Fort Lauderdale, which has made marketing to the LGBT community a top priority for nearly two decades, is gearing up for what officials expect will be its crowning achievement: its inaugural Gay Days Fort Lauderdale, which runs from Nov. 25 to Dec. 1.
The weeklong event will feature daily pool parties hosted by marquee DJs, including ChiChi LaRue, Ryan Tiffin, and Citizen Jane, as well as a Gay Days Expo, which will bring together dozens of gay and lesbian travel, entertainment and other groups to promote their businesses.
Gay Days Fort Lauderdale will also feature a silent auction to raise proceeds to benefit local LGBT nonprofits, including the Pride Center, SunServe and Poverello.
Other citywide events are planned, according to organizers.
The host hotel will be the W Fort Lauderdale, providing a base that is expected to attract more upscale tourists, said Richard Gray, LGBT managing director of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau. Gray expects 15,000 people for the first-year event, generating an economic impact of $18 million.
Gay Days began as an informal, one-day celebration in Orlando 25 years ago and has since grown into weeklong events in Orlando and Las Vegas, drawing 170,000-plus attendees from around the world.
Fort Lauderdale’s longtime focus on the gay and lesbian travel community has certainly paid dividends: According to the CVB, 1.3 million LGBT visitors spent $1.5 billion in 2013.
“[Fort Lauderdale is] visible at international tourism events, and they promote the gay-friendly destination to clients. Having a designated managing director [Richard Gray] dedicated to the sales and marketing of the LGBT market is a huge asset,” said John Tanzella, president/CEO of the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA), the global travel network with headquarters in Fort Lauderdale that connects LGBT travelers and supporting businesses.
Gray, a former U.K. investment banker who relocated to Fort Lauderdale in the early 1990s after vacationing in the area for years, saw the potential in marketing the area as a gay-friendly destination. He approached the Greater Fort Lauderdale CVB in 1995 with an aggressive business plan and was hired to head the department as the first managing director of LGBT sales and marketing.
Today, his team invests over $1 million in promoting Fort Lauderdale as Florida’s largest and most popular gay capital, with the largest resident lesbian and gay community and most gay-owned and -operated businesses in the state, according to the CVB.
The CVB courts the LGBT traveler on multiple platforms, offering an LGBT-centric vacation planner on its website homepage; promoting events and messaging on social media; and taking its “Hello Sunny” campaign to cities like New York, London, Toronto and Buenos Aires to attract travelers to its beaches. The campaign kicks off this week in New York’s Times Square at the 2014 CBGB Music and Film Festival.
Tanzella said he expects Gay Days to lure more events and conferences to the city. The Southern Comfort Transgender Conference has already agreed to bring its 2015, 2016 and 2017 events to South Florida. The CVB is also coordinating several new events, including a Gay Family weekend next November.
“This event validates Fort Lauderdale as a top destination for LGBT travelers, who will come here and support destinations that support them,” said Tanzella.