The guide arms LGBT business travelers with expert resources, helps them understand the legal landscape – and even covers how to survive in potentially dangerous situations
LGBT travelers are sent on business to many of the 76+ countries criminalizing homosexuality, including 10 where it’s punishable by death.
Suggested tweet: Groundbreaking free LGBT Guide 2 Business Travel by @MAWTravel 1st to help professionals navigate anti-gay countries http://bit.ly/1T1cUfy
June 1, 2016 (New York, NY) – Signaling a new era for gay and lesbian road warriors, ManAboutWorld has published a first-of-its-kind LGBT Guide to Business Travel (the Guide), with support from Marriott and IBM.
A free resource for LGBT professionals whose work may take them to anti-gay countries, the guide is also a useful tool for anyone in the travel, hospitality, or destination marketing industries who wants an inside look at the state of business travel today for LGBT executives — more of whom are out at work than ever.
We’ve come a long way since the Mad Men days when gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) business executives were often outed, shamed and fired simply for being themselves. Today out LGBT business leaders have risen to the very pinnacle of corporate success including Apple CEO Tim Cook who declared, “I’ve had the good fortune to work at a company that knows it can only flourish when you embrace people’s differences.“
Corporate support for their LGBT employees and customers extends to the political arena with PayPal dropping plans to construct a $3.6 million global operations center in Charlotte, N.C., because of the state’s recent passage of an anti-LGBT law.
But being out still presents its own challenges within the corporate workplace with potentially dire challenges when business travelers set out on the road, especially to any of the 76+ countries where homosexuality is marginalized, criminalized and even punishable by death.
Some of the world’s most important business destinations are also places where same-sex relations are illegal and punishable by fines, jail time and much worse including:
The top 5 potentially perilous destinations for LGBT business travelers:
· Singapore — Up to two years in jail
· United Arab Emirates — Various punishments, possibly a death sentence.
· Nigeria — Death penalty for men
· Iran — Death penalty
· Saudi Arabia — Banishment, whipping, and death by public stoning
The good news is that LGBT travelers – for the first time – may count on expert resources to guide them on ways to stay safe, productive and successful when navigating unfamiliar and uncertain destinations found a tap away in a new mobile, interactive publication called The LGBT Guide to Business Travel, published by ManAboutWorld.
