VEGAS INC Magazine - Latest Las Vegas business news, features and commentaries about gaming, tourism, real estate and more
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/36751
per person, compared with $1,616 for all travelers. The numbers require a savvy touch for marketers seeking to reach the LGBT community. Just as they must possess when it comes to crafting messages to target Hispanics, African-Americans or members of other distinct social groups, the sharpest message makers seek to avoid overly sexualized messages. “You don’t want to bounce between cliches, stereotyping and pandering,” says Washington, D.C.-based marketer Bob Witeck, who’s a pioneer in the segment. Nineteen years ago, American Airlines became Witeck’s first high-profile client to reach out to the LGBT community after the airline received negative publicity for its treatment of gay men returning from a Washington, D.C., march in which they were seeking equal rights. A flight attendant openly raised concerns as to whether the returning marchers were HIV positive. That prompted activists to complain to airline executives, who reached out to what’s now Witeck Combs Communications, which lists the gay and lesbian market among its niches. American Airlines recently produced a seven-minute video in conjunction with a nationwide project for teens struggling with their sexual identity. It was sparked by an autumn column by Seattle-based columnist Dan Savage, the video’s message, “It Gets Better,” is presented by a mix of airline employees. To be certain, LGBT travelers have always visited Las Vegas. “But people haven’t talked directly to them before,” Witeck says. “But as with any group, it’s foolish to treat members of the segment as a monolith. “If you dumb them down to merely be sexualized or imagine that their interests are only based on same-sex attraction, then you’re isolating them and not treating them like everyone else,” Witeck notes. “Don’t imagine them as just walking money.” Michael Weaver has looked at LGBT economic figures thousands of times, having spent 18 years with Caesars Entertainment, the company formerly known as Harrah’s Entertainment, a conservative, bottom-line- driven company that has long placed value on slot play rather than the high-risk tables of baccarat. The Caesars experience is generally conservative, low key, drawing upon customers generated by slot club play at its Midwest riverboats. You wouldn’t think of Caesars as a training ground for a man now considered one of the gurus of Strip gay marketing, but that’s exactly what Weaver has become. The “post-gay consumer marketing world” that he speaks of focuses on the wants and needs of the individuals rather than characteristics of demographic groups. Where Paisley’s Consumer Marketing Inc. speaks of travel proclivities of lesbians and gays, Weaver looks to the desires of consumers. “There are unmet needs we can innovate into. Everybody has certain needs. What makes them happy? What brings them joy?” Weaver left Caesars to join Wynn Resorts earlier this year, and now the 50-year-old, gay Midwest native speaks of the ubiquitous nature of the travel experience. It’s not necessarily about sexual orientation and all of the demographic data that implies. Rather, Weaver riffs, sounding much like a hip college marketing professor with a willing audience, “People buy psycho-graphically to fulfill a need they have.” If demographics focus on the group, psychographics study the individual consumer. Multiple consumers compose the larger group, he says, but, ultimately, it comes down to the individual, particularly in the digital age, when our personal wants and needs can be fulfilled by the tap of a key pad. | 18 JULY 2011 | She characterizes herself as “straight but not narrow, a gay man in a straight woman’s body.” Her mother was from Belize, her father from Mexico and Reyes believes that lineage gives her an understanding and respect for the needs of the outsider. She’s worked with Paisley’s Community Marketing, is familiar with the nuanced messaging of Witeck’s communications firm and she’s convinced that despite the current prohibition against gay marriage in Nevada, Las Vegas can and will become the center for LGBT honeymoons as New York and a slew of other states legalize the unions. The newlyweds will come here for all the reasons that travelers visit the Strip, and unlike Weaver, she remains focused on the appeal of the larger demographic. “The numbers show that the gay market is a higher educated market—two high- income earners in the same household often with no children. Isn’t that what we’re all searching for? It just makes good business sense.” Much of the effort can be found in the little things done by businesses of any size: the restaurants that ask whether two men or women wish to sit on the same side or opposite sides of a table, the hotel front-desk clerk who asks whether two men or women checking in together wish to have one or two beds, the cashiers who ask whether two men or women in line together want their items rung up together or separately. Quite simply, it’s a matter of respectful awareness. And those simple exchanges say as much or more about the business operators that offer them as the customers they’re serving. Such efforts also lead to repeat business and word-of-mouth exchanges that will prompt many more LGBT customers to shop, eat and stay at businesses that demonstrate such greater awareness. Back at the off-Strip Blue Moon Resort, several THE LURE At leſt and above, some examples of recent LVCVA print advertising campaigns targeting gay and lesbian tourists. Mya Reyes has worked with Weaver in his old and new jobs, and the LVCVA’s director of diversity marketing might not be familiar with her corporate counterparts new patter, but she’s aware of his past successes. A former Las Vegas television newscaster, Reyes has become a tireless salesperson for the travel and tourism agency. She’s a regular fixture at conventions, trade shows, corporate meetings, conferences and any other local, national and international venues that will lure LGBT customers to the Strip. She’s helped recruit the annual conference of the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, the OutServe Armed Forces Leadership Summit for actively serving LGBT military personnel and a Las Vegas version of the Gay Days celebrations that annually draws more than 150,000 people to Disney World, Disneyland and Florida’s Busch Gardens. male tourists sat around the pool debating where Las Vegas fits into the mix of tourism communities that aggressively target LGBT travelers. A voter-approved amendment to the Nevada Constitution a decade ago outlaws gay marriage, but the LVCVA is aggressively promoting gay honeymoons. A significant percentage of Las Vegas’ creative and intellectual power is driven by the gay community; yet, the casino industry was largely built by two anti-gay institutions—the Mob and the Mormon church. While the more enlightened gay getaway of Palm Springs evolved as a very private, residential stop for the Hollywood elite, Las Vegas adopted a much less libertarian approach to questions of sexual orientation. And Las Vegas lost out. The Blue Moon guests were familiar with the list of popular LGBT destinations: Palm Springs, Key West, South Beach, San Francisco, New York, Provincetown. One couple, two men in their early 60s, were in the final day of a five-day trip to Palm Springs and Las Vegas. John is divorced from his wife. Steve remains married to his, although she knows he’s bisexual. Both withheld their names, not wanting to tip-off friends and co-workers back home about their relationship. They reflected upon their recent travel experience. “In Palm Springs, it just feels right. That’s the gayest place I’ve ever been,” John said. “So open, so comfortable. Vegas is different. It’s not a gay mecca. It’s a gambling mecca.” Steve jumped in. “Vegas is so out there. But you wouldn’t be comfortable walking down the Strip holding hands. We walked past Palm Springs’ city hall holding hands, but we wouldn’t do that here. This place definitely has a different sensibility.” 21