The Importance of the Pink Dollar

by Michael Jones · 2008-12-15 04:45:00 UTC
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Pink dollarIn a spiraling global economy, is there any group of folks who could miraculously save a country's tourism industry?

(Cue superhero music)

The gays! It turns out that pink money is the new pink. At least, that's the news out of Latin America, where Argentina's marketing to LGBT tourists has really paid off. Tourist officials in Argentina - one of the more progressive South American countries, having legalized same-sex unions a few years ago - estimate that nearly one in five tourists to the country are gay. Moreover, they estimate that Argentina makes nearly $250 per gay tourist...and that doesn't even include the hotel bill. Per the Economist:

In recent years, Buenos Aires has hosted a gay tourism symposium, a gay football tournament, a gay film festival and the first gay cruise in South American waters; it is now home to a gay hotel, a gay bookstore, and a network of stores providing discounts to customers wielding a 'gay-friendly Buenos Aires' card. The influx of so-called 'pink money' has become a pillar of the city’s economy.

And it looks like some other folks in South American want to get in on the act.

Neighboring Uruguay, which has also legalized same-sex civil unions, sees the potential upsides to gay tourism, according to Small State blogger Todd Martinez.  It's not quite there yet, but the potential is there to compete with Buenos Aires for the gay dollar.

I find the argument of gay tourism to be an interesting one, and am eager to see here in the States how Massachusetts and Connecticut (the two states that have legalized gay marriage) might work the pro-gay angle when it comes to marketing their states as LGBT-friendly destinations.  Earlier this year, the Williams Institute released a report that said it makes sound financial sense for a state to legalize gay marriage.  Even better, the Congressional Budget Office said that if every state in the Union legalized gay marriage, the national profit on same-sex weddings would be to the tune of a billion dollars per year.

That's one-seventh of a federal bailout!  It might not be enough to keep the big three automakers afloat, but one billion pink dollars could sure help a lot of folks right now.  Which goes to show that the crux of this story is that equal rights for LGBT folks isn't just a moral thing to do, it's also a sound financial thing to do, too.

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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