Travel Gay Canada set to launch new site

With a new consumer website set to go live, Travel Gay Canada is looking to connect more LGBT travellers to Canadian destinations in 2015.

Following TGC’s annual general meeting on Wednesday, members were provided with a preview of the new site, scheduled to debut next week. The new site will focus on popular destinations such as Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, listing TGC members located in each city and providing visitors with the opportunity to post comments about their travel experiences. The site will be the focus of an upcoming marketing campaign through LGBT media in the coming weeks.

Colin Sines, TGC’s president and executive director, told PAX that with the organization’s former site (which he likened to a Chamber of Commerce site rather than one promoting tourism), information on destinations was less accessible for travellers looking to book a getaway, to the detriment of TGC members. According to Sines, 48 per cent of Canadian LGBT travellers are visiting destinations within Canada, compared to 23 per cent travelling to the U.S. and 24 per cent exploring overseas destinations.

“Our membership joined Travel Gay Canada for us to connect them directly to the consumer, and the old website wasn’t doing that,” Sines said. “As we started to build the new one, destinations were the main thing we focused on.... We’ve accomplished what we set out to do with the site – it’s clean, fresh and I think once its launched and social media starts moving, we’ll start to see some engagement.”

While the new website will be consumer-facing (with a section for TGC members), Sines said that the addition of a TGC site for travel agents could be a possibility in the future, as more agents begin catering to the LGBT travel market, worth approximately $8.5 billion in Canada.

“The relationship between Travel Gay Canada and agents is fairly good, but we can do better,” Sines said, adding that he has scheduled meetings with organizations including ACTA to expand those partnerships. “There’s quite a lot of travel agents starting to investigate the market.”