Sydney tops for queer travellers

Sydney is still one of the world’s most popular destinations for gay and lesbian travelers, a new study has found.

The largest market research study of its kind, the Out Now Global survey sought to reveal the favourite places to visit for international lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender jetsetters in 18 countries. Most former studies had traditionally focused primarily on sampling just the LGBT community in the USA.

It’s being labelled a definitive global picture of where GLBT people were planning to visit for their holidays in the next three years.

With almost 40,000 respondents, as well as a comprehensive data set collected from the USA and Canada, the research also covered seven countries never before tested in the fast growing region of Latin America.

Samples were undertaken in 10 languages and in key markets in Europe, Japan and Australia via the Sydney Star Observer and Southern Star Observer.

“Out Now is delighted to be dramatically expanding the global knowledge base of tourism data with the LGBT2020 research study project,” Out Now CEO Ian Johnson said.

Out Now tested a range of destinations in all regions and compiled a global travel ranking. The results showed striking similarities across many markets.

New York ranks consistently as the number one destination LGBT travellers globally wish to visit in the next three years in North America, while London is a firm favourite for travellers from Europe, North America and Australia. There was a strong desire for South Americans to visit Paris, which lifted it the top of the LGBT city rankings for Europe.

Likewise, Sydney also made a near clean sweep in most of the countries tested.

There were a few surprises in the findings. France almost beat out the USA for the number one desired country to visit, and Argentina and Brazil both made it into the Top 10 must-see countries

Gay Ad Network CEO Mark Elderkin said the new data should prove useful to advertisers looking to reach LGBT travellers.

“Travel is one of the leading advertising categories across gay digital media platforms,” he said.

“This new data is a valuable and unique decision-making resource for the travel industry.”

info: Visit www.outnowconsulting.com for a full list of the study’s findings and rankings.