Pink money turns out to be green after all

March 18, 2006

Guest Post by Morbo

Here’s a story that gives me hope for the future: The cities of Houston and Dallas are locked in a fierce competition over which can get more money from gay travelers.

You read that right. Two cities in Texas want gay people to come visit them.

Look, I don’t want to engage in any stereotyping here, but the demographics don’t lie: Gay couples tend to have high incomes, averaging $87,000 a year. They also travel a lot.

Tourism bureaus are not blind to this fact. As something called the Internet Broadcasting System reported recently, Dallas “recently made headlines by creating a direct link to gay travel on the Dallas Convention and Visitors Bureau website.” Houston is now playing catch up. In Dallas, Visitors Bureau Chief Executive Officer Phillip Jones said, “Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender travelers spend $65 billion a year on travel and we want to make sure Dallas positions itself to take advantage of that.”

The religious right must be having fits. Conservative Christians take vacations too, of course, but there are only so many creation science museums and Thomas Kinkade outlet stores in the country. The fundies, with their huge families and mandatory tithing, are often strapped for cash and do things on the cheap anyway. There are more lucrative targets out there.

Ironically, Houston has a bigger gay-rights parade than Dallas, yet Dallas looks to have the edge. How did it happen? Erik Olenchak, a gay Houstonian, told KPRC-TV in Houston that the city has an image problem. “We have an image that isn’t particularly open-minded and that takes its toll on travel dollars,” Olenchak said.

I’ll bet it does. I’m half Irish and right-handed. If I heard that the people in Houston were constantly running down half-Irish, right-handed people, I wouldn’t want to spend my money there either. I’d go to the city whose website announced, “We welcome the half Irish who are right-handed and have great activities for them. Visit our great half-Irish, right-handed neighborhoods! Click here for more info.”

We all know that real religion of most Americans is Mammonism. I’ve often wondered if Americans in the Bible Belt would be willing to put aside their prejudices to make a few bucks. My guess is they will.

And if we’re really lucky, Texas homophobes, while learning to like gay money, will realize that the people who are giving it to them aren’t so bad either.

March 18, 2006 at 10:00 am

Hey, you may be surprised at just how “progressive” all this fly over country is…

If you’re not scared that you might want to stay, come visit.

Houston and Dallas are just discovering what advertizers (e.g., the Fortune 500) learned long ago – gay money is exactly like straight money. Actually, they’re not “just discovering” … they’ve known it all along, but they’re just now beginning to shake their prejudices (homophopia, bible-thumpin’ non-Christlike religion, fear of the ‘different’, etc.) in favor their deeper passion, greed.

Look, I don’t want to engage in any stereotyping here, but the demographics don’t lie: Gay couples tend to have high incomes, averaging $87,000 a year.

Care to site a source on that? It sounds like a morphing of the old, discredited, survey of readers of upscale urban gay magazines (who, of course, would be just the people travel agenencies would target).

Hey, quite frankly, $87K isn’t really that much for a couple… Of any persuasion. “Average” means some are lower, some are higher. Gay folks _generally_ have an added benefit of not being breeders, so they have more disposable income, on average, given similar financial sitautions to begin with. However, I’m suspecting that the author of the original material didn’t do enough research tho… Saw the words “gay,” “travel” and “Texas,” and jumped to a stereotyped conclusion.

As one half of a gay couple (legally married in Canada, thank you), we fit that demographic, though I know many couples who don’t. I’m a reasonably well-paid computer support tech, and hubby is an attorney with the state. Frankly, if we only had a combined income of $87K we couldn’t afford the mortgage payments on our current home, let alone take a decent vacation every year.

Texas is definitely NOT on the desirable itinerary list, though, in spite of their sudden touting of diversity.

In the early ’80s had an extremely wealthy Arab graduate student who, for the summer, decided to drive his wife and two young children, in their brand new Oldsmobile, all around the United States so they could get know the country. In the “red states” they were routinely turned away from restaurants and hotels with epithets which included “Messican” and worse.

I thought all that needed to be said about the prejudices of Texans, specifically, were uttered by none other than Barbara Bush during the Katrina evacuation.

Michael W, congratulations to you and yours on living in a civilized nation.

Hey, quite frankly, $87K isn’t really that much for a couple… Of any persuasion.

Well, it’s about 25% ($22K) above the Median (1/2 above, 1/2 below) family of four income according to the US Census Site. On the other hand, it is about 50% above the Alabama level – and I know we have gay couples here.

The point is, I’m pretty sure there are no dependable surveys of gay couple incomes in the US.

At another blog I read a similar topic came up and one of the commentors made a valid point. It’s not the destination that worries a lot of gay travelers, it’s getting there, especially if they are traveling by car. Metropolitan areas are allegedly more tolerant of gays, it’s going through the rural areas that they fear.

This was something that I had never considered before. When you fit into a mainstream demographic such as white, middle class, straight male there are a lot of things that are taken for granted. I guess that this is all part of defining my liberal values, learning to see life through the eyes of another.

