The Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau will showcase its commitment to LGBT+ causes and the destination with NYC Pride attendees with a first-ever tourism activation at PRIDE PLACE, an experiential pop-up, held at the Samsung 837 venue space during Pride Week. NYC Pride celebrates the LGBT community by hosting Pride events that inspire, educate, commemorate and celebrate the LGBT community during the week of June 17.
The Greater Fort Lauderdale CVB’s activation will provide Pride Place attendees an opportunity to take part in the creation of a giant mural depicting a human thumbprint developed over the course of the week with participants stamping their individual thumbprints on the mural. The thumbprint is the symbol of Greater Fort Lauderdale’s #GreaterTogether diversity movement advocating inclusion and unity in humanity. The mural will be donated to the Stonewall National Museum and Archives in Wilton Manors, one of many LGBT+ points of interest in the destination. If attendees want to take home a piece of Greater Fort Lauderdale, they will be able to take photos at a beach scene photo booth to share on social media.
“NYC and Greater Fort Lauderdale share a huge commitment to support the LGBT+ community,” said Richard Gray, Vice President, LGBT+ for the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau. “We are excited to showcase the destination during an important LGBT+ event and to do so in an exciting venue. Our goal is to demonstrate the progressive nature of Greater Fort Lauderdale and how we welcome all people regardless of whom they choose to love or how they identify.”
PRIDE PLACE celebrates the intersection of community and culture within the LGBT+ community. Pride Place will be open to the public from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and will provide diverse LGBT+ programming, including panel discussions, symposiums, cocktail parties, speaker series, and more.
Greater Fort Lauderdale’s participation during NYC Pride is another milestone in the destination’s two+ decades journey in support of the LGBT+ community. Earlier this year it announced plans to host the first-ever Pride of the Americas Festival in 2020. The 10-day event will draw attention to issues LGBT+ individuals face in Latin America and the Caribbean. It is expected to attract more than 350,000 attendees and will include a parade, a beach party, arts festival, social events and a human rights conference focused on LGBT+ rights.
Most recently, Greater Fort Lauderdale/Broward County opened the area’s first LGBT+ Visitor Center in Wilton Manors, Broward County’s gay-centric district with the destination’s largest concentration of gay residents and businesses. It is located at 2300 NE Seventh Ave in Wilton Manors.
Greater Fort Lauderdale is also home to one of the largest Pride Centers in the country, the world’s first AIDS museum, the global headquarters of the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association, and the Stonewall Museum, one of the only permanent spaces in the U.S. devoted to exhibitions relating to LGBT+ history and culture.
The Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau has been welcoming LGBT+ travelers since 1996, when it became the first Convention & Visitors Bureau with a dedicated LGBT+ marketing department. Since then, Greater Fort Lauderdale has continued to break down barriers and facilitate visibility for the LGBT+ community at large, acting as a pioneer in the hospitality industry and ensuring that the destination is inclusive and welcoming with a diverse, safe and open community for all travelers. Greater Fort Lauderdale welcomes an estimated 1.5 million LGBT+ visitors who spend $1.5 billion annually.
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