Southwest promotes Philadelphia to gay fliers

Looking for creative ways to lure travelers in a recession, Southwest Airlines Co. has added a page on its travel Web site promoting flights to gay-friendly Philadelphia.

The site enables fliers to combine airfare with 11 hotels known as gay-friendly in the City of Brotherly Love.

"Airlines are beginning to recognize that there is a major presence in the gay community in travel," Philadelphia Gay News publisher Mark Segal said. "Market research shows that gays travel 21/2 times more for leisure than the average family man or woman."

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.

While Southwest also tailors marketing to Hispanic, African American, and Asian travelers, the city-specific Web page is its first, Atchison said.

Ads will begin next week and run through June in regional and local gay and lesbian newspapers and Web sites in Chicago; Los Angeles; Denver; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; and Columbus, Ohio.

"No airline has ever before partnered with a destination and said, 'Go to gay Philly, gay San Francisco, or Florida,' " Guaracino said. "Southwest is taking it to the next level."

Segal, of the Philadelphia Gay News, said Philadelphia was "the most gay-friendly city in America other than maybe San Francisco."

"The gay-rights struggle started here," he said. "The first public demonstration for gay rights was in Philadelphia on July 4, 1965."

Southwest hopes potential customers who see the online ads will click immediately to Southwest's new Web page to see specifics about fares, flights, Philadelphia, and gay-friendly hotels.

What does "gay-friendly" mean? Where same-sex couples can register in a hotel without quizzical looks, insulting questions, or rude behavior, Guaracino said.

"Any specific cultural touch point we can do to talk to the customer is imperative," Atchison said. "When market research shows that 90 percent of gay and lesbian travelers go out of their way to support businesses that actively market to them, it's important."