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Hello, As many of you know, as well as being the PEI chapter leaders of PFLAG Canada Mary and I are also involved in the tourism industry with our bed and breakfast Briarcliffe Inn and experiential tourism company, Experience PEI. I recently attended an international tourism conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico and one of the presentations was about Gay Tourism. There were lots of facts and figures about the significance and potential of the gay tourism market but what I found most interesting was the presentation by Jeff Guarcino, who was instrumental in the development of the GLBT tourism initiative in Philadelphia which has established that city as one of the prime US destinations for gay travelers. He talked about how the City worked with local GLBT organizations, businesses and individuals to develop their tourism strategy. He also discussed how the process helped lead to other positive developments within the Philadelphia GLBT community such as improved cooperation among organizations, creation of new businesses and increased GLBT social activities. It got us thinking about the possibility of developing a similar strategy designed to establish Prince Edward Island as a gay welcoming destination. The recent somewhat innocuous reference in the 2008 Visitors Guide is at least an indication of the willingness of Tourism PEI to acknowledge the existence of this market. Mary and I believe there is an opportunity here for those of us who are involved with efforts to support diversity on Prince Edward Island to act as a catalyst for creating an initiative that would lead to the Island becoming known as a safe and friendly place for GLBT travellers to visit. To this end, PFLAG would like to invite you to a meeting on Thursday, Jan 15 at 5:00 pm at the Stratford Town Centre to explore the idea. We anticipate this initial meeting will last no more than 2 hours and we will have some sandwiches and refreshments to tide everyone over. Please feel free to forward this email to others you feel might be interested. We would appreciate it if you would advise us by January 9 whether you will be able to attend so we can ensure we have enough food and space. We look forward to hearing from you. Regards Mary & Bill Kendrick

FURTHER CORRESPONDENCE #! Hi Bill and Mary: I extend to you and your family Seasons Greetings and a Happy New Year. After the interview with the Minister of Tourism and hearing her comment that tourism PEI were not ready to have a GLBT advertisment in a forthcoming Visitors Guide I decided to call the known Gay and Lesbian B&B's here to see if they would like to join together to do a joint ad in the 2009 Visitors Guide. An eighth of a page ad would be around 1500.00 if I remember correctly and if all the B&B's and Gay establishments went together the cost would be under $200.00 for each establishment. I had a few interested people who said yes and surprisingly had one operation manager say they would not want to do that because they would not want to scare away the so called st8 clientel. So when the GLBT Community think that way how can we win? I had someone who would have set up the background and all we needed to do was list B&B's Stores Resturants etc and the travelling GL could look up the names in the VG Straight people may see the rainbow background but would not nessessarily know what the background meant but the GLBT traveller would. Hopefully next year we can have a better presence in the VG Do you need help at your meeting? Jim Culbert 651 2202

#2 Hi Jim, Great to hear from you. I wish we had known you were trying to put something together for the Visitor's Guide because we certainly would have considered it. We clearly state on our home page and have a separate page on our website indicating we are a GLBT Welcoming accommodation. One of the interesting points made during the presentation at the Santa Fe conference I was at was that they had to do a lot of groundwork in Philadelphia with businesses who were worried that declaring themselves as gay friendly would negatively affect them. As frustrating as that is, it's a reality that must be acknowledged and any strategy has to take it into consideration. What we want to do at the meeting is first get a sense of what support there is among the existing core stakeholders....accommodation operators, GLBT organizations, businesses. If there is a willingness to form some type of caucus that will then drive this initiative, then we decide how to proceed. Just based on the response I have had to date, there certainly seems to be an interest in trying to develop some type of initiative. I certainly hope you can come to the meeting. You are well respected both within the GLBT community and the tourism industry. You have already done so much to promote the Island as a great place for GLBT travellers.....we need now to figure out how to convince both government and industry that this makes good business sense. Will you be able to make it? Cheers Bill

