The Rainbow Connection

How hotels, airlines and travel brands are embracing the LGBTQ community-and its impressive market share

- Todd Plummer

LGBTQ TRAVEL HAS long existed on the periphery. Just 20 years ago, in the 2003 film Under the Tuscan Sun, Diane Lane’s character Frances Mayes fortuitously ends up on a group tour of Italy with a company called Gay & Away. Her tripmates are presented as a laugh line—stereotypical characters, on an unimaginative bus tour of Tuscany’s most touristy spots, every single one of them Caucasian, and none presented with any nuance or depth. It’s an outdated representation of diversity that by today’s standards doesn’t seem diverse at all.

But times have changed. LGBTQ travel is no longer relegated to the world of uninspired bus tours. Gay travelers are seeking more sophisticated—and costly—adventures.

“Our LGBTQ clients are traveling for a month or more at a time, especially those who do not have children,” says David Rubin, CEO of DavidTravel, an independent affiliate of Coastline Travel Advisors, a Virtuoso agency. With so many companies operating remotely since the pandemic—plus the modern ability to manage banking, homes and pretty much everything from afar—travelers are feeling empowered to live their best lives through extended periods of away time.