTQ+ market.

And they’ve included destinations throughout the U.S. As LGBTQ+ travelers consider whether a destination is welcoming as one of the main factors in trip planning, Skift highlighted Fort Lauderdale in a July 2015 article as one city that successfully made inroads with members of the community. Roughly 1.5 million LGBTQ+ travelers visited Fort Lauderdale the previous year, spending $1.5 billion in the city. Richard Gray, the LGBT managing director for the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau, credited the city’s success to having a dedicated marketing plan for LGBTQ+ travelers.

Skift has also covered LGBTQ+-focused marketing efforts in other sectors of travel, including Marriott’s #LoveTravels campaign launched in June 2014 that featured same-sex couples and transgender individuals staying at its properties. Marriott, long supportive of the LGBTQ+ community, is one of several major hotel companies that’s conducting significant outreach to LGBTQ+ travelers year-round, instead of primarily during Pride Month in June.

But as the needs and preferences of LGBTQ+ travelers vary according to their ages, travel brands have also struggled at times to effectively market themselves to members of the community, a subject Skift delved into in June 2021. That’s despite several travel experts expressing optimism in a Skift article the previous year that the LGBTQ+ community could be the first group to travel en masse coming out of the pandemic.