Posts Tagged ‘Travel’

What the Forbes?!?

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Happy Friday from yet another blizzard in Northeast Ohio. Seriously, everytime I wake up now, we have another foot of snow. How I wish I was a kid again so that I could spend the day with mac & cheese and "Days of Our Lives."

Ok– so you know that I write you every week from Cleveland. And that I am proud to call Cleveland home. Imagine my suprise to find out that Forbes.com has named Cleveland "America's Most Miserable City." We earned this reputation from apparently ranking high for taxes (both sales and income), commute times, violent crime and how our pro sports teams have fared over the past two years. According to Forbes, "Cleveland nabbed the top spot as a result of poor ratings across the board. It was the only city that fell in the bottom half of the rankings in all nine categories. Many residents are heading for greener pastures. There has been a net migration out of the Cleveland metro area of 71,000 people over the past five years. Population for the city itself has been on a steady decline and is now less than half of it what it was 50 years ago. Cleveland ranked near the bottom when looking at corruption. Northern Ohio has seen 309 public officials convicted of crimes over the past 10 years according to the Justice Department. A current FBI investigation of public officials in Cuyahoga County (where Cleveland is located) has ensnared more than two dozen government employees and businessmen on charges including bribery, fraud and tax evasion."

I'd like to now use a phrase coined in my family by my uncle Jimmy– "back that up, Wal-Mart driver." I can look at the LGBT community to see how Cleveland is far from miserable. In fact, the LGBT community is doing a great deal to market Cleveland and attract the global community here to our home. Just a few examples:

  • Gay Games 2014– we beat out DC and Boston to host the next Gay Games. And to win this, we had a site selection committee come to Cleveland to scope out the scene. Now, if we were so miserable, would we have won? Even more, would one of the site selection committee members decide to buy a home here in Cleveland if it was such a miserable town?
  • Speaking of the Gay Games, the Cleveland Synergy Foundation is organizing an annual LGBT/S sporting festival leading up to 2014. We already have interest from all parts of the country to come to Cleveland to participate in this event. Miserable, I scoff at your name.
  •  Want movies? We have an LGBT Film Series as part of the Cleveland International Film Festival, one of the largest film festivals in the country.
  • We've got a great Pride Festival, where thousands from around the country come out to celebrate LGBT Northeast Ohio.  

To echo how "not miserable" Cleveland is, the local convention and visitors bureau has set up a web site, WhatTheForbes.com, to let us locals push back on Forbes and tell the world why we're the rock and roll capital of the world. It's a great social media tool to make sure our voice is heard. I'd like the bureau to go one step further and really capitalize on all of the positive LGBT developments here in the state and market the region to attract the LGBT dollar. If NYC can do it, so can we.

Was your city on the Forbes list? Have you been to Cleveland and do you agree? Be careful what you say…I'm a pretty miserable person and it might damage me even further… :)

| February 26th, 2010 1 Comment »
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It’s Up to You, New York

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Every year, my best gal pal and I try to make a trip to the Great White Way to see a few shows, do a little (read: a lot) of shopping, and stuff our faces with culinary delights. This year, we're planning our trip for the weekend of Mother's Day (sorry, Mom!) so that we can worship at the altar of Kristin Chenoweth and Sean Hayes in Promises, Promises (a.k.a. the Jack McFarland and Glinda the Good Witch show).

Right now, we're looking into hotels for the weekend. Amidst my searching, I saw the news about the first gay boutique hotel potentially opening in Lady Liberty. Check this out: work and life partners Ian Reiser and Mati Weiderpass of Parkview Developers plan to call their project “the Out N.Y.C.” The hotel will include 123 rooms, spa, restaurant, cafe and shops, as well as a 10,000 square foot dance club that can hold up to 750 party-goers.

This is a smart business move, for both the duo behind the idea and the city itself. Last year, the city announced a tourism campaign centered on the 40th anniversary of Stonewall that targeted the LGBT travel dollar to help with the city's $14 billion budget deficit. In 2008,  an estimated 47 million people visited the city, a record high that generated $30 billion in spending, with the LGBT crowd contributing about 10 percent of those figures. And, this past year, New York was the top choice for LGBT travel.

But, the city and the hotel will have to come up with some creative marketing strategies in this tough economy. In the same report that said NYC was the top LGBT choice, we also learned that the LGBT community is choosing "stay-cations" over vacations because of the current financial landscape. One avenue that Out could consider is creating a space inside the new hotel that can serve as a conference center for LGBT-focused educational events and conferences. Many non-profits and LGBT activist groups hold annual meetings, and finding a space that is both affordable, and inclusive, can be a challenge. If Out marketed itself not only as a fantastic hotel, but also as a space for education and outreach on LGBT issues, it could attract a whole new customer base.

Unfortunately, the hotel won't be ready for my Broadway sojourn, but I will certainly be following the ground-breaking. In fact, I hope that the hotel itself can be ground-breaking by redefining the hospitality industry as a hybrid of pleasure and corporate service.

What do you think about the plans? Would you check-in?

Happy Friday.

| February 19th, 2010 No Comments »
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Destination Wedding: Nepal?

