California's Top Spots for Gay Travelers
The Seattle Times
By Seattle Times Travel staff
June 22, 2008San Francisco, West Hollywood, Palm Springs and San Diego
are among the top four favored California destinations for gay and lesbian
travelers, according to a recent Travel Industry Association survey.
And with last week's launch of same-sex marriages, the four are
trumpeting (in some cases loudly) just how favored they are and how much
they have to offer in terms of wedding rites, honeymoons and travel
opportunities for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities.
In Los Angeles, West Hollywood's marketing and visitors bureau says
that community has the state's largest gay and lesbian population and the
largest Gay Pride festival on the West Coast, and includes LA's most
popular gay nightclubs and businesses — all great reasons, it says, to
spend some honeymoon time there.
To the east, Palm Springs, with its abundance of gay-and-lesbian hotels
and resorts, is one of the top gay and lesbian vacation destinations in
the U.S. and is offering itself as the ultimate honeymoon destination. The
city's tourism Web site calls Palm Springs "America's Gay Oasis."
San Diego most likely is the sleeper here, although its official
tourism Web site offers "San Diego from Gay to Z," including a contest to
win a trip there to get married.
And then there's San Francisco.
At the city's tourism Web site, there's a letter from San Francisco
Visitors and Convention Bureau president Joe D'Alessandro, who says,
"There has never been a prouder moment for gender equality. Personally,
being able to say 'I do' to my life partner is something I only dreamed
about before and it will finally come true in 2008. I welcome all couples
who share that dream to join us in San Francisco this year!"
Included in San Francisco's site are links to how to get marriage
licenses.
No doubt each of these destinations, and several others in the state,
has an eye toward a new study from the Williams Institute at the UCLA
School of Law, which predicts that same-sex marriages "will bring nearly
$700 million to the California wedding industry and pump almost $65
million in new revenue into the state budgets over the next three years."
Among their other predictions: About half of California's 103,000
same-sex couples will marry in the next three years, and nearly 70,000
same-sex couples from others states will do the same thing. |