Gay Games IX Bid and Beyond

By Fred Kuhr

No other state is marketing to LGBT tourists as aggressively as Massachusetts

For Ken Brissette, bringing LGBT travelers to Massachusetts is personal.

The director of creative marketing for the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism (MOTT), Brissette is openly gay, and his accent quickly reveals his local roots.

“I am so proud of Massachusetts,” Brissette said during a recent interview. “We were the pioneers, we made history when we became the first state to allow same-sex couples to marry. And we want to continue making history.”

The next history-making step Brissette is looking for may come if the Federation of Gay Games chooses Boston as the host city for Gay Games IX scheduled for 2014. To win, however, Brissette and his colleagues must fight off rival bids from Washington, D.C., and Cleveland, Ohio.

But a move to bring the Gay Games—approximately 35,000 people and their tourism dollars—to Boston is not all that MOTT has up its sleeves. With gay-targeted print and online advertising, a new slogan (“Massachusetts: It’s all here, for everyone”) and a new “microsite” targeting LGBT travelers (www.lgbtmassvacation.com), Massachusetts is far and away in the forefront when it comes to reaching out to LGBT tourists.

Over $70 billion at stake

Actually, it’s no surprise many state tourism boards steer clear of explicitly targeting gays and lesbians. Just last year, a South Carolina state employee was forced to resign after gay-specific ads promoting the Palmetto State were placed in the London subway proclaiming, “South Carolina is so gay.” The cost of the advertising contract—which was swiftly cancelled—was a mere $5,000.

Even states like California and Florida—which do promote LGBT tourism on their websites—don’t do nearly as much as Massachusetts does on this front. California’s site, for example, only highlights gay enclaves in San Francisco, West Hollywood, San Diego and Sacramento. Efforts in Florida were hampered by homophobic remarks made by Jim Naugle—then mayor of usually gay-friendly Fort Lauderdale—in 2007.

But in Massachusetts, everyone is seemingly on board. Not only that, but statewide efforts do not focus simply on gay meccas like Boston, Provincetown and Northampton, but on the state in its entirety.

For Betsy Wall, MOTT’s executive director, being a national leader on LGBT tourism outreach is a no-brainer. Although it’s too soon to calculate how many tourism dollars her agency’s efforts will bring to Massachusetts, she cites the national 13th Annual Gay and Lesbian Tourism Survey, released last year by San Francisco-based Community Marketing Inc (CMI). Based on tourism industry data from the U.S. Department of Commerce and CMI’s polling sample, the annual economic impact of LGBT travelers in the United States alone is approximately $70.3 billion—that’s billion, with a B. Why wouldn’t Wall want Massachusetts to get (even more than) its fair share of that rainbow pot of gold?

“We don’t see any reason to sit on the sidelines,” said Wall, “especially given our marriage equality laws. We have a great story to tell about Massachusetts, and we are telling it.”

Wall emphasized, however, that she did not want to ghettoize gay and lesbian tourists by only promoting gay neighborhoods and stereotypically gay attractions like nightlife. “We want to make sure that people know that Massachusetts—all of Massachusetts—is welcoming to everyone.” So while, yes, there are places and events targeted to the community—like Out In The Park at Six Flags New England near Springfield—there are activities like the Berklee BeanTown Jazz Festival in Boston or hiking in the Berkshire Mountains that are not gay-specific but can be just as appealing.

That outlook is what led MOTT to take its slogan “Massachusetts: It’s all here” and add “for everyone.”

But why specifically promote mainstream events and attractions to the LGBT community? “People like to be invited,” said Wall. “We just want to make the point that Massachusetts is an open and welcoming place. Yes, you can go see Plymouth Rock or walk the Freedom Trail, but then you can also go to a really cool street fair like Pride.”

To do the kind of outreach and marketing MOTT wanted to do, however, Wall and Brissette knew they would need some outside help. So they hired Boston-based GCI Marketing, which gained notoriety for its incredibly successful campaigns marketing London and Great Britain to LGBT tourists.

With a $50,000 contract as an investment, MOTT hired GCI’s Serge Gojkovich to ramp up the state’s LGBT travel outreach. His first move was to add “for everyone” to the state’s slogan. That alone has been a success, he said. “On online ads I have that logo on, the click-throughs”—how many times people click on a banner ad on a website—“are much higher.”

Microsite promotes Bette Davis birthplace

The major project, however, was the microsite. A microsite is a web page or group of web pages functioning as a supplement to the primary web page. In MOTT’s case, www.lgbtmassvacation.com is a microsite of the agency’s primary site, www.massvacation.com.

Brissette and Gojkovich travelled to the state’s six tourism regions (Western Mass., Central Mass., North of Boston & Greater Merrimack Valley, Greater Boston, South of Boston, and Cape Cod & the Islands) to gather information. As a result, the microsite showcases each region, but with an LGBT twist.

For example, if you click on “North of Boston,” you’ll find the customary general information on Salem and its legendary witch trials. But you’ll also find distinctly gay-focused information about Lowell—usually promoted as Jack Kerouac’s birthplace—noted here as the birthplace of Bette Davis. (The house is located in the Highlands section of the city at 22 Chester Street, in case you were wondering.)

MOTT’s use of the Internet does not stop there. Online social networking tools are seemingly the new frontier for marketers, so there’s a Facebook page (www.facebook.com/pages/LGBT-Massachusetts/ 93015636176?ref=ts) with almost 2,000 fans, a Twitter page (www.twitter.com/LGBT_MASS) with about 200 followers, and a blog (launched only about two months ago), which feeds into both the Facebook and Twitter pages.

