Out Now presented an information packed lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender marketing seminar today to the delegates at WTM London - World Travel Market. TravelMole has a report direct from the seminar.
Ian Johnson, Out Now
November 11, 2009
Topics: Gay marketing. Lesbian market. GLBT market. Lesbian tourism. Gay tourism market. Gay advertising. London WTM gay marketing information seminar. Out Now. London World Travel market. Out Now presents lesbian and gay marketing seminar to a packed audience of more than 170 travel industry professionals at WTM today.
My work keeps me out of trouble these days. I have changed country ten times in the past 5 weeks. Today it was London - and a presentation to over 170 travel and tourism industry professionals at London's World Travel Market WTM.
The seminar was titled "The Gay Marketing Puzzle - Solved at WTM by Out Now" and included high level tourism industry professionals Yaniv Waizman, Mayor's Tourism Advisor in Tel Aviv; Jeanette Schuchmann, Deputy Director of the German National Tourist Office, Lotte Jeffs, travel editor of leading lesbian magazine DIVA; and John Tanzella, President and CEO of the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association IGLTA.
We were delighted to see the event qualify for my favourite three letter acronym - SRO - 'Standing Room Only'.
Out Now launched several initiatives we will report on here in coming days.
In the meantime, TravelMole has an article on this Out Now gay marketing seminar. As the article might require you to use a password to access, we reprint the article below.
Trade told to grab slice of gay and lesbian travel spend
November 11, 2009
Gay and lesbian tourism is growing annually but travel providers who don’t cater to the market will not capture this business, according to a leading thinker in the sector.
Ian Johnson, founder of gay marketing consultancy Out Now, told a World Travel Market audience on Wednesday that a whopping £4.7 billion was spent by the lesbian, gay and transgender market in the UK alone in 2007 (the last data collected) and that figure was growing annually. But he added that this market put feeling comfortable and safe at the top of their wish-list when choosing a travel operator and destination.
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 are don’t want to have to out themselves to access the products that everyone else has access to."
Johnson played a series of video clips of talking heads discussing their travel experiences as gay travellers, with many recounting tales of travel providers failing to make them feel welcome. One example showed two gay men relating how they are made to feel awkward whenever they booked into a hotel and are offered two beds instead of one, as a straight couple would be.
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.”
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If you want to get your gay marketing up to speed to include the latest social media and other leading-edge gay marketing strategies, get in touch with market leaders Out Now.
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AdWeek 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 won the "Outstanding Interactive" category in New York at the 'Images in Advertising' awards for an online campaign for their client Lufthansa.
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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.
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