I was just chatting the other day about how I’d proposed an idea to my bosses at the travel agency to work with a gay and lesbian travel organization. It seemed like a natural enough fit to me. They wanted to sell more hotel reservations - and what better market to sell them to?
See, I did my homework. In general (we’re speaking broadly, of course) gay and lesbians spend more money on travel than the average straight person. They also have more disposable income to spend due to higher incomes and fewer children. And market research indicated as a group, they tend to be loyal customers.
In case you are wondering how I figured this out: In addition to other research, Tom Roth of Community Marketing / TAG flew in from San Francisco. Over dinner in Miami, we talked about my ideas and the challenges that gay travelers faced - and how we could work together to resolve them.
(Background: Tom launched Community Marketing in 1992, and has served as its President for 15 years. Tom and his team have developed a spectrum of products and services to skillfully lead the company’s clients to their goals. Tom is now primarily dedicating his industry-leading expertise to head up Community Marketing’s “Gay Market Research + Development Lab®” division, which produces the Gay Consumer Index and the Lesbian Consumer Index. Tom engages in strategic consulting to industry-leading clients and conducts educational seminars for corporations and organizations.
In addition to many other things, Tom provides pro-bono consulting and marketing services to non-profits and serves on the board of the Commercial Closet Association; and has served as an officer on the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA) board of directors.)
That was back in 2000. Needless to say, the idea didn’t fly - for whatever reason, it didn’t fit into the bigger picture. It was however, quite a humorous situation, as the looks on my boss’s faces indicated that the idea of working with a gay travel organization was the last thing they expected me to suggest. (Of course, I thought I was just doing my job - trying to sell more hotel reservations!)
So imagine my delight when I woke up this morning and found this Emarketer newsletter in my mail box:
In a nutshell, the articles says the same thing I said:
Data indicate that the GLBT market has a greater amount of disposable income and discretionary time on their hands than the straight population, so they can afford and enjoy travel more often.
The Travel Institute estimates the US travel market at $1.3 trillion.
Working on the assumption that the GLBT community makes up 5% to 7% of the population (6.8% as measured by Witeck-Combs), this translates to GLBT travel spending of $65 billion at the low end and $91 billion at the high. The US Travel Industry Association (TIA) actually pegs GLBT travel at 10% of travel industry spending.
eMarketer estimates US online leisure and unmanaged business travel sales in 2006 at $78.8 billion. Of this number, eMarketer estimates that GLBTs make up 8% of online travel sales, or $6.3 billion in 2006.
Throughout the newsletter I found all the charts you scattered throughout my post, including this one - which lists PlanetOut’s gay travel awards for 2007.
Now I’ve been out of the travel industry for a couple years… and it’s true that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender market (LGBT) has been an attractive market to the travel industry for quite some time.
But I couldn’t help as smile as I read the newsletter - glad to see the proof that marketers everywhere were finally open-minded enough and willing to follow the data… regardless of the road it traveled down.
As marketers, we have a responsibility to at least know and understand what opportunities are available, even if pursuing them ends up not being part of our brand’s overall marketing strategy.
And of course, if the data is convincing enough - as I felt in this case it was - perhaps it means that the brand strategy or company goals need re-evaluated, so that it can better serve some of it’s top potential markets.
Unfortunately, the truth is that sometimes the market isn’t always ready for the data - even when marketers are aware of the potential. For example, in this case, perhaps there was a risk of alienating current customers, advertisers or other partners. At a minimum, however, a company should at least understand what market opportunities it is passing up.
Anyway, that’s just my 2 cents on this lovely cold Ohio morning 
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