Asia growing as gay tourist hotspot

Asia is growing as a choice destination for gay and lesbian travellers.

While most tour operators that specialise in these trips are based outside Asia, Bangkok-based Purple Dragon has been active here for 15 years.

'We have been very successful because Asia is a new and complex destination for so many of our customers, [and] 25 per cent of which are repeat clients,' says Douglas Thompson, managing director at Purple Dragon. Of its more than 2,000 annual bookings, about half of those are from North America with the remainder from English-speaking countries, he adds.

Thompson prides his business on being service orientated. All its destinations are 'in our back yard and we have a very high standard of quality and value, which is hard to come by in this part of the world'.

Part of that standard includes using only gay-friendly, gay-owned or gay-managed hotels with English-speaking guides. Purple Dragon also offers health care holidays offering dental work, Lasek or cosmetic surgery.

With the gay tourism market in the United States alone valued at US$63 billion, according to tourism industry data from the US Department of Commerce, and Community Marketing, some markets such as Nepal are looking to cash in. Community Marketing is holding its first Asian Symposium on Gay and Lesbian tourism in Kathmandu in June with help from the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA) in the US.