Gay Tourists flock to Canada...

Nice piece in the Ottawa Citizen on gay tourism by Danny Drolet (a friend of mine).

Canada, which this year garnered world-wide attention when it legalized same-sex marriage, is becoming a prime tourist destination for gay and lesbian visitors from the United States.

And that trend is likely to strengthen when, in 2007, the U.S. begins requiring anyone entering that country to use a passport: The percentage of gay and lesbian Americans with a valid passport is estimated at more than three times the U.S. national average.

Overall, the number of Americans visiting Canada is down because of high gasoline prices and confusion about border security.

But a survey in August of 2,915 gay men and 796 lesbians from the U.S. showed that 36 per cent of the respondents had travelled to Canada in the past year, up from 29 per cent in 2004 survey, said Jerry McHugh of Community Marketing Inc. of San Francisco, which conducts annual surveys of gay and lesbian travellers.

Read the whole article and you can learn how Canada is marketing to the gay community! Yay!