Celebrating Diversity in Tourism
In episode 6 of our "Driving Place-Based Innovation" podcast series, in partnership with the NewcastleGateshead Initiative, we learn about how to celebrate diversity in tourism.
In episode 6 of our "Driving Place-Based Innovation" podcast series, in partnership with the NewcastleGateshead Initiative, we learn about how to celebrate diversity in tourism.
In episode 6 of our "Driving Place-Based Innovation" podcast series, in partnership with the NewcastleGateshead Initiative, we learn about how to celebrate diversity in tourism. Northern Pride and the Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau talk about how they support businesses to understand the specific nuances of the LGBTQ+ market and help these visitors to feel welcomed and safe during their tourism experiences.
You can listen to the episode here 👇
Northern Pride is the largest LGBTQ+ charity in North East England, with a mission to protect LGBTQ+ rights, provide safe spaces and promote the importance of having a healthy body and mind. They are best known for delivering the annual Pride Summer Festival in July. There is a perception that LGBTQ+ tourism is purely about Pride Festivals and that once the event finishes the team will take a break for the next year. However, there is a lot of work to be done in the background in terms of supporting partners by helping companies become more LGBTQ+ inclusive and become safer workplaces and stronger allies for the community.
As an events-based charity, Northern Pride hold events throughout the year, with attendance varying from a handful of people, up to 70,000 people during the Pride Summer Festival the weekend. For example, since 2021, the Ouseburn Family Pride has been held in May as a pride event catered towards young people. The event was originally set up to focus on same-sex couples with young families to provide a safe space for these family units. However, it became clear that lots of young LGBTQ+ people were looking for these activities and support, which led Northern Pride to branch out and include an additional focus for LGBTQ+ teenagers at this year's event.
Northern Pride also help facilitate community events and collaborate with key partners around smaller events they undertake. For instance, they supported the LGBT+ Northern SocialGroup in setting up and delivering their swimming sessions, particularly focused on improving the experiences for the transgender and non-binary community and overcoming the specific challenges they face.
Northern Pride have worked with Curious Arts for multiple years, with the relationship strengthening over time. This partnership started as a collaboration for specific events and projects, but over time developed into a shared vision for creating a safe and welcoming region in North East England. Whilst Curious Arts is more focused on the arts and creative sector and deliver pop-up theatre for youth groups, there was a commonality identified to come together and be stronger partners to help venues, institutions and businesses that don't traditionally attract the LGBTQ+ community become stronger allies. This will mean that when LGBTQ+ individuals engage with these businesses or locations, their interactions will be respectful and full of understanding and empathy, which creates positive experiences for individuals.
Currently, there is a lot of misinformation and attacks on the LGBTQ+ community, which can be isolating and create fear, so it is important to advocate that these spaces are safe and explain at a grassroots level how to really be a strong ally. The partnership with Curious Arts has helped to develop the Pride Allies training, which has been running since November 2022. Northern Pride work with institutions in North East England and will continue attempting to increase the number of proud allies across the region. This doesn't only benefit locals, but also those visiting the region on holiday or moving for work or education purposes. With lots of universities and colleges in North East England attracting international students, it's important to celebrate diversity so that they know that Newcastle - and North East England in general - is a safe destination.
The Proud Allies training course is run for around about 16 people in each group. These sessions are run in businesses where participants have different roles and different responsibilities, but have similar standpoints and views on operating procedures within organisations. This enables conversations to be fostered around how action can be taken immediately after the training has been completed.
The training covers a wide range of different topics from the history of the pride movement and the global situation of LGBTQ+ rights, including the number of countries where being part of the community is illegal, or even punishable by death. While this number should be decreasing, unfortunately, it is increasing due to different legislative measures; even in Western countries, such as the USA. Focusing on these heavy topics can help educate individuals, foster empathy and create an understanding of the lived experiences of the LGBTQ+ community that individuals on the training course may not know. The training helps to create an environment where participants can ask questions in a safe space. The trainers are then able to address these questions and understand the challenges around why things are done in a certain way.
Raising awareness and education helps to stop people from always asking the same person in the business to answer their questions about the LGBTQ+ community. This can avoid minority stress, where one individual is always to go to contact for LGBTQ+ issues. There are a lot of self-education opportunities, resources and a list of additional information sources provided after the training course so people can continue to learn about new terms and phrases. Significantly, self-education should use reputable sources of information.
