The season kicks off March 1-2, with Pride Fort Lauderdale at Holiday Park, an outdoor festival and concert featuring '80s pop stars including Sheena Easton, Lisa Lisa and Tiffany. The agency is co-sponsoring the fifth annual Gay Polo Week, this April in Wellington. And Discover Palm Beach County, that area's tourism agency, has also been working to court LGBT visitors with big events. There are very few resort destinations that boast hundreds and hundreds of LGBT-owned businesses, and the community here is a very big draw."Ībout four years ago, Miami Beach opened its LGBT Visitor Center to provide information on local events and art exhibits. "Each year, we keep seeing more and more LGBT travelers coming. "We are growing internally, and the community is growing," said Richard Gray, managing director of the LGBT market for the tourism bureau. But overall in 2013, the county welcomed about 1.3 million LGBT travelers who spent about $1.5 billion in area restaurants, hotels, attractions and shops, according to the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau. Though Broward doesn't track how many LGBT travelers visit during the spring and summer months. The tourism bureau has also folded its LGBT message into its more mainstream "Hello Sunny" marketing in other cities. cities promoting greater Fort Lauderdale. The bureau has a "Beach-on-Wheels" display - with sand and models tossing beach balls - that stops at major U.S. Strong marketing campaigns aimed at gay vacationers can be traced back to 1996, when the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau took out an ad in The Advocate magazine touting the city's hotels, restaurants and beaches for gay travelers. South Florida has done a good job of self-promotion.
And 2012 Census numbers, released in October 2013, showed that greater Fort Lauderdale led the United States with the highest concentration of same-sex households. Last year, Wilton Manors was named "top gayborhood" in the country by ManAboutWorld, a gay digital magazine. The region has become known as a must-visit destination for gays and lesbians, community leaders say.