Agenda.Lgbt Tourism Report
July 25, 2016
The fact that one of the most famous residents of the city 'Tom of Finland' was a gay artist of major renown - both during his lifetime and since - is just one of the many tourism assets available to the destination when working on LGBT travel marketing.
There are a number of key reasons why this great city destination in the North achieves so much in the field of LGBT tourism development.
Here are a few LGBT travel marketing success tips we can all learn from.
1. Consistency
As Out Now's CEO, Ian Johnson - recognised as one of the world's 'Top 10 Diversity Consultants' by the Global Diversity List, supported by The Economist - says:
"Commitment to the LGBT market, over years rather than months, is one necessary element to LGBT business development success."
Helsinki has been a leader in LGBT travel development, year-after-year, for almost a decade.
The official Helsinki tourist bureau CVB - Visit Helsinki - has worked closely with Out Now for years in various ways to make sure that it captures an above-average share of the powerful LGBT tourism market.
2. Research the market
This work has included fundamental market appraisals of the LGBT travel market and its existing perceptions and market preferences for travel.
Out Now has worked over many years now with Visit Helsinki to track consumer product and leisure preferences for travel to the destination.
Such understanding - through desk and original LGBT market research - has helped Out Now guide Visit Helsinki in quite specific directions in relation both to product and to tailored communications. By understanding that 'one-size' does not fit all LGBT travel consumers when it comes to product and communications, Visit Helsinki has been able to position strategically - and cost-effectively - to maximize the return-on-investment from their LGBT travel market spend.
3. Tailor to specific target markets
For example, Out Now's market research revealed that German LGBT travel preferences among those wanting to visit Helsinki are markedly different from the preferences of Dutch, British and North American LGBT travelers.
This insight was able to be utilized to inform the communications tactical messaging employed when targeting each of these specific national LGBT travel markets.
In addition, LGBT women travelers can often exhibit different tourism leisure activity preferences than LGBT men.
Out Now's research has been important in guiding both tactics and strategies as Visit Helsinki has expanded its targeted reach into LGBT travel markets across the world.
4. Train staff and get Certified
Out Now has built the world's largest LGBT-Welcome 'ecosystem' through the powerful interplay of its online training modules and management workshops - in its Learn.LGBT training system - along with its OutNow.TravelCertification program.
| Out Now team training JW Marriott managers in Mexico. |
Such training is complemented with online training at Learn.LGBT for hotel customer-facing staff who train in French, German, Spanish or English languages on practical 'do's and don'ts', getting past stereotypes, things to say - or not say to a gay or lesbian or transgender guest - and much more.
The most recent hotel to become OutNow.TravelCertified in Finland is the boutique Klaus K hotel - which is also part of the new promotion campaign currently running in German, Netherlands and UK markets for Helsinki: focusing on Tom of Finland and gay men.
TOMORROW: Agenda.LGBT highlights some recent case study tourism marketing examples showing how Visit Helsinki continues to successfully expand its global LGBT travel market impacts.
© 2016 Out Now. All rights reserved. Out Now® is a registered trademark of Out Now, a company registered in the Netherlands. "Out Now", "OutNow" and all related words, marks and logos are trademarks of Out Now, Netherlands.
