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Last week I described in The Ideal Traveler how the tourism industry handles an enormous volume of money, and that LGBT people provide a more than proportional share of it.

That is why attention has been paid to this target group for decades, especially by hotels and airlines, bookers, car rental and taxi services, public transport – but certainly also destinations.

What determines the choice of those rainbow travelers for their travel destination? I showed that a number of values and norms are important here. But the reputation of a destination and recommendations from friends also count, with the honorary name ‘Gay Capital’ for a city playing an important role too.

Gay Capital

In the past, several cities have claimed to be the ‘gay capital of the world’, for example Amsterdam for several decades. Personally, I would estimate from the 1950s (after Berlin was ‘out’) to the rise of Barcelona and the return of Berlin in the 1990s. But the city’s website says: ‘From the 1990s to the early 21st century, Amsterdam was considered the gay capital of the world.’ That seems like a very arbitrary and incorrect assessment to me.

What makes a city ‘Gay Capital’? For my research, I conducted a survey among more than 3,000 participants, both LGBT people (referred to as ‘gay’ for convenience) and heterosexuals, m/f, with or without children. Only 14% of gays and 7% of straights believe that Amsterdam is still Gay Capital.

I have given twenty possible considerations and listed them in descending order. If I merge the Important and Very Important columns I get the following result. The red squares indicate a difference of more than 5% (the hetero value is higher), the green squares indicate a delta of more than 5% (the gay value is higher).

Not surprisingly, tolerance, acceptance and safety score highest (93%). Until then, the ratings between ‘gay’ and ‘straight’ are quite comparable. However, there is a significant gap in most other categories, for example gay-friendly hotels (85% – 77%), reliable police (84% – 76%), nightlife (82% – 73%) and gay neighborhoods (68% – 50%). On the other hand, straight people gave higher scores as ‘very important’ to good theaters (22% compared to 13%) and circuit parties (26% – 10%, while 41% of LGBT consider this to be ‘not important’, compared to only 6% of heterosexuals).

Conclusion: As might be expected, the existence of tolerance, acceptance, safety and equality are seen as the most important factors in making a city gay-friendly – and thus perhaps earning the title of Gay Capital. A reliable police force, the choice of gay-friendly hotels and restaurants and a vibrant nightlife are also high on the list. Interestingly, perceived friendliness, such as “smiling faces,” is also highly rated. But culture and parties are clearly less decisive.

Liberal Netherlands

The liberal attitude in the Netherlands, which welcomed everyone in (almost) equal measure since the Middle Ages, made Amsterdam the ‘gay capital of Europe’, if not the world, in the middle of the last century. Herman ter Balkt of the Amsterdam Tourist & Conference Board (ATCB) commented: ‘No city in Europe was so tolerant when it came to homosexuality. It was the only city where you could just walk into a gay bar without ringing the doorbell.’

Over the last 15-20 years, tolerance – and acceptance! – has grown rapidly in other European cities. Cities such as London, Paris, Cologne and Barcelona are all considerably larger than Amsterdam and now offer not only their own residents, but also LGBT tourists, a large number of gay bars, clubs, events, film festivals, Pride, shops, etc.

The Netherlands usually still scores a place in the top 10 of LGBT-friendly countries, but there is a decline. You can see that Catholic Malta usually scores the highest. Go figure.

Yet Amsterdam remains one of the most attractive cities for rainbow travelers in Europe. They are also often in the top 10 of travel bloggers: ‘more than 100 LGBT hotels, bars, restaurants, nightclubs, sports clubs, support services and even choirs’, ‘Amsterdam was one of the first places in the world where gay bars were opened in the early 20th century ”, ‘acceptance of homosexuality is in the high 80%.’ And because the city is so compact, all locations are within walking distance – a bonus.

Amsterdam: Gay Capital no more…

But after years of undisputed rule, the Gay Capital label appeared to no longer be attached to Amsterdam. After organizing the extremely successful Gay Games in 1998 (not so much financially, but socially) – with a record number of participants and visitors – and after the introduction of ‘gay marriage’ in 2001 as the first country in the world, the subject disappeared more or less from the agenda.

