A recent study has found that nearly half of Kiwi LGBTQIA+ travellers have experienced discrimination whilst travelling – cementing the need for Travel Proud initiatives. We talk to Luke, who has never felt the same about holidays, since an awful experience 20 years ago.
When Luke’s long term girlfriend turned 19, he wanted to do something special. He’d recently started his first full time job, so surprised her with a weekend away, staying in a fancy hotel.
“We’d both only ever stayed in a few grimy motels on family holidays,” says Luke. “God, it felt so OTT at the time. So fancy!”
Luke says he literally googled ‘Flash romantic hotel’ to find it.
Now, it’s a bittersweet memory for Luke.
“I think that’s because that’s probably the last time I was utterly carefree about booking a hotel room,” he says.
When Luke and his girlfriend were 20 they split, after spending six years together. Luke was 24 when he had his first official boyfriend. What made it official, he says, was deciding to take a trip away together. His new boyfriend booked them a hotel room for a long weekend to attend a concert, but the experience was completely different to his carefree past hotel getaway.
“The hotel was beautiful but the staff were…horrendous,” says Luke. “When we checked in, the woman – a hideous woman – assumed we had booked two rooms and made a big show of it. We didn’t need two rooms, I told her. She was so rude, I’ll never forget it.. Once she was convinced we were sharing a room, she said we’d booked a room with one king bed by mistake, but she could find us one with two doubles.”
“I said we didn’t need that and she looked at me, disgusted. When we got to the room, it wasn’t the deluxe king we ordered and paid for, it was a standard twin. I called downstairs, but she said that was the only appropriate room they had. She said, ‘no, you need two doubles. This is the only appropriate room we have for two men.’”
“My boyfriend was so embarrassed he didn’t want to challenge her. I was so mad at her, but I also felt let down by him. It was all humiliating. From then, whenever we went away somewhere, my boyfriend would stay in the car, or hide around the corner and get me to check in. We stayed in a beautiful hotel in Fiji and he wouldn’t even come to the breakfast buffet with me. I hated having to hide.”
In the 20 years – and a change in boyfriends – since, Luke says booking travel is now a lot more of an involved process, with him second guessing everything before hitting ‘book’.
“I Google the shit out of things,” he says. “In a lot of ways, I was lucky that the bad experience I had was just a disapproving hick giving me attitude. I know that other people’s bad travel experience can involve physical violence – I have a friend who had a bad experience overseas. It sucks that it’s another thing to think about, but it is.”
To try to make sure he’s going to be safe and respected, Luke says he does as much sleuthing online as possible. “I’m googling to see if a hotel is LGBTQIA+ friendly,” he says. “Is it in a neighbourhood that is going to be safe for us to stay at? Am I going to be able to relax? Will we be able to actually enjoy ourselves? There’s so much stuff to consider, than just choosing a nice beach to go visit.”
And unfortunately, Luke’s experience is only too common, with a recent study showing that almost half of LGBTQIA+ travellers experience discrimination when travelling.
The study, conducted by Booking.com, found that 43% of Kiwi travellers felt discriminated against – and the stats for the wider Asia-Pacific area were even worse, with 62% feeling that way.
In the past year, a quarter of rainbow travellers said they had cancelled a trip after seeing that the destination they had booked appeared to be unsupportive of its LGBTQIA+ community.
And, like Luke and his former boyfriend, many Kiwi LGBTQIA+ travellers make changes to the way they book travel, and behave while they’re away. Many are consciously adapting their behaviour and adopting travel personas to protect themselves on trips.
In fact, 33% say that they modify aspects of their appearance and behaviour to avoid potential discrimination or unwanted attention. What’s more, over a quarter (30%) of Kiwi LGBTQIA+ travellers have created an alter-ego to navigate different environment mainly to protect themselves and to feel more safe (68%).
LGBTQIA+ parents can also feel particularly worried, with two thirds of respondents (66%) saying they feel there are certain popular destinations that are off limits to them to travel to with their families.
And we’re not just talking about picking a destination or hotel – just getting there can cause plenty of anxiety. Eighteen per cent said they’d had a negative experience with a fellow flight passenger due to them identifying as LGBTQIA+ and 25% express nervousness or apprehension about being seated next to a stranger on a flight about their potential reaction to them being LGBTQIA+.
To try to cut down on some of that stress (and googling!), Booking.com introduced a Travel Proud program in 2021. This program provides free inclusive hospitality training for accommodations to help them gain a better understanding of the specific challenges faced by LGBTQ+ travellers – as well as what can be done to make every guest feel more welcome, regardless of where they come from, who they love or how they identify. There are now more than 67,000 Travel Proud-certified properties globally on Booking.com to help make choosing the right place to stay, that much easier.
Based on ratios of Travel Proud accomodations, Booking.com has made a list of the top LGBTQIA+ destinations for 2024. If you’re looking for a bit of inspiration for your next trip, they are:
- Stockholm, Sweden
- Chamonix, France
- Munich, Germany
- Bologna, Italy
- Melbourne, Australia
- Singapore, Singapore
- Sao Paulo, Brazil
- Bogota, Colombia
- New Orleans, USA
- Montreal, Canada
