Philadelphia's second-busiest airline has teamed up with the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corp. in a new $100,000 campaign - including online and print advertising - pitched at gay and lesbian vacationers.
Since 2003, GPTMC has spent $300,000 a year urging gay and lesbian travelers to come to Philadelphia: "Get Your History Straight and Your Nightlife Gay."
The effort has paid off, said the group's vice president of communications, Jeff Guaracino. The city is the 13th-most-visited U.S. destination by gay travelers, he said. Before 2006, it was not in the top 20.
Community Marketing Inc., a San Francisco company, estimates that gay travelers spend $233 a day, nearly twice as much as other overnight visitors.
Gay and lesbian tourists, who tend to be well-educated with above-average incomes, spend $70 billion a year in the United States on travel, research shows.
Gays, who are less likely to have obligations of children, often have more discretionary income.
Many companies and cities are competing for the gay travel dollar. Among airlines, American, Delta, JetBlue, Air Canada, Alaska, and Southwest all do marketing or have gay travel Web sites, with information about destinations of special interest to gay tourists.
Southwest broached a marketing partnership after learning about GPTMC's tourism campaign.
"We just thought it was the perfect opportunity," said Jena Atchison, segment marketing manager for Southwest. "Philadelphia was a new market for us. We were getting well-established with a lot of flights out of Philadelphia." The airline began service here in 2004.
In recent years, Southwest and GPTMC spent $125,000 promoting Philadelphia as diverse and gay-friendly. The airline launched its Web page targeting gay and lesbian business and leisure travelers to Philadelphia on Monday.
