glbt

Let me preface this post by stating my point of view here is on how a big named company has targeted a specific culture through its online and commercial campaign. Should anyone want to comment, I do not wish to discuss the lifestyle, only how it is being addressed as a culture online.

“Snowboarding fly boys. Gender-bending hipster babes who shred. Après-ski bars brightened by the banter of sass-talking divas. Think you’ve died and gone to Oz? Well, wake up, Dorothy! With Travelocity’s exclusive hotels in top gay and lesbian ski destinations, you’ll get more queer than you can shake a feather boa at–and, honey, that’s a lot of queer–for way less moolah. That means more cash for those darling go-go dancers!

This year, ditch the office digs, grab those designer ski poles, and get ready to go all-out gay with these flaming hot ski getaways. Book now for fabulous savings.”

What you just read is real copy off of Travelocity’s site for Gay-Friendly ski hotels. Not only has the company targeted this specific culture for advertising potential, but where they could have stopped at just creating the deals they took it one step further and crafted and entire ambiance around it that tries not only get the audiences attention but tries to empathize with them as well. To coincide with their travel offers Travelocity has also created a tv campaign alluding to this particular culture as well.

In doing a bit of research it turns out that in May, Travelocity partnered with Travel Alternatives Group (TAG), a group that specializes in making finding travel locations easier for GLBT people. Not only does this group look to see whether these companies offer a GLBT friendly atmosphere, but they in their search for gay friendly companies they have made an “effort to qualify accommodations based not only on their desire for gay travel revenues, but on their employment policies, services, and support returned to the gay community”. I wonder if this partnership alone lends credence to the Travelocity campaigns and without it would they be considered derogatory in any way? I also wonder how other cultures would respond to similar marketing techniques.