Washington has made the top-10 gay destination list in one recent travel study, but it was criticized for having one of the nation’s worst nightlife scenes by a Travel & Leisure magazine survey.
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KATHERINE VOLIN
Friday, November 02, 2007
If
you
don’t
work
on
or
near
the
Mall,
it’s
easy
to
forget
that
tourism
is
Washington’s
second
largest
industry,
coming
in
right
behind
government
work,
and
according
to
a
recent
study,
D.C.
is
one
of
the
top-10
gay
destinations
in
the
country.
Victoria
Isley,
senior
vice-president
of
marketing
for
the
Washington
D.C.
Convention
&
Tourism
Corporation,
says
that
15
million
people
visit
D.C.
each
year.
Since
1999,
Isley’s
organization
has
worked
to
make
sure
that
a
significant
portion
of
that
group
is
gay,
making
D.C.
one
of
the
first
American
cities
to
court
the
gay
tourist.
D.C.
in
some
ways
is
unique
as
a
gay
destination,
because
although
the
city
itself
has
a
prominent
gay
population
and
gay-friendly
city
policies,
it
lacks
some
other
attractions
that
would
drive
gay
tourism
specifically,
like
a
very
active
nightlife
or
a
beach.
In
fact,
Travel
&
Leisure
magazine
named
D.C.
as
having
one
of
the
worst
nightlife
scenes
of
the
25
cities
polled
in
its
recent
America’s
Favorite
Cities
2007
survey.
The
same
survey
ranked
D.C.
right
in
the
middle
in
terms
of
gay-friendliness.
Another
recent
online
consumer-driven
study
by
Community
Marketing
ranked
D.C.
as
the
No.
9
most-visited
destination
by
gay
consumers.
“One
of
the
ultimate
responses
you
can
get
is
to
be
named
one
of
the
top-10
gay
and
lesbian
destinations,”
Isley
says.
She
and
the
WCTC
re-launched
their
efforts
to
reach
out
to
gay
tourists
in
2003
through
a
new
web
site,
www.PrideInDC.org,
and
an
advertising
campaign
in
gay
publications.
“If
you
look
through
a
lot
of
the
gay
and
lesbian
travel
publications
there’s
a
tendency
to
have
a
‘shirt-off’
approach
to
promotion,”
Isley
says.
“We
were
advised
to
really
have
a
sense
of
humor
about
ourselves,
but
also
be
true
to
the
product.”
That
meant
maintaining
the
sophistication
that
Isley
says
she
sees
in
D.C.
“A
perfect
example
will
be
our
theater
community,”
she
says.
“We
have
an
extremely
sophisticated
theater
community
and
we
have
several
theaters
that
have
artistic
directors
who
happen
to
be
gay
or
lesbian.”
Despite
the
focused
approach
toward
the
gay
market,
the
city
does
not
keep
track
of
the
number
of
gay
tourists
visiting
the
District.
“Gay
people
when
they
come
here
obviously
don’t
identify
as
gay,
but
at
the
same
time,
we
get
at
least
our
share
of
gay
tourism
here,”
says
Bob
Witeck
of
Witeck-Combs,
a
gay
marketing
company.
Witeck
points
out
that
D.C.
will
likely
never
have
the
sort
of
gay
tourism
appeal
of
a
place
that
“has
a
beach,”
but
says
that
gays
probably
account
for
5-10
percent
of
the
local
tourism
market.
FORT
LAUDERDALE,
FLA.,
is
a
city
that
knows
the
number
of
gay
travelers — 800,000 — who
contribute
$1
billion
annually
to
their
local
economy,
according
to
Richard
Gray,
who
serves
as
vice
chair
of
the
Broward
County
Tourist
Development
Council.
The
Community
Marketing
survey
ranked
Fort
Lauderdale
as
the
fifth
most-visited
U.S.
gay
destination,
and
the
November
issue
of
Out
Traveler
magazine
names
the
city
its
“Favorite
Gay
Resort
Town”
based
on
a
readers’
choice
survey.
Ten
years
ago
while
serving
as
the
vice
president
of
the
International
Gay
Travel
Association,
Gray
noticed
that
Fort
Lauderdale
was
attracting
little
attention.
“Nobody
was
really
interested
in
Fort
Lauderdale
at
all,
and
I
wanted
to
let
people
become
aware
that
it
really
was
becoming
a
gay
Mecca,”
Gray
says.
A
decade
later,
business
is
booming,
although
recent
anti-gay
remarks
from
Jim
Naugle,
the
city’s
mayor,
threatened
to
put
a
damper
on
gay
tourism
there.
Naugle
announced
this
summer
that
the
city
should
spend
$250,000
to
install
automatic
flushing
toilets
to
prevent
men
from
having
sex
with
other
men
in
public
restrooms.
A
public
outcry
ensued,
but
rather
than
apologize,
Naugle
fanned
the
flames
by
making
more
homophobic
comments.
Eventually,
the
town’s
tourism
council
removed
him
from
his
position
in
their
organization.
“They
were
disappointing,”
Gray
says
about
the
statements
made
by
Naugle,
whom
Gray
has
known
since
1993.
“And
absolutely
certainly
not
what
the
destination
was
about.
So
it
was
definitely
just
one
lonely
voice,
I
think.
Disturbing,
but
we
weathered
the
storm.”
The
Bay
Area
Reporter,
a
San
Francisco
gay
publication,
published
an
editorial
calling
for
a
boycott
of
Fort
Lauderdale,
and
though
that
doesn’t
appear
to
have
materialized
on
a
large
scale,
the
Florida
tourism
market
was
impacted,
Gray
says.
Any
long-term
damage
hasn’t
yet
been
fully
assessed,
but
some
silver
linings
do
exist,
he
says.
“It’s
kind
of
united
Fort
Lauderdale’s
residents
more
on
a
political
level,”
Gray
says.
“As
a
destination,
we
have
a
strong
business
alliance
— we
had
never
really
been
political,
locally.”
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