What is the Gay Market?

Gays and lesbians are sometimes elusive to quantify, but major advertisers have increasingly found that their efforts are well worth the investment to find them and for good reason. A recent study conducted by the Connecticut-based Greenfield Online, found that the average annual household income for gays and lesbians is US$57,000. The New York-based Company, Spare Parts, Inc., which helps companies market to gays, estimates that the United States gay and lesbian population is between 15 million to 23 million. According to another study (Inter@ctive Week, August 30, 1999. Pg. 20.), the US gay community consists of over 19 million people with an estimated buying power of US$800 billion. Asia has more than half of the world’s population, which is more than 10 times the US population.

Below is a benchmark that helps to bring this market more into focus, allowing us to compare it to other diversity niche communities in the US marketplace.

Travel Industry in the Gay Market

As the gay market has grown and developed over the past 30 years, it’s been the travel industry which has embraced and been at the forefront in marketing to the gay community. The world of Gay Travel is the most diverse and mature. There are companies dedicated exclusively to gay travel marketing and business associations solely for the world of gay travel. The size of the gay travel market, in terms of buying power, is what attracts advertisers the most. Based on the Travel Instition of the US travel market at US$1.3 trillion, the GLBT portion, at a low 5% population estimate, comes to US$65 billion. As mentioned earlier, Asia’s population is more than 10 times of US, when you double that figure, it is US$130 billion!

How to advertise on PLUguide?

雖然同志族群難以計量，但主要廣告商仍然相信他們在同志市場上的投資绝对有理由並且值得的。一項位於康乃迪克州 (Connecticut-based) 的Greenfield網路、進行研究發現由同志伴侶組成的家庭其年均收入為美金,000。位在紐約的Spare Parts, Inc., 是一間專門協助其他公司打入同志市場的企業，估計美國的同志族群人口是在1,500萬到2,300萬之間。根據另外一份研究報告指出 ( Inter Week, 1999 年8月30 日出版，第20頁 ) ，美國的同志社群約有超過1900萬人，他们的消費能力初步估計將達8,000億美金之多。而亞洲地區的總人口就超過世界人口的一半以上，更是美國總人口的10倍以上。可見亞洲地區同志族群潛在的消费能力相當龐大。

以下的數據可以帮助我们更專注地了解同志市場的潜在能力，更可以讓我們比較在美國市場里其他小眾市場的情形。

關於同志市場的旅游業

過去30年裡，隨著同志市場的成长和發展，旅游業開始和同志族群一起在市場上攜手並進。同志的旅遊世界是蓬勃與成熟的。更有許多公司和商業機構只是專門針對同志旅遊提供服務。

同志旅遊市場的大小，單以消費能力的數據來看，是最吸引廣告Ú#26053;遊協會的æ青睞的。根據美國&0272;計美國的旅遊市場有1.3兆美金的消費力，而同志族群部份，若以5%的人口含概值計算，將有650億美金的消費力。因此如前面提到,亞洲人口是美國的10倍以上，就算只是以雙倍來計算，那也是1,300億美金！

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