This week we celebrate our 10th Episode in the most fabulous way with Robert Geller Founder of FabStayz!
Roberts’ story is one of inclusion for the LGBTQ+ community that came from a place of belonging and comfort on the side of both the host and guest.
BIG things are happening this week for Robert! To cap off Pride Week, FabStayz is going to be featured in the Wall Street Journal this weekend!
We also celebrate Carl Nassib coming out as the first openly gay active NFL player and briefly dive into Airbnb being in the news with the Bloomberg Businessweek article AIRBNB’S NIGHTMARE… more on this next week.
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LGBTQ+ in Today’s STR Landscape With Featured Guest Robert Geller
Mateo, how are you?
I am fantastic. I’m looking forward to this episode. How are you?
I’m super good. We made it. We did ten episodes. Every week, it’s growing. It’s doing exactly what we planned on doing. I’m super stoked about it. It is here to stay. We never talked about business but if you’re liking this show, please leave a review, share it with your friends and tell everyone about it. We work hard on it. This is a side gig for Mateo and me but it’s a passion project. It focuses on culture, news and speaking in current cultural topics. We have an amazing guest in this episode. Robert Geller, the Founder of FabStayz. Thank you so much for joining us.
It’s my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
You’re welcome.
The timing is right and a lot of things are coming out in the news. Normally, we talk about what happened in the week. I want to quickly touch on that and then we’re going to go ahead and learn about Robert’s story. Also, talk about some amazing things that happened in the news. One thing that is an exposé almost that came out that I want to briefly touch on is Bloomberg Business had an article called Airbnb’s Nightmares. It was gut-wrenching. Did you get a chance to read it, Mateo?
I did.
Robert and I were talking about it before you jumped in here. It shed a negative light on some things that are going on. We don’t want to dive too much into it in this episode but I want to talk about it because it happened. Let’s come back next time and have a more in-depth talk about it. Briefly, what did it bring to your attention?
It’s the perspective from the outside industry with the outside in. It’s a different perspective. We get tunnel vision in terms of our access because we live in this space but it’s a gap that we’re going to have to talk to, especially because of where we’re going as a country and the things that are happening in our country broadly. Some issues happen in our industry that has happened in our industry forever but this style of hospitality faces a different concern.
Where we’re at with COVID and cleaning, we’re going to have some serious conversations as we professionalize the industry and as hosts and professionals continue to come together, what this means for us and what it means for the guest because, at the end of the day, that’s what matters. We can write all these articles and take everybody’s opinions but feet on the ground, what guests want, need and will take, is the only thing that matters at the end of the day.
Whatever happens, just not get too deep into this, we are going to have to change how we operate in a lot of ways. I want to put it like that. I do want to delve more deeply into this but I don’t want to take away from where we’re going. This is an episode in and of itself as we discussed. I’ll save my rounds for that. There are going to be a lot of interesting conversations coming out of this.
I’m going to add my two cents when you bring this backup but it’s almost indicative of the shared economy, even out outside of short-term rentals. It’s something that sadly comes from the shared economy and if you look at ride-sharing as well. It’s something as a society that we are becoming more aware of.
It’s interesting because of the shared economy and the short-term rental space. Also, vacation rentals and the limelight all of this has been on the front and center stage that this has taken. It’s getting more and more in everyone’s face. More of this stuff is going to come out, unfortunately, as well. It’s like, “How do we deal with it? How do we pivot as an industry?”
Mateo, you said it right. How do we professionalize this in a way that isn’t burying it? How do we go ahead and deal with it correctly and not look at it with dollar signs on our glasses looking that lens, how do we deal with this appropriately which leads to this episode’s topics? We have the Founder of FabStayz, Robert Geller. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us about FabStayz and why it became a thing. Let’s chat about it.
Thank you. First, my pronouns are he, him and his. FabStayz is an LGBTQ+ accommodation platform. We look at it more as inclusive accommodations. It is where we’re at. We fit in the short-term rental space of a niche platform. I’ll be asked by people, “There’s the big OTA. Why would you need to exist?” A niche platform is not something new, whether it be Femmebnb for women solo travelers, Noirbnb that is catering to Black travelers, Muzbnb, BringFido or Atease for military travelers and housing.
