Community Marketing & Insights’ 14th Conference on LGBT Tourism and Hospitality will be held here in south Florida, at the Westin Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort & Spa (321 N. Fort Lauderdale Beach Blvd.) from Wednesday, December 11 to Friday, December 13. It is sponsored by nearly 20 companies and organizations, including our national media partner, Edge Media Network, the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association, the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention and Visitors Bureau (GFLCVB), the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation (GPTMC), and the Argentina National Institute of Tourism Promotion (INPROTUR).
The Conference hopes to help marketing, sales and public relations people in the tourism industry reach the ever-growing LGBT market. There will be many workshops and seminars hosted by groups who have done just that and want to share their success stories with organizations in other cities and countries. Other topics covered will include types of marketing preferred by LGBT people, the results of many research trends, and sales techniques that will convince LGBT travelers of good destinations to visit.
The first day of events is heavily occupied with an orientation to LGBT travel sales and marketing, hosted by Tom Roth and David Paisley, president and senior research director at Community Marketing & Insights. This refresher goes over marketing techniques and what is proven to work in reaching the LGBT traveler. This will be held from 2 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. at the Westin Conference Center.
Thursday, December 12 is a busy conference day, with topics being discussed including (in sequential order) LGBT tourism survey results, the budding wedding market, using mobile devices to reach LGBT consumers, a Midwestern tourism market’s success in reaching LGBT travelers, Hilton’s LGBT advertising plan, and how Logo TV creates social content for diverse platforms. Further along in the day, there will be many more workshops related to digital marketing, the success of Miami Beach Gay Pride, and how Fort Lauderdale reinvented itself as a “gay success story.”
On the last day of the conference, Friday, December 13, Californian tourism boards discuss how they have had success reaching out to LGBT consumers. Other topics that will be researched later in the day include reaching out specifically to lesbians as well as to gay families with young children. Finally, there will be a discussion on whether China is ready to be an LGBT travel destination. The farewell lunch, at 1 p.m., is sponsored by Argentina’s INPROTUR.
If you are still in town on Saturday, December 14, there will be an LGBT travel expo produced by Steven Levenberg Productions, also at the Westin. It will be held in the conference room between noon and 4 p.m. For more information about the expo, call (718) 622-5709.
