IGLTA Rocks Gay Market in Toronto

Toronto, Canada was the focus of the gay and lesbian travel market this month when the IGLTA annual convention rolled into town.


Ian Johnson, Out Now
May 21, 2009

TOPICS: International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association annual convention. Toronto, Canada. Lesbian and gay marketing. Out Now. IGLTA. GayComfort online training and accreditation marketing program. GLBT travel and tourism. Creating Cost-Effective Marketing Strategies. IGLTA convention held in Toronto, Canada.

Toronto, Canada has just found itself at the center of the gay and lesbian travel marketing universe.

The International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association - IGLTA - has just concluded their annual convention in Toronto - an event that saw the great and the good of the lesbian and gay tourism marketing fraternity gather for four days of strategy, marketing - and fun.

One of the more exciting developments was the launch of various committees dedicated to enhancing the organization's focus on specific areas of future growth and development of lesbian and gay travel and tourism marketing.

I was invited to join the Education Committee - and it was very encouraging to see the high quality of ideas that resulted from the synergy of collaboration between all members of our Committee.

The business opportunities that arise from the IGLTA convention are very strong and for serious players in the world of gay travel, the IGLTA event is a 'must-attend'.

Creating Cost-Effective Marketing Strategies

Out Now presented an educational seminar that was all about how to utilize a range of smart marketing options that are low-cost, high-value opportunities to increase sales in today's challenging marketing environment.

It was a great experience to interact with so many esteemed colleagues from the world of travel marketing.

I was also pleased to learn a new acronym - SRO - that apparently means 'standing-room only'.

UPDATE: Watch Out Now Gay Marketing Class video here.

During this cost-conscious session I covered a lot of ground, including how to integrate social marketing online sites into an overall marketing strategy. We looked at Facebook, flickr, Linked-in, YouTube, Blogger and more.

Ideas about cost-effective PR marketing techniques were included - such as making effective use of databases and email marketing, as well as online and direct media approach integrated marketing techniques, to garner serious media coverage for your business.

We also reminded people that so-called 'old media' PR - involving journalists working at print media products - can often deliver far greater reach than the new media darlings of Web 2.0 fame.

Most importantly, whatever you do in terms of marketing, be sure to apply Return-on-investment (ROI) practices to really measure whether all the time you invest is making money for your business.

"Remember the point. To sell stuff." - That was a phrase I mentioned more than once about various aspects of the seminar.

It was really encouraging to see the large numbers of people taking detailed notes - and coming up to say how much they got out of the presentation. This was a very satisfying presentation to make and it was really gratifying to see it be so well received.

A great level of questions rounded things out with interaction between audience members helping all attending to take out some great budget-saving marketing ideas from the session.

We are planning to upload the video of the presentation to our YouTube.com/GayMarketing channel - and will update all readers of GayMarketNews.com about this soon.

Media Trade Show

Saturday morning at the convention included the annual media trade show.

I attended for the GayComfort Global Media Partners Network - and we are really pleased with the new gay travel marketing opportunities that have resulted for GayComfort media partners - and all our GayComfort members.

The media trade show highlighted the best of gay media from around the world.

Increasingly gay media continues to evolve to set new standards of professionalism and quality, making it much more effective for corporate clients we sell into gay media worldwide.

There are also some more exciting GayComfort announcements that will be made soon.

One more thing...

Air Canada Vacations announced a new partnership with GayComfort at the IGLTA convention.

More information of that and the benefits it delivers to gay and lesbian travelers is to follow...

For a detailed look at pictures from the IGLTA convention click on GayMarket at Flickr.

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AdWeek recently referred to one of Out Now's gay advertising campaigns as "the year's most talked about tourism ads." Out Now Consulting is a leading global gay marketing specialist agency, founded in 1992. Clients include Barclays, IBM, Toyota, Citibank, German National Tourist Office, Visit Britain, Lufthansa and Time Inc. Magazines. Out Now recently won the "Outstanding Interactive" category in New York at the 'Images in Advertising' awards for an online campaign for their client Lufthansa.

If you would like Out Now to help you take your marketing to the leading-edge of sales results, please do get in touch.

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To learn how to get lesbian and gay marketing strategy right -- rely on gay marketing expert strategic advice from Out Now -- the leading experienced global strategic gay marketing, research and communications agency.