There’s a lot in the space of niche platforms. I like to get that out there because I’ll sometimes be confronted with, “Why? How come? Isn’t there already these big platforms?” There’s something that you said about niches where we, all of us collectively, can address the needs of that particular niche. If you look at the number one concern of travelers, this is beyond LGBTQ+ and that is safety. We’re all concerned about safety when we’re traveling. Safety takes on a different meaning and it looks different to different travelers.
Safety is going to look different to a Black traveler, to a single female traveler and an LGBTQ+ traveler. There are some examples there and how it might look. Unless we’re in the shoes of those individuals, how are we going to know? I can speak to what I don’t know. I’m a White cis-gay male and I can speak to that experience. That’s a little bit of background on the niche piece of it.
[bctt tweet=”Safety looks different to a Black traveler, a single female traveler, and an LGBTQ+ traveler.” via=”no”]
I got into this as an Airbnb Superhost. I’ve been hosting since 2014. Mine was in the home sharing. I had a 2-bedroom, 2.5-bath condo and my guest bedroom was my short-term rental on Airbnb. I was confronted with giving great hospitality. I’d like to think of where my guests would check in. I would ask them how their travel and flight were. I would get them all settled in. I share with the guests some of my favorite things to do when visiting Tampa, Florida. Inevitably in casual conversation, I would be asked a benign question like, “What do you do for a living?”
It’s not a loaded question. Also the weather, your flights and things to do. I owned a gay travel company. It’s called Outings & Adventures. I had it for years. The brand is still out there and here I am conversing with a stranger standing 1.5 feet away from me in my home for the next 3 nights. How do I answer that question?
This is racing through my head. I was like, “Give him an answer or give the person an answer.” I would be confronted with that every single time. It wasn’t so much that I ever had any issues with any of the guests even though I’m thinking to myself, “Is their jaw going to hit the floor? Am I going to get a deer-in-the-headlights kind of look? Am I going to be uncomfortable in my home for the next three nights?”
I’m getting all worked up in that space. Sometimes I wouldn’t say anything. Other times, I would be my authentic self. I was confronted with that with every guest. I’m like, “This anxiety I’m getting every single time isn’t cool. Who else is experiencing this?” It was important for me when we were creating FabStayz that our narrative was coming from a place of improving the travel experience for both the guests and the host. Thankfully our narrative was not, “I was discriminated against on Airbnb so I started this.” It was more of, “How can we take out these pain points that we were experiencing,” or at least, I was.
I love that this was started in a way to give both comforts, not only to the traveler, because usually, the focus is how do we fix? How do we go ahead and cater to the traveler? However, you’re catering to the host. How do you give that comfort level on both sides? I love that about this whole platform and why you started.
From there, I’m like, “Am I the only one having this experience?” I started asking online. I looked at a thread on Twitter where someone from the LGBTQ+ community had a bad experience with their host. I saw on the thread that people were asking, “Why don’t you have a rainbow flag on your listing?” I’m looking at the thread and seeing Airbnb’s answering like, “We welcome everyone.” What they were saying was, “If you don’t have a rainbow flag, it means you’re not welcoming so we’re going to have an Asian flag. We’re going to have a Black flag. Where do the flags stop?”
None of that was said but I was reading this between the lines. I thought to myself, “There’s an opportunity here.” I then put together a SurveyMonkey and started asking questions online. Stories are being shared with me by travelers and host all over the world. They were simple stories of travelers saying that they would say in their message to the host, “My partner and I.” It was like putting a little bait out there saying, “How are they going to respond to my partner and me?” Another one said to me that they would look at the listing and try to get any clues from the listing or the language in the listing.
One person told me that their profile picture had a rainbow flag behind them so they didn’t have to say anything. Their picture said it or there was that host in Portland who shared it with me. She had received a message from a traveler and all it said was, “I’m trans.” The person didn’t want to invest anymore in the conversation because they probably had been shunned in the past. That’s all the message said.
Also, there was Vesna in Australia. She shared with me that she had same-sex travelers. They said they were friends and she’s like, “I know they’re a couple but I went along with the charade. I felt horrible because there is this great gay bar that my niece and I go to. I wanted to share that with them. I thought that I could improve their travel experience and I couldn’t provide them with that information.”
How do you breach that topic if that olive branch isn’t already put out there in the form of a platform or a niche? It’s hard.
It’s important to point out the why in this space. It’s because there’s a reason right behind us. All of this is coming from something. To take your experience, in the African-American community, there were Green Books because they had to be underground. It wasn’t a whole lot of guessing if you were going to take it if you were African-American or not unless you were extremely light-skinned and could pass and you didn’t have those issues.
