New York's first straight-friendly gay hotel opens

THE OUT NYC is part of a global trend, said Darren Cooper, senior consultant for Out Now Consulting, an international company based in the Netherlands that specializes in marketing to the gay community. “Traditionally gay-owned and or operated hotels and guesthouses have been located in vacation resorts, and catered almost exclusively to the gay leisure traveler,” Cooper said. But since 2003 there has been growth in larger, metropolitan, upscale, boutique hotels that are predominantly aimed at the LGBT community but also marketed as "straight friendly." The LGBT community is announcing that it is now “part of the mainstream, but that straights are welcome, too,” he said. Cooper cited a number of reasons for the increase, including the fact that post 9/11, the LGBT travel market “showed remarkable resilience, a fact that was not lost on the global travel industry as well as gay entrepreneurs and hoteliers.”