Mr. Schuurman

Diversity Issues

Gay Marketing: Creating Partnerships

By Darrell Schuurman, Co-Founder, Canadian Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce

In my previous articles, I've talked about the benefits of targeting the gay and lesbian travel market, and what this market looks for when travelling. However, when trying to reach a new market like this for your property, it can be somewhat overwhelming, requiring both time and financial commitments. Depending on the size of your property, you may not have a sufficient supply of resources to put behind your new entry into the gay and lesbian market. That's where partnerships can play an important supportive role. By forming partnerships within your city or region, you can overcome some of those challenges and thereby facilitate your move into the new market.

Partnerships can take a variety of forms, with an array of partners. There are the traditional partners which could include other businesses within the tourism industry (such as a transportation partner or a bar and restaurant) or your local or regional DMO. But there are the non-traditional partnerships that could prove just as beneficial for your entry into the gay and lesbian travel market. Partnering with gay and lesbian groups and associations (such as business associations, Prides, and other not-for-profits) helps you to demonstrate your support and build closer ties with the local community within your city or region. Recently, Tourism Toronto, Tourism Niagara, and Ontario Tourism partnered with the Ontario Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce to host a panel discussion on gay tourism. The outcome was not only a better understanding of the opportunities available for industry, but a chance for industry, DMOs, and non-traditional partners to work together to begin the development of a regional marketing strategy.

The key to looking for partners when entering the gay and lesbian travel market is to ensure your goals are strategically aligned. Your motivators for targeting the market should be similar for the partnership to be most successful and see the greatest returns. Reputation is an essential element. As I've highlighted in previous articles, the gay and lesbian consumer is very loyal towards those companies that have a proven track record of being supportive, and working with partners that have a strong reputation will assist you in gaining the support of the market. Keep in mind, however, that the opposite is also true, and if you're partnering with a company that has a poor reputation, this may have a poor reflection on your property.

There are distinct advantages for creating partnerships when trying to reach the gay and lesbian travel market. Perhaps one of the most motivating advantages is cost sharing. By partnering with destination marketing organizations and other businesses within the industry, you can pool financial resources to allow the development and implementation of a gay and lesbian strategy. For example, when a region is considering targeting the gay travel market, research studies are often conducted in partnership with both industry and government. This allows all partners to have a much better understanding of the market at a significant cost savings than if they had undertaken the research on their own. Another example is in promotional activities, where regions have the ability to pool their marketing dollars to create campaigns that benefit all partners. Through co-op advertising, a variety of businesses are able to promote themselves to a much larger consumer base as compared to the results from an individual property based campaign. Not only is this done largely at the local level, but this has also been successful at the national level. The Canadian Tourism Commission has activated campaigns with partners like Air Canada, Fairmont Hotels, and Tourism Montreal. The result is a significantly larger 'bang for their buck' by allowing them to have a greater reach in the marketing campaign.

A second advantage to partnerships is the sharing of resources, beyond just financial. Properties don't necessarily have the ability to dedicate the full time staff and resources required when entering a new niche market like the gay and lesbian travel market. By pooling resources, such as manpower, time, and specific skills, properties are able to accomplish more than what an individual business can do on its own.

Through partnering, businesses are also able to benefit by tapping into expertise of their partners. Businesses new to the gay and lesbian travel market especially can benefit by sharing of ideas, and learning from the successes, and even failures, of others that may have been in the market longer. They may have a better understanding of the market specific to your destination, and can assist to set new action plans/strategies based on historic activities. A great example of this can be seen in Montreal where Tourism Montreal has been active within the gay and lesbian travel market for several years and they have become one of the leaders in the market; hotels that are interested in beginning to target this market are wise to work closely with Tourism Montreal to learn from their expertise.

Another advantage of partnerships is obviously added exposure to your destination. By working with other businesses within the industry, you are in essence promoting your city or region to gay and lesbian travellers from across the country. However, if your local or regional DMO is not currently participating in targeting the gay and lesbian market, your property and the destination on a whole is losing out to other significant opportunities that are available. For example, there are numerous gay and lesbian related conferences that happen every year across North America which could directly benefit your property, but without active involvement by your DMO, you may never see those opportunities. With the weight of strong industry partnerships, you can leverage those relationships to encourage your DMO or local government to become more active within the gay and lesbian market. By showing the direct benefits of your combined efforts and highlighting the opportunities that are available, your DMO should be willing to invest resources into this market.

So whether your property is just starting out in the gay and lesbian travel market, or has been active within it for several years, working together with partners is key. Leverage the power of partnerships to learn from others in the industry, to share resources, both human and financial, and to encourage support from your DMO. Most properties will treat this market as a niche market, and thereby not allocate sufficient energies and resources to really assist you in making a large entry and reaping larger returns. Partnering addresses these concerns and enables you to be much more successful. The end result of partnerships is greater awareness and financial return for your property.

Darrell Schuurman is co-founder of the Canadian Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, and is Director of the tourism program. He is responsible for improving opportunities for gay and gay-friendly tourism-based businesses through research, market development, and promotion of Canada as a gay travel destination. Darrell has worked in the accommodation, transportation, tourism, and travel sectors of the industry. He now works with Canada's national passenger railway, VIA Rail, as Manager of Market Development. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce concentrating in Tourism from the University of Calgary. Mr. Schuurman can be contacted at 416-761-5151 or darrell@cglcc.ca Extended Bio...

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