It is not necessarily a bad thing to talk about misinformation and misrepresentation of the LGBTQ+ community in the safe training space, which would help to identify and counteract the cause of these challenges. From the facilitators' perspective, they are well-equipped to take on these challenges as they have the right knowledge and understanding. When people have negative attitudes towards the LGBTQ+ community, either due to misinformation or lack of exposure to the terminology used, then it is possible for the trainers to communicate with a fact-based outlook to demystify the reality of these situations.
The Pride Summer Festival takes place in July, with seasonality being an important consideration for Northern Pride. A lot of companies and partners get involved in the run-up to the event, with Northern Pride spending time discussing with these companies what they do throughout the year. This often happens behind closed doors and working with businesses on their human relations policies. There is a need to look at Pride season as a point of celebration around where we are in terms of LGBTQ+ rights, how we got to the current status quo and the improvements in rights over time, but also recognise that there still isn't equality. Whilst some parts of the community are better protected than others, it's important to champion the opinions of those individuals who feel underrepresented and less protected.
Companies should celebrate their achievements, but also look forward towards how they can become more inclusive. These future-focused ambitions are strongly communicated within the Proud Allies course, so the training should be seen as the start of the change process within organisations. Pride festivals and celebrations need to be seen as the continuation of the conversation about how to support the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, Northern Pride put transgender rights at the forefront of their Pride events and created a mission of remember, resist and rise up - which is continuing this year - to highlight the importance of having these conversations over these sensitive topics. It's important to consider how to educate, inform and change hearts and minds in society to be more inclusive and accepting of people's differences and benefit the future generations of the LGBTQ+ community.
The Pride Allies training covers the global perspective and talks about the differences in terms of how safe different countries are for the LGBTQ+ community. A cis-gendered heterosexual white person, would usually find it easy to pick a holiday destination and know that it is likely to be safe for them. However, members of the LGBTQ+ community - especially those with intersectionalities - will find a similar decision to be much harder since they need to consider their perceived level of safety and the laws of the country they are considering travelling to before making this decision.
It's important to look at cities and rural areas and how we are making these safe and inclusive. Also, we should look for opportunities to specifically consider the LGBTQ+ community in the tourism agenda of the destination and use this narrative to talk about safe spaces within our cities and how that is evolving. A few years ago, there were only a small number of spaces in cities that members of the LGBTQ+ community felt safe visiting. However, we are now starting to see this really spread out across cities and into rural areas and people actually feel safe and welcome in various different places, including theatres, museums and parks.
A large part of how destinations can showcase their diversity and inclusive nature is around the discontinuation of outdated conversations and stereotypes. This involves considering how destinations can change the use of their language to make them appear more inclusive to visitors. It also involves removing prejudices and preconceptions when interacting with visitors during customer service touchpoints. For example, a hotel receptionist should not assume that same-sex guests would want twin beds, assume the parental roles within an LGBTQ+ family unit or make assumptions about young people and their gender identity based on the way they dress.
Having conversations with businesses across the region and educating them to facilitate a better understanding of the community, will increase the likelihood of visitors coming to the region and immersing themselves in the activities at the destination. It also helps venues and businesses consider how they should adapt their services to make them a safe experience for everyone, regardless of people's gender identity or sexual orientation. For example, when Young Bloods performed at an arena, gender-neutral toilets were installed to make sure that their fans felt safe at the concert.
When people talk about innovation, they tend to navigate towards technology and digital innovation. However, as an events-based charity and from a destination perspective, innovation starts with the need to improve customer experiences. It's important to consider how to become innovative from the start of the customer experience to the end of the experience. The starting point for the experience could be an Internet search to find out about what is going on in the destination, or searching for LGBTQ+ venues and pride events. There is a need to know what that search process looks like and how to make that journey accessible.
Northern Pride is currently going through a process whereby they are making their website more accessible and using software that will allow the website to adapt to the user's differing needs, for instance, considering if the user is dyslexic or if English is not their first language. The website will then be able to transform that user's interpretation and help them to easily digest the information to understand all of the event logistics and timings to help with the planning so visitors fully enjoy their experience and get all of the necessary information.
At the festival, Northern Pride considers the usage of innovative approaches to make visitor experiences better and they also use different tools and software to know where to position things around the festival sites. They also consider how they provide information to visitors during the experience. At last year's Pride Summer Festival, Northern Pride's website had over 30,000 views during the event. This shows the need for innovation and improving the user experience by understanding what information people are searching for on the website and considering how to be better at providing that information in advance in the future.