FWIW — My niece, who is gay, is considering leaving my city which I had assumed to be fairly gay-tolerant and going to Seattle which she says is a lot more tolerant towards gays. We’ve got a lot of work on our tolerance issues in this country.

Ed and anyone else. An interesting book that I just started “Sundown Towns” by James W. Loewen, might provide an interesting perspective on this topic. The book details how many towns in America had either official or unofficial laws that blacks weren’t allowed inside their city limits after sundown. According to the author this phenomenon was from coast-to-coast and existed mainly outside of the Southern states, go figure.

You would think they would just go to Austin.

(I’ve never been to Texas so I’m only assuming that Austin, known for being a liberal center and with a large, vibrant cultural and musical scene, would be more tolerant and welcoming to gays. Texans feel free to educate me 🙂

Re: #1 We know. Believe it or not, a lot of us actually do live in the flyover country.

The red-state/blue-state narrative is a little deceptive because, looking at the map, one assumes there are no liberals in the red areas, no conservatives in the blue areas. In fact we’re everywhere. Democrats are still getting elected to state-level positions all across red-state America. And most people fall far outside the FoxNews worldview of being either hardcore Sean Hannity/Bill O’Reilly vicious archconservative or blathering latte-sipping, effete liberal. Most people actually agree on far more than that worldview would have us believe.

Thanks, Ed, but I should mention that we live in the Ft. Lauderdale area, after living in Seattle for 10 years. We were one of the first couples to register for domestic partner recognition when the city established it (we even made the evening news on a couple of stations). Fourteen-plus years and counting. We went to Vancouver, BC, so that our friends from Seattle could attend the ceremony held at the park (Peace Arch Nat’l Park??) on the border. We were going to do the ceremony with the officiator on the Canadian side of the border and us on the other side as a political statement, but it wasn’t photogenic. We chose a nice arbor instead.

Okay, there’s got to be some kind of joke to make about a half-Irish right hander discussing gay parades the day after NY’s mega St. Paddy’s day parade was the subject of controversy for anti-gay Nazi rhetoric….

“Texans feel free to educate me”

Well, Rian, as an ex-Dallasite I can tell you that Dallas has quite a large gay community. I read somewhere some years ago that it was even larger than, say, San Francisco’s, which city has sort of a “rep” for being a gay stronghold.

But Austin would still be my choice if I had to go back to Texas. Go there if you like things laid back, open, and tolerant. Go to Dallas if you like money, because the place is swimming in it.

I don’t really have comment to make about the rivalry for “gay” bucks or the fundy’s reaction to it. What I did find myself asking, having once lived once in Dallas for ten years and having visited Houston on business, why on earth anyone would choose to vacation in Houston or Dallas (barring a visit to friends or relatives which could be justified).

Several gay friends have responded to the campaign – e-mailing the organizers that they’ll be going to Massachussets instead given the anti-gay legislation recently passed in Texas. Next they’ll ask people to just send in their checks directly without tainting the state with their physical presence.

If they were serious about attracting the vacationers, they might do more to create the perception that it’s a place where equality was valued.

I’d like to see the source for that $87K as well. How do we know that the statistics aren’t skewed toward self-identified gay couples (as opposed to all gay couples)? Closeted couples wouldn’t be included in the average.

And couldn’t economic security be one of the factors that allows a couple to feel comfortable enough to self-identify in what might otherwise be a prohibitively hostile environment? So, if you’re poor (and can’t afford to risk your job, or move to a more welcoming environment), your less-than-$87K-income doesn’t enter into the calculation.

On the other hand, I guess if you’re vacationing as a gay couple, that’s pretty self-identifying right there. So for the purposes of the marketers, it might not matter. But this is just guessing. Without more info on the methodology, I’m still dubious about the statistic generally.

I have to agree with an above poster… I’ve been to Midland in August. I _do not_ wish to return. Sheesh, that was one helluva big ball of fire in the sky, and it seemed to remain about 10″ above my head…

Thing is, I don’t wanna go to Massachusetts either.

Wow. For people with liberal minds I am extremely surprised at the comments.

I live in Houston, the forth largest city in the country. We have a democrat Mayor, second term.
Sure we have Tom Delay, but he is 40 miles and in suburbia. Large city are, and will always be liberal. Just because you had a business meeting here two years ago for 3 days in suburbia doesn’t mean you are qualified to comment about traveling to a particular city. Midland does not quality as a Houston premier.

The point I am making is there is a huge gay population here. It is a section of town situated between Rice Village (Rice University), River Oaks (home of Bush senior), and the trendy downtown/midtown areas. The land is some of the most coveted in the city and home to the most trendy restaurants, shops, bars, and clubs. It is the place to be in Houston.

Houston takes great pride in it tolerance of not only gays, but immigrants (all immigrants), and every other oddity tradition red staters hate. We love all people.

So please before you judge us, realize that not so long ago, before Bush, we had female democrat for a governor. How many of you blue staters with the prejudice comments can make that claim ?

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