Marketing ‘Gay-friendly’ Spaces: Motivations and Outcomes for Small Hospitality and Retail Businesses

Sexual identity may both enable and limit various leisure activities and practices, it also has an effect on how certain leisure spaces are perceived and imagined. ‘Gay spaces’ such as bars, pubs and discos are known to provide not only the immediately obvious services, but also the intangible qualities such as safety, anonymity and comradery. However, it remains unclear how ‘gay-friendly’ spaces fit in this mix. In particular, there is a dearth of research pertaining to the marketing of ‘gay-friendly’ spaces and business-related outcomes associated with such marketing. Based on the context of two cities (Vilnius, Lithuania and Hobart, Tasmania) with varying degrees of gay acceptance and tolerance, this proposed research project aims to empirically explore what factors influence a business’ decision to adopt a gay-friendly sticker and what business-related outcomes are evident post gay-friendly sticker adoption.