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Nepal With an economic recession that is crippling many industries around the world, companies are looking to new avenues, and new audiences, to keep business alive. One of the industries most affected right now is tourism. Let's face it– with a large majority of the world scraping by to be able to afford basic necessities, an extended stay at an all-inclusive resort is just not in the works.

This reality is why I was so impressed with an article last week about Nepal's new commitment to the LGBT tourism industry.  Nepalese lawmaker Sunil Babu Pant has started a travel agency, Pink Mountain, to offer gay-themed tours of Nepal's major tourist sites as well as to organize wedding ceremonies. In fact, openly gay Indian prince Manvendra Singh Gohil will be marrying his partner at a Hindu temple in Kathmandu, which Pant hopes will be just the beginning of destination weddings in Nepal.

Pant points to the smart business sense behind targeting the LGBT tourism dollar– it's an estimated industry worth US$670 million worldwide. This lucrative fact essentially guaranteed the support for Pink Mountain from Nepal's traditionally conservative tourism industry, which has set its own goal of attracting one million visitors to Nepal in 2011. This is also part of a larger evolution towards the LGBT community in Nepal– the country's new constitution is expected to define marriage as a union between two adult individuals, regardless of gender, and to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation.

This is smart marketing. Identify the challenge– in this case, a crippling economy combined with an entire decade of civil unrest. Address an unmet need– many Asian countries discriminate against open members of the LGBT community. Create an innovative solution– attract a new audience (LGBT) to Nepal by creating specific packages, and a culture, that embraces the unique value proposition of the LGBT community.

I give Pant, and all organizations in Nepal, credit for thinking outside the box. It's already working– one lesbian couple from Massachusetts want to hold their nuptials in Mustang, high in the Himalayas.

What do you think about this concept? Would you visit Nepal in light of these advancements?

  

| February 1st, 2010 1 Comment »
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Around the “GLOBE” with Alaska Air

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Alaska air Over the weekend, I was checking out The Advocate's website for the latest LGBT news and info. On the top of the site, there was a banner ad for Alaska Airlines/Horizon Air "Gay Travel Event Calendar." Ever the curious frequent flyer, I clicked through to the site to check out more.

It's actually pretty cool. It's a site that lists LGBT events around the world in the cities that Alaska Air serves. And I'm talking events like Gay Days at Disney World, Dinah Shore Week (who knew?!?), and the GLAAD Media Awards. Even better, some of the events had a discount code to book travel. It got me thinking…is this just smart business and smart marketing, or does Alaska Airlines have a real commitment to our LGBT community?

So, I did some more digging. Turns out, Alaska Airlines is making a real effort. They have the "GLOBE team," an employee resource group made up of employees focused on reaching out to the LGBT communities across their route network. They are reaching out by collaborating and supporting LGBT causes and organizations, including Out & Equal and the AIDS walk. Additionally, the airline is making sure that its LGBT employees are feeling included and appreciated, including equal benefits to partners. In fact, for the second year in a row, Alaska Airlines was among 300 U.S. businesses to receive a perfect 100% score by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation in the 2010 Corporate Equality Index for its treatment of LGBT employees, customers and investors. And importantly, the effort is sponsored by the airline's chief financial officer and executive vice president Glenn Johnson, which means that the Alaska's c-suite understands the value of our community, both internally and externally.

I've not had the opportunity to fly Alaska Air, but I'm now going to try and make it happen. Rule 101 of LGBT marketing is to include us– include us in your outreach, include us in your corporate social responsibility initiatives, and include us as your employees. If you do this, we'll be loyal to your brand. Alaska gets this, and during a time when the economy is challenging the entire travel industry, I encourage Alaska to keep it up. It will pay dividends in terms of ROI and customer base expansion.

Thank you Alaska Air. To borrow from one of your competitors, the LGBT community "loves to fly, and it shows…"

What airlines do you admire for their LGBT commitments?

| January 25th, 2010 1 Comment »
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Escaping It All

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Jan12Wait! It's only Jan. 12 and my first post for 2010 — and I'm already talking about getting away?! Well, many factors are at play here, primarily the fact that Chicago is heading into its long stretch of bitterly cold winds and inches of snow. But also because of the new site today from Marriott International that I saw in today's e-mail from LGBT business publication, Echelon Magazine.

While LGBT travelers aren't a new market for marketers and communicators, Marriott's new site, www.marriottgaytravel.com is a strong example of appropriately engaging with a global LGBT community of travelers. Available in four additional languages (Spanish, Portuguese, German and French), the new site is customized to provide relevant information of interests to the LGBT traveler — including promotions, unique hospitality packages, the company's commitment and even a note from the CEO of Marriott. Take a look and give us your take in the comments below.

I liked that the hospitality brand takes it even further by offering a portion of the proceeds from some of its hospitality packages to GLAAD. Marriott also includes LGBT-owned businesses in its supplier diversity initiatives, as well as host many LGBT events in its hotels around the world. This past year the company scored 100 percent on the HRC's Corporate Equality Index for the third consecutive year and continues to be a member of the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce.

The message is clear — from their actions to the site's headline: Marriott is "a hotel that makes you feel right at home."

| January 12th, 2010 No Comments »
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