Post-event, it's important to consider the legacy of the pride festivals and understand what will make visitors want to return. This helps to create knowledge about how the experience can be improved so that visitors tell their friends and the festivals continue to grow.
Innovation is about learning from your customers and having an agile approach. There is a need to appreciate that innovation is a process. Innovation is not a magic wand and change cannot happen overnight. Instead, innovation is about making gradual improvements and going through multiple phases of development to reach the end goal.
Diversity is a key word in the Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau's strategy. The organisation focuses on diversity across the three main tenants of making tourism accessible:
The efforts to be an LGBTQ-friendly destination are a team effort, with several people involved and dedicated to the project. Even with many different ongoing projects, everyone in the Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau is dedicated to this goal and achieving the strategic aim of ensuring diversity.
Traditionally, Chinese and Korean tourists have been the top nationalities of tourists in Osaka, with the city getting more East Asian visitors than Tokyo. In 2015 and 2016, the Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau wanted to expand this visitor base and looked at ways to bring more American, European and Australian tourists to Osaka and have a stronger international appeal. The Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau consulted a think tank for how to achieve this goal. During the process, it was identified that LGBTQ+ tourism was progressing rapidly in these markets and was an established segment that most of Asia hadn't even tried to tap into.
The Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau conducted further research and realised that attracting the LGBTQ+ market is something they wanted to focus on, especially since no other Japanese destination had actively targeted this market. In 2018, the Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau joined the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA) and then launched Visit Gay Osaka in 2019.
Visit Gay Osaka was Japan's first LGBTQ+ information portal to be set up by a publicly funded DMO. The website gathers information from across the Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau's local network, including local gay and lesbian bars, LGBTQ-friendly cafes, hotels and attractions and other queer spaces that people can visit safely to socialise. The portal also showcases queer events, both during the daytime and the LGBTQ+ nightlife. The Visit Gay Osaka portal gives all of the information that the DMO wants to share with visitors to the city.
Since launching the Visit Gay Osaka portal, the Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau ran Japan's first pride campaigns in the tourism industry. The organisation also conducts information seminars and inclusivity training for accommodation providers and tourism operators in the city. More recently, the DMO has partnered with other destinations across Japan to promote LGBTQ+ tourism across the country; not just in Osaka.
These initiatives and the Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau’s commitment to the LGBTQ+ market have resulted in Osaka being selected as the first-ever Asian destination to host the IGLTA's Annual Convention in autumn 2024. This demonstrates their commitment to this market and improves Osaka's image as an inclusive destination.
Before the work of the Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau, there was no precedent for LGBTQ+ tourism in Japan and across Asia in general. There were, however, examples from the United States, Germany and Australia for improving inclusivity in tourism. However, all of this was from a Western perspective and there was a need to set up and look at the data to shape it for the Japanese context and tourism strategy, which was not easy and involved a lot of effort and time. Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau started positioning itself as an LGBTQ+ destination in 2018 and it took five years to get full recognition with the awarding of the IGLTA Annual Convention, showing the volume of work that it takes to achieve goals when considering the destination image and perceived safety.
Innovation is about pushing the boundaries and challenging people to think outside of their day-to-day comfort zone and embrace something new. The biggest challenge is that Japan is not a society that likes to push boundaries and stick with precedent because known. Japan is a very low-risk society, so it makes it less likely that new ways of thinking will be quickly accepted and it will be harder to easily get alignment from local partners and stakeholders. Therefore, it took time for people to realise the value of investing in the LGBTQ+ market and understand that the effort to launch the different initiatives will have a large payoff in the end.
The Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau make sure their LGBTQ+ initiatives both take action and communicate these. The organisation does marketing to show that they are a diverse destination and include same-sex couples within these actions and they are currently striving to increase the representation of transgender people. Pride month becomes a huge opportunity for organisations and governments around the world to say they are LGBTQ-friendly, support diversity and that everyone is welcome.
In the case of a destination, you need to make sure that you are a welcoming destination. This means not just ensuring that your organisation is inclusive, but also that all of the organisations that make up your destination provide a welcoming environment. This can't be done in just one month, it is a full-time year-round job.
The Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau conducts seminars and ensures that hotels have inclusivity training. They try to implement their own firmly packaged system so that if an operator signs up, the DMO helps them put on seminars. The Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau also do mystery shopper evaluations and promotes tourism providers as being inclusive, friendly and welcoming. The Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau conducts all of these actions throughout the year to show Osaka as a very welcoming destination.
The Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau is focused on visitor numbers and getting people to visit the destination. To this end, they offer specific tours and packages for visitors to purchase. This helps to monitor the number of people who are interested in these diverse offerings and get data to prove the value and importance of this market.
One of the first packages offered was a series of drag queen experiences, such as Guinea bar hopping with a drag queen, a river cruise with a drag queen or a dinner party with a drag queen. These packages were launched at the end of 2021 and mean that visitors can meet an English-speaking Japanese drag queen to interact and experience what life is like for a member of the local LGBTQ+ community and experience Osaka from this perspective. However, COVID and Japan's travel restrictions posed a challenge to the uptake of these offers and attracting people to Osaka in 2021, but 2022 was a bit different. Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau's ambition is to expand its LGBTQ-focused packages beyond just a specific niche and make Osaka more appealing to LGBTQ+ travellers as a whole.
The tourism industry in Osaka has been very receptive to the LGBTQ+ market, especially after seeing the volume of tourists in this market and their average expenditure compared to other travellers. The industry instantly sees the value and it can be quite easy to get other people in the tourism industry interested and involved in attracting LGBTQ+ visitors.
However, it gets a bit more difficult when trying to interact with organisations that are not tied to the tourism sector. For example, the Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau has tried to engage with traditional theatre organisations and to include kabuki in the experiences developed for the LGBTQ+ community. However, these organisations are a little hesitant as they aren't used to attracting and engaging with this market. When they hear LGBTQ+ travellers, their first thought is about social rights, which is not the main focus of making destinations welcoming and safe. Therefore, these organisations do not want to pushback against the LGBTQ+ community and some time is needed to train them and help these organisations overcome their hesitancy through this additional support.
In terms of improving the competitiveness of the destination, the focus on LGBTQ+ tourism has put Osaka on the map and helps them benefit from first-mover advantages, not just with this segment, but also in other areas. For example, the Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau is also looking into developing the pet tourism segment to make travelling to Osaka very welcoming and easily accessible for people with pets. The media attention from being the first to launch initiatives targeting specific market segments helps generate global attention and awareness of the city, creating more interest in visiting Osaka simply because the destination is innovative and open to new ideas.
Being an inclusive destination means not just ensuring that your own organisation is inclusive, but also that all of the organisations in your destination provide a safe and welcoming environment for your visitors. This means acknowledging the different groups that form part of the LGBTQ+ community, such as LGBTQ+ families, same-sex couples, transgender individuals and those who identify as non-binary, and ensuring they are adequately represented and their differing needs understood.
Celebrating diversity cannot be done for just one month; it is a full-time job. Supporting the LGBTQ+ community is about more than just pride festivals and should consider the specific nuances of this market. Celebrating achievements and showing the evolution of increased diversity remains key to driving further change and community events can help provide visibility throughout the year.
Businesses need support and training to overcome misinformation, prejudices and stereotypes so that they become more empathetic and understand the lived experiences of the LGBTQ+ community. These courses should have facilitators who can encourage open and inquisitive discussions about sensitive topics in a non-judgemental environment and advocate for the importance of equality by using facts to change mindsets and assumptions about the community in a friendly and engaging manner. It is also important to contextualise training to reflect the local environment for the LGBTQ+ community as opposed to directly replicating initiatives from other regions or countries. Official training courses also help remove minority stress within organisations, where one individual feels responsible for informing the rest of the company about different elements and challenges faced by the LGBTQ+ community.
Some cultural barriers remain and there is a need to engage organisations - both within and outside the tourism sector - to minimise hesitancy and reluctance for marketing products to the LGBTQ+ community, especially in venues that are not typically associated with this market. Businesses need to learn about the types of language and adaptations that should be made to ensure the LGBTQ+ community has positive travel experiences and feel safe as well as identify the opportunities for product diversification and the development of new experiences tailored for this high-spending market. This is a process that benefits everyone in the destination but requires an agile approach which takes time and effort, requiring a future-oriented outlook for destination development.
The podcast is part of the Hospitality Innovation Tourism Supply (HITS) programme which provides targeted support, learning resources and grant funding to businesses in Northumberland, Newcastle and North Tyneside to help make their ideas a reality. The programme is funded by North of Tyne Combined Authority and delivered by NewcastleGateshead Initiative, Food and Drink North East and NBSL.
