Sunday, February 7, 2010

Tourism officials maintain that Key West is one of the preeminent gay and lesbian travel destinations in the nation. The economic downturn and intense competition from other destinations, however, threatens to erode the local market share of this lucrative niche -- whose members are estimated to spend $63 billion a year on travel in the U.S.

Economic impact

The economic slide that started in the latter half of 2008 did not discriminate against gay and lesbian travelers. For the first time in 15 years of sampling, gay travel decreased in every major city in North America except for Washington, D.C., according to an annual survey by Community Marketing Inc.

Major markets including New York City and San Francisco were not affected as greatly, experiencing about a 5 percent decrease in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) visitors, while "medium-sized cities, destinations that are geographically isolated, and some resort towns saw more significant decreases" of 10 percent and even 20 percent in some cases, the study said.

Key West saw about 112,000 gay and lesbian visitors in 2009 from January through November who contributed about $119 million to the local economy, according to research compiled by the Monroe County Tourist Development Council (TDC).

That compares to 175,000 overnight visitors in 2005 who contributed $154 million. However, these two sets of numbers were gathered using different calculation methods.

"Overall, all of our markets have been down over the past year, and that includes from an upscale visitor all the way down to medium-income visitor," said tourism council Director Harold Wheeler.

"However, the gay traveler has always probably been at the top of the list of the amount of expenditures here during a visit."

Key West hotelier Jon Allen, owner of the male-only Island House resort, said his bookings in 2009 were almost identical to 2007 and 2008, although his property -- as most hotels on the island -- dropped room rates to entice visitors to travel to Key West.

"What we saw was slightly lower rates and slightly shorter stays, but more stays," said Allen, who also chairs the Key West District Advisory Committee to the county tourism council. "What that meant to me was that gay tourists who might have taken, let's say, a one-week gay cruise in 2008 maybe came to Key West for four days in 2009. It was a way of economizing for them without forgoing a vacation."

That is a trend that was mirrored around the nation last year, said John Tanzella, president of the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association, which held its annual board meeting in Key West this week.

"That was pretty consistent with mainstream travel in a sense that people reduced their travel or maybe reduced the stay of their travel," Tanzella said. However, gay and lesbian travelers are still more likely to take more trips and spend more money than the general population.

For example, LGBT visitors planned to spend an average of 53 percent more on business and leisure travel last summer -- $2,300 compared to $1,500 for heterosexual travelers, according to a national study by Harris Interactive and Witeck-Combs Communications, a marketing and communications specialist in the LGBT market. The study also found that LGBT travelers were less likely to worry about finding less expensive hotel, meal and activity options, and were more reluctant to stay with family or friends or plan a staycation.

Increased competition

Key West also must contend with growing competition from other destinations that have realized the enormous buying power of this travel niche -- from Albuquerque, N.M, to California's Napa Valley.

"They're doing all they can to make their natural assets more attractive," said Bob Witeck, CEO of Witeck-Combs Communications.

In fact, Key West did not even make the list of top 25 destinations visited by LGBT travelers on business and leisure trips last year in the Community Marketing study. Only 6.5 percent of respondents had visited Key West in 2009, but 12 percent indicated they'd like to come here in 2010.

"Key West is an iconic, incredible place for gay travelers to go to," Tanzella said. "It may not have as many gay-owned businesses as it maybe did 10 years ago, but there's still an awful lot for gay travelers to do and see there, anything from clubs to the watersports, boating, just enjoying Duval (Street) and all the events you have down there."

Cities with the greatest percentage of leisure visitors included New York, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago.

Las Vegas also topped the list of destinations that do the best job promoting themselves to the LGBT community.

"They're spending a lot of money out there to gay and lesbian consumers to try and get them to come to Las Vegas and spend their money," Tanzella said.

Other destinations chosen in the study for their gay-friendly marketing effort were San Francisco, Fort Lauderdale, Provincetown, Mass., Philadelphia and London.

Not coincidentally, Philadelphia in 2003 launched a $2 million marketing campaign aimed at LGBT travelers. A study in August 2005 showed that for every $1 the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corp. invested in gay tourism marketing, $153 was returned in director visitor spending.

"(A destination) doesn't have to be gay; it has to be interesting, inclusive, diverse," Witeck said. And LGBT travelers now have a lot more options when it comes to finding an interesting, diverse location that will be welcoming to their lifestyle.

"I always hasten to say that the strategies people are using in their mainstream market, you still have to use those (to market to LGBT travelers). You have to have a value proposition. And you have to have an inventory of things that visitors prize higher. What is Key West's unique selling points that gay people identify with?"

More than other destinations, Allen said he thinks Key West's biggest competition is gay cruises.

Companies such as Atlantis Events Inc., Olivia Travel, RSVP Vacations and R Family Vacations have emerged in recent years, offering cruising options exclusively to gay and lesbian travelers and their families.

"For the same reasons that mainstream people love cruising, gays and lesbians love it as well," Allen said. "It tends to be good value for money, they go to interesting places, organize special entertainment. It's a very attractive package."

Stephen Murray-Smith of the Key West Business Guild has taken notice of this trend, too. He's also observed an increase in gay travel groups on mainstream cruises. On one ship that recently docked in Key West, 950 out of the 2,200 passengers were LGBT travelers.

Marketing efforts

Key West will spend about $350,000 from the county tourism council marketing to the LGBT community this year. This is about $100,000 more than it spent in previous years, thanks to funds generated by an additional one-penny lodging tax collected in the county.

"I think the TDC has made an aggressive and effective plan to utilize those assets, which has meant growth of Internet promotion, a big move into areas like Facebook and e-mail marketing, all of which I think are exactly where we need to be right now," Allen said.

"I think that the thing that we need to constantly remember is that we need to be investing in the destination itself. I think you've seen over the last four or five years that private business has made an enormous investment. You've got all these renovated hotels and new hotels, and I think that we need to make sure that our sidewalks and our streets" are clean and appealing as well, he said.

Gay-friendly events also have been a big draw for the city, according to Wheeler of the tourism council and Smith of the Key West Business Guild.

Especially successful is the annual Womenfest event held in September, which brings much-needed visitors to town at a time of year when business is painfully slow.

The business guild also is taking over the annual PrideFest event this year and hopes to expand it into a larger event that more closely mirrors the PrideFest celebrations that take place in larger cities all over the world each year, Smith said.

The guild in 2006 introduced a Gay Spring Break as a way to introduce the next generation of gay travelers to Key West.

Another thing Key West has going for it -- aside from the sunshine and scenery -- is the number of gay-owned businesses that operate here.

"Our concentration of gay-owned businesses is very attractive. It's hard not to run into a gay person while you're on vacation here," Smith said. "We have a community that is so homogenized that most people feel welcome wherever they go here. Our product, we take it for granted, but to a visitor it is very unique that they can walk down the street and see gay flags on every block."

Allen said he is optimistic about gay travel in 2010, especially since his reservations are 10 percent higher this year than on the same day last year.

"So I'm feeling very positive about 2010," he said.

amswary@keysnews.com