In 2021, Dutch newspaper Trouw reported: ‘Amsterdam ‘Gay capital? An illusion, it is hell here’” to which it was added: “Amsterdam had the world first with gay marriage, provides a lesbian minister and a lesbian Speaker of the House. But how safe is it on the streets for LGBTQ in what was once called ‘gay capital’?’

Photos from the exhibition ‘Legal Love’ by the Open mind foundation and Ernst Coppejans were defaced in Amsterdam Nieuw-West. © Ernst Coppejans.

In recent years, the media have reported some forms of aggression against gays, rainbows and other symbols or icons. Most attention received the case of American journalist Chris Craine of the Washington Blade on Queen’s Day 2005. He was beaten up as he walked hand in hand with his boyfriend. Please note: no sexual acts, not even a kiss, no provocation.

The Crain incident was of course widely reported in the American press, but also had consequences in Amsterdam. Research by the COC showed that a third of gays would no longer feel comfortable holding hands in public in the city. Merijn Henfling, editor-in-chief of the gay youth magazine Expreszo, noted that the incident could be fatal for Amsterdam’s image. ”In the US they know about Theo van Gogh. Now this is on top of it…’ Gay Business Amsterdam said the city would lose ground to Barcelona and Paris.

#allmenholdhands

When a gay couple was seriously assaulted in 2017 for holding hands, (lesbian) journalist Barbara Barend called on men to hold hands in solidarity, with the hashtag #allmenholdhands. This quickly received widespread support, so that we saw the deputy prime minister, party leaders, the men from the Dutch embassy in London and the UN delegation in New York standing hand in hand on the street. Football team NEC ‘turned its back on homophobia’. Celebrities and actors participated, as did clergy and the police.

The campaign was so successful that Barend received the Michiel de Ruyter Prize, which is awarded annually to people who make a distinctive contribution to society.

Zero tolerance

Amsterdam shows no tolerance whatsoever when it comes to aggression against gays. The police force has a special task force ‘Pink in Blue’, which encourages LGBT people to report it if they encounter aggression because of their sexuality.

The mayor responded to the Crain incident that about 10 to 20 cases of gay violence were reported every year, but exact figures were not available because sexual preference was not always registered by the police back then. When this was better set up in later years, approximately 200-300 yearly incidents were counted.

Symbolic of the moral support of the authorities is the participation in the annual Canal Parade of not only the mayors, but also members of the cabinet, the police and the armed forces.

Next week more about the activities of the Netherlands and Amsterdam in the field of Marketing the Rainbow: ‘Everyone’s Gay in Amsterdam’?

Alfred Verhoeven is a marketer and is in the final phase of his PhD research Marketing the Rainbow. He previously wrote for ILOVEGAY about The Ideal Traveler, Diversity & Language, Playing with Pronouns, Abercrombie & Fitch : The Rise & The Fall, Play the gayme: about SIMS and Candy Crush, Diversity in Toys, LEGO does the rainbow, Barbiemania, Bud Light and the 4 bln dollar woman, Dutch retailer HEMA loves everybody, Pronouns, About those rainbows, Alphabet soup, M&M’s and the lesbian invasion, Magnum and the lesbian wedding,  Marketing the Rainbow: the process and all that came before it, Sport and (un)sportmanship,  Why you need a supplier diversity program, BeNeLux LGBTIQ+ Business Chamber (BGLBC), From B2C and B2B to B2G and G2G (oh, and G2C), The Men from Atlantis, The other kind of cruising, Booking.com, Home Deco, Haters and trolls: the ‘letter to the editor’ of the 21st century, 5 Bizarre LGBT Videos, TRANSparency, Transgender persons as a target group, Matchmaking, 5 videos that went viral, From Representation To Respect, Cultural sensitivities and social involvement in marketing, 4 reasons to practice diversity and The Rules of Market Segmentation.