In episode 6 of our "Driving Place-Based Innovation" podcast series, in partnership with the NewcastleGateshead Initiative, we learn about how to celebrate diversity in tourism. Northern Pride and the Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau talk about how they support businesses to understand the specific nuances of the LGBTQ+ market and help these visitors to feel welcomed and safe during their tourism experiences.
You can listen to the episode here 👇
Northern Pride is the largest LGBTQ+ charity in North East England, with a mission to protect LGBTQ+ rights, provide safe spaces and promote the importance of having a healthy body and mind. They are best known for delivering the annual Pride Summer Festival in July. There is a perception that LGBTQ+ tourism is purely about Pride Festivals and that once the event finishes the team will take a break for the next year. However, there is a lot of work to be done in the background in terms of supporting partners by helping companies become more LGBTQ+ inclusive and become safer workplaces and stronger allies for the community.
As an events-based charity, Northern Pride hold events throughout the year, with attendance varying from a handful of people, up to 70,000 people during the Pride Summer Festival the weekend. For example, since 2021, the Ouseburn Family Pride has been held in May as a pride event catered towards young people. The event was originally set up to focus on same-sex couples with young families to provide a safe space for these family units. However, it became clear that lots of young LGBTQ+ people were looking for these activities and support, which led Northern Pride to branch out and include an additional focus for LGBTQ+ teenagers at this year's event.
Northern Pride also help facilitate community events and collaborate with key partners around smaller events they undertake. For instance, they supported the LGBT+ Northern SocialGroup in setting up and delivering their swimming sessions, particularly focused on improving the experiences for the transgender and non-binary community and overcoming the specific challenges they face.
Northern Pride have worked with Curious Arts for multiple years, with the relationship strengthening over time. This partnership started as a collaboration for specific events and projects, but over time developed into a shared vision for creating a safe and welcoming region in North East England. Whilst Curious Arts is more focused on the arts and creative sector and deliver pop-up theatre for youth groups, there was a commonality identified to come together and be stronger partners to help venues, institutions and businesses that don't traditionally attract the LGBTQ+ community become stronger allies. This will mean that when LGBTQ+ individuals engage with these businesses or locations, their interactions will be respectful and full of understanding and empathy, which creates positive experiences for individuals.
Currently, there is a lot of misinformation and attacks on the LGBTQ+ community, which can be isolating and create fear, so it is important to advocate that these spaces are safe and explain at a grassroots level how to really be a strong ally. The partnership with Curious Arts has helped to develop the Pride Allies training, which has been running since November 2022. Northern Pride work with institutions in North East England and will continue attempting to increase the number of proud allies across the region. This doesn't only benefit locals, but also those visiting the region on holiday or moving for work or education purposes. With lots of universities and colleges in North East England attracting international students, it's important to celebrate diversity so that they know that Newcastle - and North East England in general - is a safe destination.
The Proud Allies training course is run for around about 16 people in each group. These sessions are run in businesses where participants have different roles and different responsibilities, but have similar standpoints and views on operating procedures within organisations. This enables conversations to be fostered around how action can be taken immediately after the training has been completed.
The training covers a wide range of different topics from the history of the pride movement and the global situation of LGBTQ+ rights, including the number of countries where being part of the community is illegal, or even punishable by death. While this number should be decreasing, unfortunately, it is increasing due to different legislative measures; even in Western countries, such as the USA. Focusing on these heavy topics can help educate individuals, foster empathy and create an understanding of the lived experiences of the LGBTQ+ community that individuals on the training course may not know. The training helps to create an environment where participants can ask questions in a safe space. The trainers are then able to address these questions and understand the challenges around why things are done in a certain way.
Raising awareness and education helps to stop people from always asking the same person in the business to answer their questions about the LGBTQ+ community. This can avoid minority stress, where one individual is always to go to contact for LGBTQ+ issues. There are a lot of self-education opportunities, resources and a list of additional information sources provided after the training course so people can continue to learn about new terms and phrases. Significantly, self-education should use reputable sources of information.
It is not necessarily a bad thing to talk about misinformation and misrepresentation of the LGBTQ+ community in the safe training space, which would help to identify and counteract the cause of these challenges. From the facilitators' perspective, they are well-equipped to take on these challenges as they have the right knowledge and understanding. When people have negative attitudes towards the LGBTQ+ community, either due to misinformation or lack of exposure to the terminology used, then it is possible for the trainers to communicate with a fact-based outlook to demystify the reality of these situations.
