Skift Take
Despite the LGBTQ+ community's growing clout in the travel industry, many travelers in the rapidly growing segment still face enormous challenges. Here's a look at how Skift has covered the progress LGBTQ+ travelers have seen as well as the setbacks the group has encountered.
The LGBTQ+ travel market has grown enormously in recent years, becoming one of the most lucrative segments in the industry. LGBTQ+ travelers were worth an estimated $218 billion worldwide prior to the pandemic, with the LGBTQ+ community in the U.S. alone spending roughly 10 percent of its purchasing power on travel.
With their clout in the travel industry is poised to grow even more in years to come, it's a good time to examine how Skift has covered LGBTQ+ travel throughout the years. Skift Research said in a 2014 report that while LGBTQ+ travel might be booming, marketing strategies and diversity awareness were still evolving at a business level.
So have travel brands improved marketing to the LGBTQ+ community? How have travel companies responded to the needs of LGBTQ+ travelers? Are they running the risk of ignoring the market at their own peril as one travel executive indicated in a Skift guest column?
We provide answers to those questions as well as a glimpse into the challenges LGBTQ+ travelers have faced and more as covered by Skift.
Marketing to LGBQ+ TravelersSkift has frequently tackled marketing efforts toward LGBTQ+ travelers, with Skift Research noting in its aforementioned 2014 report that most players in the travel and tourism industry actively court the LGBTQ+ market.
And they've included destinations throughout the U.S. As LGBTQ+ travelers consider whether a destination is welcoming as one of the main factors in trip planning, Skift highlighted Fort Lauderdale in a July 2015 article as one city that successfully made inroads with members of the community. Roughly 1.5 million LGBTQ+ travelers visited Fort Lauderdale the previous year, spending $1.5 billion in the city. Richard Gray, the LGBT ma