I’m a big fan of Out Traveler and was pleasantly surprised to read a news brief in the Orientation section in the front of the Spring 2008 issue entitled “National Parks Go Lavender.” It’s a short article about the new “Out & About” travel packages being offered by Aramark Parks & Resorts in several National Parks. According to the article, the packages are “gay-targeted” and the response to them has been “phenomenal.”
So, imagine my surprise when I went to the Aramark Web site to review the packages and couldn’t find them. My mistake. I was looking for some sort of “pride” “LGBT” or other obvious labeling to set the packages apart as clearly “gay.” I assumed there would be photos of happy same sex couples climbing mountains or viewing ancient ruins. And I thought there would be language about “you and your partner” as there is on other sites for packages and other specials targeting our community. I was wrong.
I searched and searched on the site and couldn’t find anything even close (there were plenty of pictures of straight couples and heterosexual weddings, however). The "gay-targeted" packages are there on the site, but they are listed under “Specials” and the only way to know they are “gay-targeted” is to assume that “Out & About” means gay and lesbian. How ironic that a package marketed as “out” is in fact, in the closet.
While I think Aramark deserves credit for offering the packages, they seem to be trying to have it both ways: offering travel packages aimed at our community, but hiding them in plain sight, presumably so as not to offend straight people. As we’ve said many times on this blog, gay and lesbian consumers are an increasingly skeptical group and if we think you’re trying to get our business without really getting us, you’re not really reaching us and you won’t keep us as customers long-term (if you even get our business at all).
While an Aramark representative is quoted in the article as saying that their 2007 Mesa Verde package was the most “successful” they have ever offered, I wonder how many people who purchased it were actually gay or lesbian. Since it’s very hard to discern that the package is actually targeted to us, I wonder how many of us actually took advantage of it. To me, this is an example of getting it half-right. Aramark was smart to target our community, but they were too smart by half in hiding their efforts behind code words that make them look more opportunistic than genuine.
I’m not sure that lavender is the color I’d assign to the National Park sites participating in this program: but green fits, both for the color of the trees and landscape and the money Aramark hopes to make from gays and lesbians by “offering” us packages that we have to assume are targeted at us.
My advice to Aramark? If you want our business, tell us. Show us. Engage in our community and be visible. To get us to be “out and about” you have to be out and about as well.
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