Marketing video of the Tel Aviv Gay Pride Parade, 2022 (Photo: Ministry of Tourism)
Pride Week is already in its final stretch and many gay tourists are already filling the streets of Tel Aviv. On the occasion of Pride Month in June, hotel booking giant Booking sent the company's regional manager, Alessandro Calari, to Israel, who presented data from a comprehensive study conducted on gay tourism around the world.
At a press conference held today (Wednesday) at the Reviva Vasilia restaurant (2nd floor) in Tel Aviv, Chalari spoke about the study conducted among 11,555 tourists from the gay community from 27 countries and territories from around the world. According to him, 69% of gay Israeli travelers report discrimination when vacationing. In addition, 78% of these travelers say they consider their safety and well-being when planning where to fly. "That's the statistic that stunned us the most," says Cagliari, because while 64 countries in the world still have same-sex sex banned. Of these, 11 have a fatal pleasure for those who do so.
Discrimination remains a major concern when it comes to the tourism experience as a whole:
27% of Israeli respondents shared that they were stereotyped.
26% of Israeli respondents said that other tourists stared, laughed at or verbally abused them.
A similar number of Israeli respondents (23%) said they had experienced similar incidents from local residents.
22% reported experiencing threats from local law enforcement.
27% of Israeli respondents shared that they were stereotyped (Photo: ShutterStock)
About a third of Israelis feel the need to change their appearance abroad
Travel Proud is a program established by Booking in 2021 to provide free inclusion and tolerance training to staff at properties to make it easy and safe for gay tourists, considered a busy sector, to vacation. Today, Booking has more than 24,000 properties from around the world in more than 7,030 cities in 118 countries and territories that are Proud Certified, certified and labeled.
A quarter of Israeli respondents said they felt the need to change their behavior to avoid judgment or embarrassing interactions with other people (up from 16% in 2022), while about a third (31%) of Israeli respondents felt they needed to change their appearance to avoid such experiences (up from 14% in 2022). This issue mainly affects the younger generation: 29% of Israeli tourists who are proud of Generation Z feel the need to change their behavior, and 34% feel the need to change their appearance.
86% have experienced good behaviour when they arrive at a property – hotel or apartment abroad. 65% say they feel more confident they are proud than 2022 – 53%. 75% of the community feels confident to walk or experience any tourist attraction.
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25% of Israelis change their behavior to feel comfortable abroad (Photo: ShutterStock)
"People want to go back to Tel Aviv - the best gay city in the world"
According to Sarah Slansky, head of the Overseas Division at the Ministry of Tourism, which is responsible for promoting gay tourism to Israel, what characterizes the gays who come to Tel Aviv love urban tourism, high-income people who like to spend on culinary and lifestyle. "These tourists are looking for a destination that will give them the answer to all their desires," she says.
Yaniv Weizman, an activist for 20 years promoting the gay community and a member of the Tel Aviv municipal council, said that the difference between the "Tel Aviv" brand and the "Israel" brand is huge, due to a study he conducted 20 years ago abroad for the municipality. "People want to go back to Tel Aviv and it was even ranked first as the best gay city, and Mayor Huldai was very enthusiastic about it, and a few weeks later he was already standing on trucks with 4 dragists," he says.
"If a city has a gay community, that means it's a safe destination," he said, as was the case in Mexico City, where the mayor held a 100,<>-person wedding, making it safe in public opinion.
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