Since the microsite was launched on Jan. 15, it has been visited over 42,000 times, according to Gojkovich. Additionally, an online contest offering up two free round-trip tickets to Massachusetts is on track to have about 10,000 entries when all is said and done. Those entries will allow Gojkovich and MOTT to create a database of LGBT travelers not only for direct marketing purposes, but also survey them to find out just what the economic impact on the state will be.

Local Agencies Help Out

The state agency is not alone in this quest to bring LGBT tourism dollars to the state. A number of local and regional agencies work behind the scenes as well.

The gay mecca of Provincetown, for example, has a number of agencies on its side, including the Provincetown Tourism Office (PTO), the Visitor Services Board and the Provincetown Business Guild.

Robert Sanborn, owner of the Prince Albert Guest House and the new director of the PTO, says his department is currently focusing on convincing the LGBT community to come to Provincetown year-round, not just during the high-season summer months.

“We are also currently focused on getting the word out nationwide that P’town is the destination of choice for same-sex weddings,” said Sanborn. “The Town Clerk just recently opened up an office on Commercial Street on Fridays for the primary purpose of making it easier to obtain a marriage license in P’town. And some of my advertising budget this year will be specifically targeted to promote P’town as a same-sex wedding destination.”

Another goal is to reach out to younger LGBT travelers. To do that, Sanborn turned to the Internet. “We recently rolled out our new website—www.ProvincetownTourismOffice.org—and our Facebook page. We are trying to reach a younger demographic, folks who have never experienced P’town before.”

While Provincetown has a built in LGBT following, the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce (CCCC) works to bring gay and lesbian travelers not just to P’town, but up and down the Cape as well. Its work has been inspired, in part, by what the statewide agency is doing.

“With the commonwealth’s recent emphasis on certain niche markets, especially LGBT visitors, we feel we are well positioned to capture more market share,” said Kristen Mitchell, vice president of marketing at the CCCC. “MOTT has made significant strides in its efforts to market to the LGBT community, and we have tried to work alongside them to leverage our own LGBT-friendly reputation.”

This effort has included launching a microsite at www.capecodchamber.org/GLBT-travel, which has information on everything from golfing on the Cape to, yes, weddings (although the link to its wedding page shows a bride and groom).

For Mitchell, the Internet is the new frontier in reaching the LGBT market. “The largest challenge we face … is limited advertising dollars, which is why we have so heavily relied on the more affordable option of online marketing.”

Online marketing is not only cheaper, but it allows agencies to tailor the message to particular audiences, including the LGBT community.

“General market messages are heard by everyone, but not always listened to by most. But segmenting and personalizing gives a destination like Massachusetts a leg up in speaking directly and persuasively to LGBT couples and tourists,” according to Bob Witeck, CEO and co-founder of Washington, D.C.-based Witeck-Combs Communications, a public relations and marketing firm that focuses on the LGBT community.

Massachusetts is number one—again

But why is Massachusetts so far ahead of other states in doing this kind of outreach? Witeck has some ideas: “1. Having the honor of being first to extend legal marriage has a shelf life. … [Massachusetts is] trying to capitalize on being a leader and first to market. 2. There is little or no political risk to Massachusetts leaders or the state’s destination marketers. … 3. The likely cost of this campaign, comparatively speaking, is probably not very expensive, given the per capita cost of advertising in all relevant gay media. 4. Massachusetts knows that LGBT tourists are not wealthier. However, even with the economy beaten up, leisure travel and wedding celebrations still take a priority for gay households.”

A recent survey by Witeck-Combs and Harris Interactive demonstrates that last point. While heterosexuals on average said they were likely to spend $1,500 on leisure and business travel between May and August of this year, LGBT consumers were on average likely to spend $2,300 during the same period.

Back in the Bay State, tourism officials are hoping some of those tourism dollars will be spent here at home in 2014 – especially if Boston is chosen to host the Gay Games. (The vote for the host city will take place on Sept. 29 during the Federation of Gay Games’ annual meeting in Cologne, Germany, host city of Gay Games VIII 2010.)

Chicago certainly benefited from hosting the Gay Games in 2006, according to David Paisley, senior project manager at CMI. In the organization’s annual Gay & Lesbian Tourism Survey, Chicago was far down the list of U.S. destinations for LGBT travelers. In last year’s survey, however, Chicago placed fifth for leisure travel and first for business travel.

“If you put more money into it”—promoting tourism to LGBT travelers—“your ranking goes up,” said Paisley, pointing to other success stories in Philadelphia and Las Vegas. “If you drop the ball or pull money out, your ranking goes down.”

With that in mind, Brissette and the rest of Boston 2014—the grassroots organization spearheading the Gay Games bid (and online at www.boston2014.com)—hosted the Federation’s site selection committee in early August, culminating with a rally at The Estate in downtown Boston.

But regardless of the Gay Games outcome, Massachusetts officials are holding firm on what Gojkovich calls the state’s tourism philosophy. “We are letting people know that Massachusetts has so many things to offer, whether you are gay, straight, bisexual, whatever,” he said. “We’ve got Boston, the Berkshires, P’town, Northampton, but also hiking, biking, kayaking. So many different experiences, and everyone is welcome, no matter what.”