Ft. Lauderdale Waves the Rainbow Flag for Gay Tourists

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — For a quarter of a century after Connie Francis crooned “Where the Boys Are” in a 1960 movie set in this resort city, civic boosters capitalized on the fame to make Fort Lauderdale the nation’s spring break capital. But this spring, the boys romping on the sandy beaches here and filling the bars and restaurants are more likely to be homosexual couples than college students.

The change from beer-swilling fraternity boys staging belly-flop and wet T-shirt contests to well-groomed, hand-holding men who favor art galleries and fancy restaurants was not accidental.

Beginning in 1985, with up to 350,000 collegians turning a Chamber of Commerce dream into a nightmare, the city adopted a successful campaign to discourage spring breakers. And for the last several years, the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention and Visitors Bureau has courted gay tourists. This spring, it placed full-page advertisements in two gay publications that say, “Greater Ft. Lauderdale rolls out the rainbow carpet.”

“We want to be known as a welcoming destination,” said Francine Mason, the bureau’s vice president for communications.

“This town has grown up,” said City Commissioner Jack Latona, who cited a $26-million oceanfront face-lift, along with ordinance changes that allowed outdoor dining for the first time, as making the city “more sophisticated, which is attractive to high-income gays.”

Latona helped persuade the bureau to invite travel writers from gay publications in the United States and Europe for a familiarization tour, and he has appeared in a promotional video that features gay bars and restaurants. While the bureau is taking these steps to woo homosexual tourists, Mason emphasized that the city also is making special pitches to African Americans, scuba divers, boaters and pre- and post-cruise vacationers, along with families.

The appeal to niche markets is paying off. Since the city cracked down on the college crowd--by enforcing laws governing overcrowded rooms, underage drinking and rowdy and lewd behavior--the number of tourists has nearly doubled, to 6.4 million last year.

More important, according to Mason, the tourist season has been extended from six weeks in the spring to year-round. A dozen years ago, hotel occupancy hit 85% to 90% in February and March, then tumbled to 40% to 50% in the summer and fall. Last year, while spring occupancy remained at earlier levels, the rest of the year ranged from 55% to 70%. Overall, occupancy of the city’s 28,000 hotel rooms averaged 71% last year, 10% higher than for 25,000 rooms in 1985.

While only 8% to 10% of current visitors are gay, they are big spenders, said Richard Thompson, executive director of the 1,320-member International Gay and Lesbian Travel Assn. A survey conducted for the visitors bureau here found that the 500,000 gay tourists a year who visit Fort Lauderdale spend about $1,000 each.

Because homosexual couples usually are DINKs--double income, no kids--they don’t have to be professionals to have ample discretionary income.

“Gay and lesbian travelers are the fastest-growing segment of the travel industry. We get 500 to 800 calls a month from consumers looking for gay-friendly travel destinations,” said Thompson, who recently returned from a travel fair in Berlin, one of seven trade shows he will attend this year.

Thompson, 50, who owned a mainstream travel agency on Cape Cod before moving to Florida for a second career with the gay and lesbian agency, said that as the demographics of gay travelers become better known, more and more airlines, cruise ships and resorts court them. He noted that five years ago, only three airlines paid dues to his association; this year, 57 are members.

A spokesman for Overlooked Opportunities of Chicago, which compiles a list of the top 10 gay travel destinations, said Fort Lauderdale is included along with South Beach as a single South Florida destination that ranks third behind San Francisco and Provincetown, Mass.

Commissioner Latona and the visitors bureau’s Mason credit Fort Lauderdale’s gay awareness to the efforts of hotelier Richard Gray, who seven years ago traded life as a New York investment banker in favor of owning a small motel within walking distance of the Atlantic.

Fort Lauderdale boasts 21 small gay-owned motels, 40 bars and many other gay-owned businesses, offering gay travelers “whatever they want, from leather to nudity,” said Gray, including a Friday night cocktail party for elderly gay men at Chardees Supper Club.