October 11, 2014
Fort Lauderdale Named LGBT Destination of the Year
Kilian Melloy READ TIME: 1 MIN.
Fort Lauderdale was recently named "Destination of the Year" by the 2014 ManAboutWorld Editors' Choice Awards, which recognizes the very best in gay travel. Fort Lauderdale is also the city with the highest concentration of same-sex couple households in the U.S.
"Gay-popular since the 70s, Fort Lauderdale is still on the rise while other gay destinations are mainstreaming...with its white sand gay beach, 16 exclusively gay guesthouses (the most of any destination), and a nightlife scene that's busy seven nights a week," wrote ManAboutWorld editor, Ed Salvato.
The greater Fort Lauderdale area features hundreds of gay-owned and operated businesses and one of the nation's largest Pride Centers, the world's first AIDS museum, and the Stonewall Museum, one of the only permanent spaces in the U.S. devoted to exhibitions relating to LGBT history.
Meanwhile the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau (GFLCVB) has been supportive of the LGBT community since 1996, when it allocated a $35,000 gay marketing budget to create its first dedicated LGBT ad campaign and become the first Convention and Visitors Bureau with an LGBT-centric vacation planner and the first LGBT website on a CVB homepage.
"We have been out, proud and proactively welcoming LGBT visitors since 1995, and this recognition only further motivates us to keep on bringing more targeted LGBT events to our warm, welcoming and diverse destination," said Nicki E. Grossman, president of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Kilian Melloy serves as EDGE Media Network's Associate Arts Editor and Staff Contributor. His professional memberships include the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, the Boston Online Film Critics Association, The Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association, and the Boston Theater Critics Association's Elliot Norton Awards Committee.