You had to have Green Books if you want to go back and take it to the Underground Railroad. There’s a legacy of, “Why were these even in place?” It’s because people couldn’t be who they were. They weren’t accepted for who they are. Let’s be very clear. It was dangerous for them and you didn’t know where you were safe and where you were not. Not to take over your space but to fill that out. It’s a huge issue that a lot of people think, “This was so long ago when these things happened and when we needed this.” It’s not.
In our community, we have our book too.
That’s where I was going. I was going to ask. I didn’t know if that existed.
We had multiple of those. There was one called the Damron Guide. One was Spartacus and it was the same thing. We knew there was safety in that. The interesting to this is that on the other side, unfortunately, I’ve heard, “I don’t discriminate,” to take anybody’s money. I don’t think I tell Marriott to be a disciple of that but I’d like to think and add a little bit of context to this.
If the host is saying, “I don’t discriminate,” I get that but it’s not about you. It’s about the LGBTQ+ experience and the Black experience. It’s not that you don’t discriminate. Sadly, we’re taking with us all of our baggage and experience. For us in the LGBTQ+ community, what we’re looking to alleviate and take out of the equation is we want to take away the coming out experience.
In the LGBTQ+ community, we each have our coming out experience, whether it’s with family, friends, a new job or in travel. We relived this over and over again. Our opportunity was to take out that coming out experience and remove that from short-term rental booking and traveling experience. John, as we were talking before we started this episode, there is something in the news that hits on it.
Carl Nassib is with the Raiders. He’s an active player. If you haven’t watched the video, google Carl Nassib coming out. He put it on Instagram. It was a couple-minute video. You can’t miss it.
I got chills. I couldn’t finish it. I was going to break down into tears. It was so heartfelt. If you’re a member of the LGBT community, you know that experience because we have all done it. Not on a stage like he has done but we all have experienced it. Even to hear him say that he’s been wanting to do that for fifteen years, hits on what we experienced in the LGBTQ community in coming out. It’s amplified but you get to see that on a very personal level.
We were discussing too that ignorance is out there, even in my experience. When I heard the news, I was like, “Hold up. He’s not the first gay football player out there.” For a lot of people that are straight, not narrow like me or just straight, first of all, we can’t understand the gravity and the weight of what coming out means.
I’ve talked to my nephew about it. I’ve grown up differently coming from Portland in a different space but I’ll never be able to understand what that weight is and what that is like. Also, how momentous this is. I get bits and pieces of it because I know what the football environment is like. Those locker rooms can be brutal. On the field, in the locker room and those communities, I get that part too. That’s what’s so substantial about this to me. I didn’t know he was the first active player to do that. Shout-out to him for that because that’s crazy.
It’s so amazing that impact on the LGBTQ+ youth out there thinking to themselves, “Where do I fit in?” The LGBTQ+ youth have a suicide rate twice their peers. For them to have this role model, it’s phenomenal. We’ve had athletes come out at the Olympics or after the Olympics. There have been football players that had not gone to the field but maybe in the draft process had come out. To have someone on the national stage like that and his message felt so heartfelt and genuine. It was not someone that was like, “How can I get out there and make some noise?” It was spot on to happen during Pride Month. It was monumental.
The statement is the first part and what people have to understand is that it takes courage to make the statement. It’s not in the closet or hidden anymore. It’s there. It’s verified. “I’m living who I am. I’m committed to this.” The courage takes to make that statement and the other part I don’t want to get lost either is the ability to also use his position to make it better for others too. He made a $100,000 donation to an organization that is helping people in need in similar situations that need that help and support.
That’s the part about it too. We can sensationalize it. We’re talking about first and all these other things but the amount of courage and the strength it takes to do that I hope does not get lost on people because they don’t understand or can’t relate. I hope people take the time to look at the impact that this has and understand why this is a big deal.
I’m excited about the fact that there is LGBTQ+ youth out there that are seeing this. I know it is making a difference in their life in the last 24 hours to see that. I remember when I grew up, I didn’t have that. There was no role model like that. That thrills me. We might not see that. Maybe we’ll hear some stories but to know that that is impacting the LGBTQ+ youth is pretty amazing.
