Blackwell Reference Online

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Gay tourism is generally used to refer to the traveling of gay men, often in groups and usually to gay-friendly tourist destinations. Though it is a growing segment of the tourist market, lesbian travel has been marginalized both in the marketing of tourism and in the academic literature about gay tourism. Some represent this marginalization by using parenthesis when writing about gay (and lesbian) tourism (e.g., Williams 2008 ). Gay tourism can also refer to the tourism of openly gay and lesbian individuals to non-gay destinations (e.g., “traveling as gay”) or even to the tourism of non-gay individuals to gay neighborhoods to view gay culture. “Queer tourism” is often used in the academic literature to signify a methodological approach to studying gay and lesbian tourism through the lens of queer theory, which problematizes gay and lesbian sexual identities (e.g., Puar 2002a ). According to Clift et al. (2002) the earliest documentation of gay travel is from the Victorian period when “homosexual men from northern Europe went on grand tours of the Mediterranean region,” visiting Italy and Greece seeking the companionship of young men. This type of gay travel was available to the wealthy, educated class and allowed them to escape the strict norms of their own cultures to partake of Greek and Roman cultures, which were thought to be more accepting of homosexuality. However, modern ... log in or subscribe to read full text