The Pride Summer Festival takes place in July, with seasonality being an important consideration for Northern Pride. A lot of companies and partners get involved in the run-up to the event, with Northern Pride spending time discussing with these companies what they do throughout the year. This often happens behind closed doors and working with businesses on their human relations policies. There is a need to look at Pride season as a point of celebration around where we are in terms of LGBTQ+ rights, how we got to the current status quo and the improvements in rights over time, but also recognise that there still isn't equality. Whilst some parts of the community are better protected than others, it's important to champion the opinions of those individuals who feel underrepresented and less protected.
Companies should celebrate their achievements, but also look forward towards how they can become more inclusive. These future-focused ambitions are strongly communicated within the Proud Allies course, so the training should be seen as the start of the change process within organisations. Pride festivals and celebrations need to be seen as the continuation of the conversation about how to support the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, Northern Pride put transgender rights at the forefront of their Pride events and created a mission of remember, resist and rise up - which is continuing this year - to highlight the importance of having these conversations over these sensitive topics. It's important to consider how to educate, inform and change hearts and minds in society to be more inclusive and accepting of people's differences and benefit the future generations of the LGBTQ+ community.
The Pride Allies training covers the global perspective and talks about the differences in terms of how safe different countries are for the LGBTQ+ community. A cis-gendered heterosexual white person, would usually find it easy to pick a holiday destination and know that it is likely to be safe for them. However, members of the LGBTQ+ community - especially those with intersectionalities - will find a similar decision to be much harder since they need to consider their perceived level of safety and the laws of the country they are considering travelling to before making this decision.
It's important to look at cities and rural areas and how we are making these safe and inclusive. Also, we should look for opportunities to specifically consider the LGBTQ+ community in the tourism agenda of the destination and use this narrative to talk about safe spaces within our cities and how that is evolving. A few years ago, there were only a small number of spaces in cities that members of the LGBTQ+ community felt safe visiting. However, we are now starting to see this really spread out across cities and into rural areas and people actually feel safe and welcome in various different places, including theatres, museums and parks.
A large part of how destinations can showcase their diversity and inclusive nature is around the discontinuation of outdated conversations and stereotypes. This involves considering how destinations can change the use of their language to make them appear more inclusive to visitors. It also involves removing prejudices and preconceptions when interacting with visitors during customer service touchpoints. For example, a hotel receptionist should not assume that same-sex guests would want twin beds, assume the parental roles within an LGBTQ+ family unit or make assumptions about young people and their gender identity based on the way they dress.
Having conversations with businesses across the region and educating them to facilitate a better understanding of the community, will increase the likelihood of visitors coming to the region and immersing themselves in the activities at the destination. It also helps venues and businesses consider how they should adapt their services to make them a safe experience for everyone, regardless of people's gender identity or sexual orientation. For example, when Young Bloods performed at an arena, gender-neutral toilets were installed to make sure that their fans felt safe at the concert.
When people talk about innovation, they tend to navigate towards technology and digital innovation. However, as an events-based charity and from a destination perspective, innovation starts with the need to improve customer experiences. It's important to consider how to become innovative from the start of the customer experience to the end of the experience. The starting point for the experience could be an Internet search to find out about what is going on in the destination, or searching for LGBTQ+ venues and pride events. There is a need to know what that search process looks like and how to make that journey accessible.
Northern Pride is currently going through a process whereby they are making their website more accessible and using software that will allow the website to adapt to the user's differing needs, for instance, considering if the user is dyslexic or if English is not their first language. The website will then be able to transform that user's interpretation and help them to easily digest the information to understand all of the event logistics and timings to help with the planning so visitors fully enjoy their experience and get all of the necessary information.
At the festival, Northern Pride considers the usage of innovative approaches to make visitor experiences better and they also use different tools and software to know where to position things around the festival sites. They also consider how they provide information to visitors during the experience. At last year's Pride Summer Festival, Northern Pride's website had over 30,000 views during the event. This shows the need for innovation and improving the user experience by understanding what information people are searching for on the website and considering how to be better at providing that information in advance in the future.
Post-event, it's important to consider the legacy of the pride festivals and understand what will make visitors want to return. This helps to create knowledge about how the experience can be improved so that visitors tell their friends and the festivals continue to grow.
Innovation is about learning from your customers and having an agile approach. There is a need to appreciate that innovation is a process. Innovation is not a magic wand and change cannot happen overnight. Instead, innovation is about making gradual improvements and going through multiple phases of development to reach the end goal.
