Destinations International and IGLTA just released “Why Values Matter: A Destination Guide to LGBTQ+ Travelers” — and the findings should change how destinations build their LGBTQ+ strategy. Drawing on Valuegraphics research with 1,800+ LGBTQ+ travelers weighing U.S. trips, the toolkit identifies three Power Values driving travel decisions: Harmony, Health & Well-Being, and Balance. Notably absent from the recommendations? A June parade sponsorship. What the research points to instead is year-round proof of what it’s actually like to be there — and destinations that align with these values see measurable lifts in loyalty, trust and visitor spending. Our full read on what it means for destination marketing is on the blog.
Anyone who has sat in a destination marketing meeting knows the shape of the usual LGBTQ+ conversation. Someone pulls up a spending-power number, someone else mentions Pride, and the plan becomes a June media buy plus a rainbow crosswalk photo. Useful, maybe. But it never quite answers the question the destination actually needs answered: what makes an LGBTQ+ traveler choose us over somewhere else?
Destinations International and the International LGBTQ+ Travel Association just published something that gets closer to a real answer. Why Values Matter: A Destination Guide to LGBTQ+ Travelers is a free toolkit built with the Destinations International Foundation and the IGLTA Foundation, drawing on research from Valuegraphics — a firm that studies audiences by what they value rather than by who they demographically are. That distinction is the whole point, and it’s why this resource is worth more than a skim.
The Three Power Values
The headline finding: three “Power Values” disproportionately drive LGBTQ+ travel decisions — Harmony, Health & Well-Being, and Balance.
Sit with those for a second, because none of them are what a typical destination pitch leads with. Harmony is about being in a place where you fit, where the environment isn’t in conflict with who you are. Health & Well-Being is broader than spa menus — it’s physical and emotional safety, the ability to relax fully rather than stay half-alert. Balance is stability, the sense that a trip restores something rather than costing you energy to navigate.
Read together, they describe a traveler who is asking, quietly and constantly, whether a destination will require them to manage themselves. As Meg Ten Eyck, IGLTA Board Chair and CEO of EveryQueer, put it: “LGBTQ+ travelers naturally seek out places where they can truly be themselves.” The research puts a framework and a vocabulary around an instinct the community has always operated on.
The Research Behind It
The study is based on responses from more than 1,800 LGBTQ+ travelers across key international inbound markets considering travel to the United States. That sample matters. This isn’t a domestic-only read, and it isn’t a Pride-season snapshot — it’s inbound intent, measured at a moment when a lot of international travelers are weighing whether the U.S. is a comfortable choice at all.
The finding that will get quoted in board meetings: destinations that align with these values see measurable increases in loyalty, trust, engagement and visitor spending. Not goodwill. Spending. That’s the sentence to bring into a budget conversation.
“As destination organizations continue evolving their role as community leaders and stewards of place, creating environments where all travelers feel genuinely welcomed and represented is essential,” said Don Welsh, president & CEO of Destinations International. The toolkit translates that into a five-step framework for building LGBTQ+ inclusion into long-term strategic planning, measurement and storytelling — along with case studies from Discover Puerto Rico’s long-running LGBTQ+ tourism strategy and community-based cultural programming in Jaipur, India.
What Changes If You Take It Seriously
The recommendations aren’t complicated, but they do redirect where the money goes: strengthen LGBTQ+ representation across destination marketing, invest in welcoming training and policies, support LGBTQ+-owned businesses, and embed community voices in tourism development rather than consulting them after the plan is written.
Notice what’s missing from that list — a Pride parade sponsorship. Not because those don’t matter, but because the values framework points somewhere else entirely. If Harmony, Health & Well-Being and Balance are what’s driving the decision, then a destination’s most persuasive content is year-round proof of what it’s actually like to be there: the local businesses, the everyday welcome, the travelers who already went and came back rested rather than watchful. That’s a content strategy, not a campaign flight.
It also raises the bar on honesty. A values-aligned traveler notices the gap between marketing and reality faster than anyone, and the research is essentially describing a group with well-calibrated instincts for it. Destinations that can’t back the message shouldn’t send it.
Where Pink Media Lands
Travel and tourism has been a core part of our practice for a long time, and this is the kind of third-party research we look for — specific, methodologically grounded, and produced by organizations no one in the industry can dismiss. Layered against our own market sizing work in the 2026 LGBTQ+ Marketplace Guide, it strengthens the argument considerably: values research tells you why LGBTQ+ travelers choose a place, and market data tells you how much that choice is worth.
We’ll be citing it in destination conversations going forward, and if you work on the destination side, it’s worth reading in full before your next planning cycle. The toolkit is available free through Destinations International.
If you’re working through how to turn values-based insight into an LGBTQ+ travel content strategy that runs all year, that’s a conversation we’d welcome. You can always reach us through PinkMedia.LGBT.
Authentic LGBTQ+ engagement, 24/7, 365 days a year — that’s what Pink Media is built for.
