With New York State poised to rake in perhaps $1 billion a year following the enactment of same sex marriage, one casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey seems to be likewise hoping to benefit from pink tourism dollars. Of course, the casino's cause would be helped significantly if the New Jersey legislature were to follow New York's lead and embrace marriage equality. While states like South Carolina and Virginia make themselves as unwelcoming as possible to LGBT citizens, other states and businesses realize that religious based bigotry and intolerance are not good for the bottom line. As I have noted before, when the boyfriend and I travel, we typical seek out gay excepting destinations such as New York City, Key West, Ft. Lauderdale and Washington, D.C. - all of which equates to a financial drain from Virginia. The New York Times looks at the Resorts Casino Hotel to encourage gay guests, including a full time gay bar and drag shows. It is interesting that the hotel operator believes that gays will also attract younger visitors. Here are some highlights:*
At the Resorts Casino Hotel, the somewhat faded Boardwalk grande dame that became this city’s first casino in 1978 after New Jersey legalized the business, you can find slots and blackjack, concert posters featuring performers like Paul Anka and Wayne Newton, the de rigueur all-you-can-eat buffet and the other familiar diversions of Casinoland. But there is also a rainbow flag flying above the entryway. There is Prohibition, a new nightclub that is believed to be the first full-time gay bar at any big American casino. Across the hall is a female impersonators’ show. On the hotel’s Web site, a menu tab reads “LGBT.”
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[T]he opening of Prohibition in May was a sign that just as the city has courted various markets over the years — Asians, families and others — it is now reaching out to gay customers as a way to cope with too much competition and too few gamblers.
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“I feel like I’m doing something that needs to be done, but it’s perfect because the right thing to do is the lucrative thing to do, too,” said Dennis C. Gomes, who in December became co-owner and chief executive of the faltering casino, which he says lost $20 million last year. So far the new club has been a big hit, drawing local customers and visitors from New York, Philadelphia and Washington.
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“As a gay person, the places you could go to were almost creepy, not chic at all,” said Francois Dagenais of Montreal, a singer and dancer who has appeared in Atlantic City shows for 10 years. “We’re looking for the same thing as everyone else. We have money to spend and want to have fun. I don’t know why this didn’t happen before.”
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The idea, part of the hotel’s ’20s-themed makeover, was not just that members of the gay community were a ripe market, but that they were something of a pop culture signifier whose support would also pull in a younger, hipper audience than Resorts had been attracting.
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[S]ome experts say that Atlantic City has particular potential for gay patrons because of its beach scene, period architecture, louche history, access to urban communities from New York to Washington and even the campy resonance of the Miss America Pageant.
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At Resorts, Mr. Gomes and Mr. Ballesteros, his marketing executive, discussed whether a gay presence would turn off a general audience. They agreed that in Atlantic City at least, that train had left the station. Instead, a bigger problem might be the opposite. At the drag show one recent night, the delighted audience was mostly heterosexual couples, average age hovering around 55. “It’s been great so far,” Mr. Diorio, the server, said. “But we did have one customer who came in, took a look around and said, ‘There went our gay bar.’ ”
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