Robert, I know Pride Month or Pride Week’s been a thing for a while. I don’t want to call it just a thing and downplay it. That’s not what I mean but every year, it gets bigger and bigger. Do you know exactly when it started?
The 50th anniversary was in 2019 of Stonewall. San Francisco’s 50th was supposed to be in 2021 and Stonewall was two years ago before that. Something that I wanted to share with you that I have not told you yet about FabStayz that aligns with Pride Week is that FabStayz will be appearing in the Wall Street Journal.
Congratulations. You heard it here first. That’s awesome.
They’re doing a story on inclusive accommodation platforms to align with Pride weekend.
I can’t wait to read it.
I’m looking forward to reading it too but that brings up something I would love to talk about. Going back to the new circle, Robert, you and I live in this world of niche hosting platforms and sites. I think about this a lot. What’s the lesson in this for the bigger platforms? What can they do? We’re not going anywhere in this space. Our success is driven by our ability to do things authentically and specializes in the demographic that we focus on.
I know they’ll try. I am not saying that they can’t do better than what they’re doing in this space but I don’t know and I’d love to dig into this with you. What do they do? How do they get this? Is it part of the larger culture of the organizations? You can look at the platforms and how they’re set up corporately and they look great. I’m pretty sure they have a bit of diversity that focuses internally as an organization but how does that translate to their customer experience? Can they do better? How do they do better? What does that look like?
Interestingly enough, I had presented FabStayz to a representative at Airbnb. It was before we had a name. We happened to be at a conference and I said, “I want to share with you this concept.” The person was like, “This is incredible.” They also happen to be in the diversity and inclusion department over at Airbnb.
They have the dollars. They can put out an amazing Pride video that will blow off budgets that I will never see. They can fund projects as they did. They funded the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus and did a movie. Those are things that on a smaller platform we’re not going to have access to but our snitch platforms are embedded in the communities that we serve. We are on the frontline. We are that community. We are living and breathing it. We are interacting. I almost think to the point where the platform is secondary. It’s the community that is the first piece.
If you look at any of these niches, that’s where the strength is. It’s immersive, not only being in the community but I’m experiencing it every day. I’m sharing my hosting experience and meeting with hosts. When you get so big, you’re so removed from that front line and seeing what we’re seeing in the niche space and all of our niches. Also, the communities and the relationships that we’re building within them versus throwing dollars at it.
That’s what I was getting at too. I don’t want to take anything away from the support in that space but does it have an effect on what they’re going to want to do? The result is does it bring people to your platform? You sponsored the Chorus, this and that. What does the customer think? What does the LGBTQ+ traveler think in this space or do they care at the end of the day? Their issue is they can’t focus on one thing. We see they don’t want to focus on one set over the other. How do you broadly do this? Can you broadly do this? What we’re seeing in our space is it’s a challenge. If they can’t do it, somebody else is.
That’s where we come in. As a brand perception, they have a very positive image within the LGBTQ+ community but it comes down to the individual hosts. Airbnb can be whatever brand it’s going to be but it comes down to the individual hosts. Remember when Starbucks shut down for a day? They were retraining all their employees because there was an episode.
It was the coffee shop incident with the guys that they kicked out.
I believe it was two Black gentlemen. The takeaway on that is you can do whatever you want on the corporate level and your message can be whatever but it’s the people on the front line that are making the difference that is interacting with the guests. On the short-term rental, it’s us as hosts giving great hospitality. No matter what Airbnb is saying, it’s what are we doing on the ground with us connecting with guests? That’s where the difference is made.
[bctt tweet=”You can do whatever message you want on the corporate level in the STR space. But it’s the people on the front lins that are making the difference when interacting with the guests.” via=”no”]
Let me put this out there. We’re not picking on Airbnb. I’m talking about all platforms. While Airbnb is good in some spaces, there are other platforms that we don’t know what they do. Maybe they threw a flag up on something. I wanted to make sure that question is broad and that goes across all platforms out there.
I met with Booking.com as well and I remember them sharing with me that they used to have a Pride flag. As a host, you could check it off but they end up removing that because everybody checked it. It loses its effectiveness if it’s on every single listing. It is something that applies to all the different OTA platforms.
Robert, I have a question for you. We are talking about Pride Month and throwing a Pride flag up. I want your input on what you think that every major marketing campaign and every firm in the world that has money has made an LGBTQ+ positive marketing campaign. When you’re watching the television, everything is about Pride. I want to know from you as a person in the community what your thoughts are on this. Do you think it is authentic or it is only trying to capture Pride Month? This also goes back to the niche market compared to someone with boots on the ground as someone who goes ahead like, “How are we going to gobble up these shares?” What are your thoughts on that?
