Can LGBT+ Tourism Drive Social Change?

LGBT+ tourism has emerged in recent years as a powerful economic force. The World Tourism Organisation estimated in 2016 LGBT+ travellers make up 10 percent of global tourists, while on average queer travellers spend more money abroad than their straight counterparts – the report describes them as a group "that travels with greater frequency and demonstrates higher-than-average patterns of spending.”

John Tanzella, head of the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA), explains, "It is less typical for gay travellers to have children, and they do have more money and time to travel."

“The total global value of LGTB+ travel is reported at US$200 billion,” Editor-in-chief of Out There magazine, Uwern Jong, told travel industry publication TTG Asia, “it grows at an average of 8 per cent year-on-year when mainstream travel grows at just 3.8 per cent. LGBT+ people made an estimated 81 million journeys (in 2017).”

This enormous spending power has drawn the attention of an array of international locales, eager to get a piece of the “pink dollar”. Cities are keen to brand themselves “gay-friendly” from the party centres of Madrid and Mykonos to honeymoon destinations wanting to attract gay newlyweds in the wake ofsame-sex marriage being legalised around the world.While the emerging market of same-sex parent families want somewhere they can take their children and feel safe.

Juan Julia,who has opened his chain of gay-friendly hotels around the world, describes his Axel Hotels as "a place where you feel free, welcome, inclusive, you can meet with the local community, like a sanctuary."

Yet, what happens when historically unfriendly places offer themselves up as gay-getaways? Hong Kong has recently won a bid to host the 2022 Gay Games, the world’s “largest sporting and cultural event led by LGBT athletes, artists, and musicians”. Hong Kong will not only be the first Asian city to host the games, it will be the first city to host the games where same-sex unions are not legally recognised. Why would a traditionally homophobic place want to host a celebration of the LGBT+ community? Well, organisers of this year’s Paris Gay Games have claimed they bought in over €58 million to the French economy.

"Our enormous spending power has drawn the attention of an array of international locales, eager to get a piece of the pink dollar."

Brazil has made a lot of fuss branding itself as an LGBT+ destination. The country’s tourism board has certified seven cities as “officially gay-friendly” – Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Recife, Salvador, Porto Alegre, Florianópolis and Brasília. Yet Brazil has atrocious levels of hate-crimes. The country has the highest rate of transgender murder in the world, while a recent study found that the country had 193 cases of LGBT+ homicides in 2017, an increase of 127 percent from the previous year.

The country fiercely protects the image of these cities as gay-friendly, especially the iconic gay beaches of Florianópolis, often hiding the reality of everyday life for local LGBT+ people.

Filmmaker Matheus Faisting recently shot a documentary about the LGBT+ community in Florianópolis, he spoke to the Washington Blade about what he found.

“Florianópolis is a gay-friendly city as long as the tourist has money to spend in local businesses,”he said.

“We don’t have enough public policies to promote the city as a capital where LGBT phobia is fought against, for example. It is all a question of marketing used to promote the city to a niche with high purchasing power while not really worrying if these LGBT tourists will actually be safe during their stay here.

“One of the things that surprised me while researching for the movie was that there are much more cases of violence against LGBT people than I already knew. The numbers are high but that reality is under shown to attract pink money from tourists.”

Israel has come under scrutiny for touting to be an LGBT+ hotspot while simultaneously refusing to grant rights to their own queer citizens. In July, conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu walked back a promise he made to the LGBT+ community to support legislation that would allow access to surrogacy for same-sex couples. Under apparent pressure from Orthodox Jewish coalition partners he changed his mind at the last moment and voted against the legislation. The outrage snowballed as gay men and women, and straight alleys, expressed their disbelief and anger and a country-wide strike erupted, bringing Tel Aviv to a standstill for several days.

Former Israeli lawmaker Nitzan Horowitz explained, “Although Israel has a very liberal image concerning gays it’s not the case when you look at the Israeli law.”

Protestors pointed out the brazen hypocrisy of the government – which was all too happy to take in revenue from the hugely successful Tel Aviv Pride, but still refused to grant its own LGBT+ citizens basic human rights. Elad Nahshon, who was awarded the medal of honour by the president of Israel for his service in the IDF said: "I do not intend on paying hundreds of thousands of shekels for a surrogacy procedure abroad at the expense of savings for the future, and why am I denied the basic rights in my country? The country benefits from LGBT tourism with millions of dollars in revenue and it should fully support the community that put Tel Aviv on the map as a preferred LGBT tourism destination like Berlin and Madrid.”

“Tourism can be a means of raising and modifying a country’s image on the world stage,” writes Brendan Canavan for The Independent. “Israel has for many years used gay tourism to soften its international image by making the country seem progressive in a part of the world which generally is not.” But seeming progressive and actually being progressive are two very different things.

“Although Israel has a very liberal image concerning gays it’s not the case when you look at the Israeli law.”

While we need to be aware of country’s agendas, especially when they are presenting themselves as LGBT+ destinations, we also have a certain power in bringing Western ideas of gay rights and progressivism to places that generally lack in them.

“We need to appreciate our power as consumers,” writes Canavan. “Tourists have a lot of potential influence. They should use it to hold politicians to account.”

While the economic influence of the pink dollar can begin to change public policy and shift government’s strategies, just visiting these places and mixing with the local LGBT+ community can influence change on a human level, at a smaller scale.

Stefan Arestis and Sebastien Chaneac, the couple behind the Nomadic Boys travel blog, spent 18 months travelling across Asia and visiting some of the most conservative countries in the world. They’ve said you shouldn’t be afraid to go to these places, or be put off by their laws.

“We strongly believe that we owe the local LGBT communities in countries with repressive anti-gay laws a responsibility to get out there and support them,” wrote Arestis and Chaneac, in an article for the Huffington Post. “Your presence is most likely to inspire them and encourage them to mobilise and push for equality.”

While these countries are initially making a grab for the pink dollar, exposure to the LGBT+ community can start to enact real social change. Whether its Hong Kong embracing thousands of gay athletes, Israel having to face international backlash for its discriminating laws, or the LGBT+ communities of Brazil demanding the same safety as the gay tourists that visit their beaches.

By Tim Gibson