South Africa Gay Marriage Market

TOPICS: Marketing. South Africa. News article in Financial Mail on Out Now, South Africa, UK market, lesbian and gay weddings. pogoplum.

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There is an interesting Financial Mail feature article in South African media that mentions Out Now. It also sources pogoplum, an Out Now client, about the marketing implications of the new gay marriages market in South Africa.

Here is an extract of the article:


Gay bride parade
By Scott Burnett

The legalisation of gay marriages in SA last year created business opportunities

Nadine Symington is an out-of-the-closet unmarried heterosexual, and owner of www.prideweddings.co.za, a one-stop planning tool for big fat gay weddings, now that they are legal in SA.

The idea, according to Symington, is that "anyone anywhere in the world can hop on the site and plan their gay African wedding". She vets top-class suppliers from across the nation - venues, florists, jewellers, lawyers - for gay friendliness, and charges them for advertising on her site.

She broke even in her second month of operation, and signed up 12 suppliers and four eager couples. She expects a bright future.

But entering this market is not without its risks. Little is known about the spending behaviour - never mind the disposition towards marriage - of SA homosexuals.

Weddings performed on our shores are not automatically recognised elsewhere, reducing potential international demand. And though we are world leaders as far as legislation is concerned, ordinary South Africans are not necessarily coming to the party with open minds.

When deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka signed the Civil Unions Bill into law on November 30 last year, SA became the fifth country - after Spain, Belgium, Canada, and the Netherlands - to legalise same-sex unions officially. But many people have been disappointed by how little knot-tying has taken place since then.

Noreen Swartz, MD and co-owner of Timeless Weddings Company, based in the UK, KwaZulu Natal and the Western Cape, says though she expects the market for gay weddings to be huge, she has thus far dealt with only one. "A lot of church ministers and marriage officials I have spoken to say: No ways am I doing that!' " she says. "You also have to educate suppliers: the last thing you want on your wedding day is your photographer making you feel uncomfortable."

The major centres for gay-marriage-friendly economic activity are predictably our largest cities: Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, Cape Town, and that other famous SA city, London.

Ian Johnson of Out Now Consulting, a global gay market research and service agency based in London, says that there is no doubt that SA has gained an edge over other gay tourism destinations by legalising gay marriages.

"Whether visiting for a marriage ceremony, for a honeymoon, or just putting SA at the top of their gay travel wish list, the presence of both gay marriage legal recognition and protection against discrimination makes the country an attractive destination," he says.

His research predicted a £600m injection into the global travel industry from the UK market alone when civil partnerships in that country were legalised in 2004. On the whole, he says, gay travel originating in the UK contributes £3,5bn/year to the global market.

But getting married in a foreign country is not all sunburn and roses. The partners' respective nationalities - and home country legislation - can render their union valid only for the duration of the holiday.

UK consultancy www.pogoplum.com publishes a world map that colour-codes each country by the gay friendliness of its legislation, and MD Christina Harrison-Flynn considers SA a gay tourist magnet. But for marriages performed in SA to be valid in the UK, she says, its Civil Partnership Act of 2004 needs an amendment to recognise SA unions.

Many suppliers were quick to cash in on the "double income, no kids" phenomenon. Willie Williams, spokesman for Pretoria's Sheraton hotel, says overseas couples who responded to the hotel's positioning itself as a gay marriage venue tended to come from the UK, where only gay civil unions are legal.

He said the trend in the gay market was towards smaller weddings - with between 40 and 50 guests - with more trimmings. A small wedding at the Sheraton - with frills - costs in the region of R70 000.

Gay couple Gert Janse van Rensburg and Sean Zeelie planned their SA wedding at the last moment, three days before returning to their home base in the UK. "We moved there in December 2003: in general, we found SA less prejudiced towards gay relationships," says Janse van Rensburg.

"I have colleagues who got married outside the UK," adds Zeelie. "The fact that SA marriage is equivalent to a heterosexual union is far more appealing than the UK civil partnership'. "
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