 #3 Greetings to all and a very very happy new year to one and all!!. What a great start to the new year with your note. Having been coming to PEI for quite a few years and spending more time there as time goes by , I fully endorse and encourage your thoughts. It's a great untapped market and one that all levels of government from municipal to local to provincial should be sitting up and taking notice of. All of the components are there. the beauty of the island, the diversity of the peoples and the available properties!!!. Now, none of this would have been possible without the great fortitude and courage of you who have carried the flag for so long. 25 years ago , as I rented in keppoch, I had no idea there were gay people on the island!! Lol. AND, now, I can go to a dance at mavors on a Saturday night and march in pride parades in downtown Charlottetown!!. Thank You All!!!. I f I may be so bold as to perhaps say a special thank you to Jimmy Culbert who has challenged , cajoled and persevered in his fight for so many peoples rights.Im sure that a referendum provincial wide would demonstrate great support for one and all. We are brothers ,sisters, fathers, Mums, cousins, uncles and aunts of each other, we are family. If I might be so bold, Tourisms PEI needs some creative people who will think out of the box regarding the extolling of Prince Edwards Islands virtues to the world at large. Fire island on the east Side perhaps ? So let's go after all of those with disposable income and bring em to the island and make em feel welcome. And, perhaps let's get away from pointing out that we from away are so blatantly from away but, that’s another story . I wish you all well and congratulate you and look forward to being back real soon. Most sincerely. Brian King

Summary of Feb 6 Meeting

Julia Pike from the Tourism Research Centre and Brian Dunn from Tourism PEI participated in a discussion regarding the results of the GLBT Tourism Survey conducted this past summer by the TRC. As you will see from the attached document, the results of the survey were less than definitive regarding the perception of PEI as a gay welcoming destination. Generally, respondents who self-identified as GLBT were very positive about their Island vacation experience. The responses indicated that PEI has all the sites, attractions, activities, etc that are of interest to GLBT travelers. The results indicate PEI is positioned to appeal to the gay tourism market. The challenge is to determine how to ensure that market knows what we have to offer in order to increase the number of GLBT tourists coming to the Island. It is recognized by both TRC and TPEI the sample size was small thereby making it difficult to validate some of the overall conclusions being drawn. However, since the results reflect findings of other larger broader surveys done by other organizations such as the Canadian Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce there is a level of comfort using the results to guide us as we move forward toward developing a strategic marketing initiative aimed at pursuing the GLBT market. It was agreed that at the next meeting of the PEI Gay Tourism Association we should start the discussion on what the next steps should be. is there more PEI specific research needed? If so, what do we need to know? would a GLBT Friendly designation for accommodations, restaurants, etc be useful/effective? should criteria be created to determine whether a location truly is GLBT friendly? If so, what might the criteria be? what does Gay Friendly mean? how should PEI be marketed to the GLBT tourism market? what role should Tourism PEI play in developing a strategic marketing initiative? Industry role? is there anything that can be done for the upcoming tourism season that might be helpful in identifying PEI as gay friendly? We are at a point where, as an industry group we need to decide whether we wish to put our time and energy into pursuing this market. In order to make that determination we need to have input from as many different stakeholders as possible.

FYI: Pride 2013 Kicks off July7th and runs untill July 14th so BOOK YOUR TIME OFF NOW!

Just want to give everyone a quick update for everyone since Pride is coming up.

Pride Prince Edward Island was officially launched in the summer of 1998 and has been a continuing tradition for Islanders to celebrate the freedom of being able to live no matter your sexual orientation and to remember those who have fought for us during the Stonewall riot. As several years have past and we have come a long way, we will always remember those who have paved the path of life for those today. Pride PEI has a full a full week planned with all sorts of activities including people of all orientations, age groups, sexes, and all other groups imaginable. Oh and also, it's not like islanders don't know how to PARTY!!!

ITINERARY:

Sunday July 7th Annual Pride Church Service,