Posted on 08/03/2006 8:39:52 AM PDT by presidio9
During the annual Gay Days in Orlando earlier this summer, the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau bought a billboard to entice travelers to head south.
Fort Lauderdale has emerged as a hot spot for gay-friendly travel, a market so lucrative that state tourism marketer Visit Florida recently created a task force to explore how to better cater to gay travelers, who are estimated to have $641 billion in purchasing power this year.
"We rolled out what we call the rainbow carpet a couple of years ago, and we've seen a lot of green success," said Nicki Grossman, president of the Fort Lauderdale bureau.
Though marketing to those groups isn't new -- Key West began nearly 10 years ago -- the task force and a report due out this year by the Travel Industry Association of America confirm gay travelers' status as a highly sought-after group.
-snip-
And though Disney doesn't officially acknowledge Gay Days, its resort is the focal point of the event that drew 140,000 people this year.
-snip-
Fort Lauderdale, on the other hand, is a place where gays feel comfortable holding hands on the street, said Darren Frei, editor of The Out Traveler.
"The only time you can really do that at Disney World is during Gay Days," Frei said. "Fort Lauderdale has really become the gay neighborhood of Florida."
Earlier this summer, Visit Florida Chairwoman Donna Ross created the task force focused on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender markets.
"When you have a population that big and that travels with that kind of buying power, we would like very much to participate," she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at sun-sentinel.com ...
$641 billion? That's BS.
Don't go to Ft. Lauderdale!!!
Just all about money, huh?
Why not have "Pedophile Days"?
How about "Rapist-Days"?
To accommodate sex deviates and cornholers' conventions is not in the interest of the community, in my estimation.
I money all that's important to America anymore?
That's because the pro-homo agenda crowd thinks that 10% of Americans are homos.
How true. Like the estimated impact of the NAACP boycott of SC over the Confederate flag - the numbers are off by several orders of magnitude.
What a metaphor!
To hell it is! Why John Kerry alone has $1.5 billion in spending power.
Oops, that was supposed to be a ping.
On the one hand, the devout Latino Catholics and Anglo Latter Day Saints (Mormons) could use the money that gays would spend here in Utah at our ski resorts.
One the other hand, I don't want to have to explain to my 5-year-old why 2 men are kissing in front of us on the lift line.
Maybe they can stay in Colorado.
But on the hand hand, if my daughter isn't with me, and if 2 good-looking, under 170-pound Lesbians want to start making out in front of me in the lift line.........
(Go Israel, Go! Slap 'Em Down Hezbullies.)
Indeed it is.
However if we assume that 10% of the population falls under this category (a wild and ridiculous exaggeration but their standard claim), that would mean $1 trillion in GDP. At a 36% tax rate, that would translate to 640B in after-tax income.
I guarantee that's the math they're using.
Oh god, here we go again with the gay people.
$641 billion? That's BS.
I don't know why you say that, everyone knows that 25% of the population is gay /sarc
Gay Centric advertising has sure helped Ford, hasn't it?
Well said. Blunt but well said.
Then Florida ought not complain when their local parks and rest stops become favorite hangout spot for these "tourists". Nor should they complain when homosexual pedophiles begin their preying.
Exactly! Selling their souls for a bowl of lentils.
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