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By Lori
Weisberg, The
San Diego
Union-Tribune July 23, 2012 Urban
Mo's in Hillcrest, with its signature pink flamingos, will see a big
boom
in business from the Pride festivities this weekend. — Peggy Peattie New York has Broadway, Las Vegas boasts hip pool parties and a dynamic night life, L.A. has Hollywood, and San Diego has SeaWorld, the zoo and ... Hillcrest. Already a top destination for leisure travelers, San Diego, it turns out, also holds wide appeal for the gay visitor and not just because it has a trendy urban neighborhood teeming with gay-friendly bars, restaurants and boutiques. Trouble is, its big-city rivals have been far more aggressive in trumpeting their virtues to the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) traveler. When thousands of out-of-towners pack up and leave San Diego this weekend after crowding into local restaurants and bars and filling up hotels for the annual Pride festivities, they will have pumped millions of dollars into the local economy. But what about the other 51 weeks of the year when San Diego’s profile as a gay-friendly destination gradually vanishes from the tourism radar? There’s big money to be made from gay travel, say tourism and marketing research experts, and a California coastal city like San Diego, with wide appeal to gays and straights alike, would be wise to capitalize on what has become a lucrative market niche. A conservative estimate is that the gay community accounts for about 7.5 percent of travel-related spending. Applied to San Diego’s total visitor revenues last year of $7.2 billion, that’s a windfall of roughly $540 million. While the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau’s recently overhauled website now includes a small section devoted to the LGBT traveler, the bureau does not spend any of its advertising dollars on marketing directly to the gay community, choosing instead to spread the word about San Diego through mainstream media. “You have things that appeal to any traveler, like the great beaches, shopping, the arts, cultural things to do, but you also have a huge gay community in Hillcrest, so you have the best of both worlds,” said John Tanzella, president of the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association. “But if San Diego is not doing something to make sure that the gay traveler knows about them, they’re losing business to other places.” For the rest of the story please visit: |
Contact: Lori Weisberg, Staff Writer San Diego Union-Tribune 350 Camino de la Reina San Diego, CA 92102 619-293-2251 [email protected] |