Diversity is a key word in the Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau's strategy. The organisation focuses on diversity across the three main tenants of making tourism accessible:
The efforts to be an LGBTQ-friendly destination are a team effort, with several people involved and dedicated to the project. Even with many different ongoing projects, everyone in the Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau is dedicated to this goal and achieving the strategic aim of ensuring diversity.
Traditionally, Chinese and Korean tourists have been the top nationalities of tourists in Osaka, with the city getting more East Asian visitors than Tokyo. In 2015 and 2016, the Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau wanted to expand this visitor base and looked at ways to bring more American, European and Australian tourists to Osaka and have a stronger international appeal. The Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau consulted a think tank for how to achieve this goal. During the process, it was identified that LGBTQ+ tourism was progressing rapidly in these markets and was an established segment that most of Asia hadn't even tried to tap into.
The Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau conducted further research and realised that attracting the LGBTQ+ market is something they wanted to focus on, especially since no other Japanese destination had actively targeted this market. In 2018, the Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau joined the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA) and then launched Visit Gay Osaka in 2019.
Visit Gay Osaka was Japan's first LGBTQ+ information portal to be set up by a publicly funded DMO. The website gathers information from across the Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau's local network, including local gay and lesbian bars, LGBTQ-friendly cafes, hotels and attractions and other queer spaces that people can visit safely to socialise. The portal also showcases queer events, both during the daytime and the LGBTQ+ nightlife. The Visit Gay Osaka portal gives all of the information that the DMO wants to share with visitors to the city.
Since launching the Visit Gay Osaka portal, the Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau ran Japan's first pride campaigns in the tourism industry. The organisation also conducts information seminars and inclusivity training for accommodation providers and tourism operators in the city. More recently, the DMO has partnered with other destinations across Japan to promote LGBTQ+ tourism across the country; not just in Osaka.
These initiatives and the Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau’s commitment to the LGBTQ+ market have resulted in Osaka being selected as the first-ever Asian destination to host the IGLTA's Annual Convention in autumn 2024. This demonstrates their commitment to this market and improves Osaka's image as an inclusive destination.
Before the work of the Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau, there was no precedent for LGBTQ+ tourism in Japan and across Asia in general. There were, however, examples from the United States, Germany and Australia for improving inclusivity in tourism. However, all of this was from a Western perspective and there was a need to set up and look at the data to shape it for the Japanese context and tourism strategy, which was not easy and involved a lot of effort and time. Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau started positioning itself as an LGBTQ+ destination in 2018 and it took five years to get full recognition with the awarding of the IGLTA Annual Convention, showing the volume of work that it takes to achieve goals when considering the destination image and perceived safety.
Innovation is about pushing the boundaries and challenging people to think outside of their day-to-day comfort zone and embrace something new. The biggest challenge is that Japan is not a society that likes to push boundaries and stick with precedent because known. Japan is a very low-risk society, so it makes it less likely that new ways of thinking will be quickly accepted and it will be harder to easily get alignment from local partners and stakeholders. Therefore, it took time for people to realise the value of investing in the LGBTQ+ market and understand that the effort to launch the different initiatives will have a large payoff in the end.
The Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau make sure their LGBTQ+ initiatives both take action and communicate these. The organisation does marketing to show that they are a diverse destination and include same-sex couples within these actions and they are currently striving to increase the representation of transgender people. Pride month becomes a huge opportunity for organisations and governments around the world to say they are LGBTQ-friendly, support diversity and that everyone is welcome.
In the case of a destination, you need to make sure that you are a welcoming destination. This means not just ensuring that your organisation is inclusive, but also that all of the organisations that make up your destination provide a welcoming environment. This can't be done in just one month, it is a full-time year-round job.
The Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau conducts seminars and ensures that hotels have inclusivity training. They try to implement their own firmly packaged system so that if an operator signs up, the DMO helps them put on seminars. The Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau also do mystery shopper evaluations and promotes tourism providers as being inclusive, friendly and welcoming. The Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau conducts all of these actions throughout the year to show Osaka as a very welcoming destination.
The Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau is focused on visitor numbers and getting people to visit the destination. To this end, they offer specific tours and packages for visitors to purchase. This helps to monitor the number of people who are interested in these diverse offerings and get data to prove the value and importance of this market.
One of the first packages offered was a series of drag queen experiences, such as Guinea bar hopping with a drag queen, a river cruise with a drag queen or a dinner party with a drag queen. These packages were launched at the end of 2021 and mean that visitors can meet an English-speaking Japanese drag queen to interact and experience what life is like for a member of the local LGBTQ+ community and experience Osaka from this perspective. However, COVID and Japan's travel restrictions posed a challenge to the uptake of these offers and attracting people to Osaka in 2021, but 2022 was a bit different. Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau's ambition is to expand its LGBTQ-focused packages beyond just a specific niche and make Osaka more appealing to LGBTQ+ travellers as a whole.
The tourism industry in Osaka has been very receptive to the LGBTQ+ market, especially after seeing the volume of tourists in this market and their average expenditure compared to other travellers. The industry instantly sees the value and it can be quite easy to get other people in the tourism industry interested and involved in attracting LGBTQ+ visitors.
However, it gets a bit more difficult when trying to interact with organisations that are not tied to the tourism sector. For example, the Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau has tried to engage with traditional theatre organisations and to include kabuki in the experiences developed for the LGBTQ+ community. However, these organisations are a little hesitant as they aren't used to attracting and engaging with this market. When they hear LGBTQ+ travellers, their first thought is about social rights, which is not the main focus of making destinations welcoming and safe. Therefore, these organisations do not want to pushback against the LGBTQ+ community and some time is needed to train them and help these organisations overcome their hesitancy through this additional support.
In terms of improving the competitiveness of the destination, the focus on LGBTQ+ tourism has put Osaka on the map and helps them benefit from first-mover advantages, not just with this segment, but also in other areas. For example, the Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau is also looking into developing the pet tourism segment to make travelling to Osaka very welcoming and easily accessible for people with pets. The media attention from being the first to launch initiatives targeting specific market segments helps generate global attention and awareness of the city, creating more interest in visiting Osaka simply because the destination is innovative and open to new ideas.
Being an inclusive destination means not just ensuring that your own organisation is inclusive, but also that all of the organisations in your destination provide a safe and welcoming environment for your visitors. This means acknowledging the different groups that form part of the LGBTQ+ community, such as LGBTQ+ families, same-sex couples, transgender individuals and those who identify as non-binary, and ensuring they are adequately represented and their differing needs understood.
Celebrating diversity cannot be done for just one month; it is a full-time job. Supporting the LGBTQ+ community is about more than just pride festivals and should consider the specific nuances of this market. Celebrating achievements and showing the evolution of increased diversity remains key to driving further change and community events can help provide visibility throughout the year.
Businesses need support and training to overcome misinformation, prejudices and stereotypes so that they become more empathetic and understand the lived experiences of the LGBTQ+ community. These courses should have facilitators who can encourage open and inquisitive discussions about sensitive topics in a non-judgemental environment and advocate for the importance of equality by using facts to change mindsets and assumptions about the community in a friendly and engaging manner. It is also important to contextualise training to reflect the local environment for the LGBTQ+ community as opposed to directly replicating initiatives from other regions or countries. Official training courses also help remove minority stress within organisations, where one individual feels responsible for informing the rest of the company about different elements and challenges faced by the LGBTQ+ community.
Some cultural barriers remain and there is a need to engage organisations - both within and outside the tourism sector - to minimise hesitancy and reluctance for marketing products to the LGBTQ+ community, especially in venues that are not typically associated with this market. Businesses need to learn about the types of language and adaptations that should be made to ensure the LGBTQ+ community has positive travel experiences and feel safe as well as identify the opportunities for product diversification and the development of new experiences tailored for this high-spending market. This is a process that benefits everyone in the destination but requires an agile approach which takes time and effort, requiring a future-oriented outlook for destination development.
The podcast is part of the Hospitality Innovation Tourism Supply (HITS) programme which provides targeted support, learning resources and grant funding to businesses in Northumberland, Newcastle and North Tyneside to help make their ideas a reality. The programme is funded by North of Tyne Combined Authority and delivered by NewcastleGateshead Initiative, Food and Drink North East and NBSL.
In episode 6 of our "Driving Place-Based Innovation" podcast series, in partnership with the NewcastleGateshead Initiative, we learn about how to celebrate diversity in tourism.
In episode 6 of our "Driving Place-Based Innovation" podcast series, in partnership with the NewcastleGateshead Initiative, we learn about how to celebrate diversity in tourism.
In episode 6 of our "Driving Place-Based Innovation" podcast series, in partnership with the NewcastleGateshead Initiative, we learn about how to celebrate diversity in tourism.
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