I have my personal feeling on this one. Marketers are looking at a segment that’s spent $220 billion a year on travel. It’s a segment that they’re going after. The LGBTQ+ space will call it rainbow washing and that’s when brands will put up a rainbow. I posted on LinkedIn. I have my pride message up there on my LinkedIn profile and I put in the comments, “Brands, what happens on July 1st? Where’s your support on July 1st? What are you doing then?”
I’ve talked to other marketers, whether it be the months that are dedicated to others. There’s a degree of rainbow washing. When is it authentic? When does it feel that way? One that felt real to me was when Lego came out with its Pride toy kit. I remember someone saying rainbow washing but I didn’t feel it. That one felt so generous, especially a children’s toy that is educational. In that instance, that for me felt authentic. They are putting something good out in the world that people interact with their hands. Also, the teaching and the learning that can go with that versus everyone putting a flag on everything. I had a little bit of a knee-jerk reaction when I see certain campaigns. They don’t all seem genuine.
It’s the same with Black History Month and every one of these months you’re talking about. Marketers are psychologists. That’s their job. It’s interesting to me and I’m curious. I appreciate your insight on it because I felt from the outside looking in that it doesn’t seem legit. Certain ones seem more authentic than not. Some seem like, “What can we snag from this?”
Some of that feels that way. There are rainbows everywhere. I question when I see it. I wonder, “What is your corporate culture? What are you doing for your LGBTQ employees internally? Are you walking the walk? Are you providing healthcare to your transgender employees and individuals?” As individuals, no matter what our niches and month are, we’re all looking at it like, “What’s authentic? What’s real,” versus everybody jumping on the bandwagon and what happens on July 1st.
It’s a double-edged sword because for so long, the marginalized communities have been asking for support and it’s cool. From someone on the outside looking in, I like when I see a company that for this month, they changed their logo to a rainbow flag or whatever that logo is. Nike came out with special edition shoes that I was like, “Those are dope.” I didn’t even wear those but if you went deeper, they have a little flag that you can take off. I didn’t know there were multiple flags. They went down and broke down all the different flags so that you could put whatever one represented you on the shoe.
Things like that which you can tell it wasn’t just an ornamental gesture to placate the masses and say, “We’re socially responsible in this way.” They threw some dollars at it. You hit the nail on the head. What happens on July 1st or for the rest of the year? What do you do as a company? What is your culture like? What do your employees think? What are your customers think at the end of the day? It was always enough to say, “We did this. Don’t you see what we did for this?”
Are we only checking boxes or doing things? Those that know Mateo and me, we’re both on different DEI subcommittees. Mateo is a VRMA Co-chair for a subcommittee of DEI. Inclusiveness has been at a forefront of what we’ve been doing and trying to talk about and promote in our space for a long time. The conversations that we’ve had was not on LGBTQ+ but in general, “Are you as a company filling a CEO in high-level spots by only checking boxes? We need to go ahead and get someone in here to have a more diverse management team.” You see this across. You see it in sports and everything.
“We need to go ahead, have a person of color and make sure that we have a woman.” Unfortunately, these are checkboxes. I’d venture to say that in most circumstances, it’s checkboxes. Who are those companies that are invested in making a more diverse culture for the employees or travelers? We’re back in our space but it’s a fine line. It’s a double-edged sword. You call it whatever you want. We’re going to be talking about it for a long time and we need to keep talking about it. For a lot of people, this episode’s going to be uncomfortable. We’re okay with that. We want it to be.
It’s because it boils down to the why. At the end of the day, if it’s a checkbox, the results won’t be changed because it’s not there or it was hot at the moment. However, when the next news cycle came up and something else came on, the conversation diverted. Companies have more visibility. Before, this was a matter of, “We have to do this because it’s essential to our company. We need to be able to show on our sheets that we’ve got this,” the checkbox thing but that’s not enough.
We’ve seen incremental progress to the point where you can’t hire people. You’re not going to be able to keep guests. It goes back to what we were talking about the whole origin of where cancel culture comes from. At the end of the day, people did things because they were afraid of the backlash. That was a tool that pushed progression forward. However, what it didn’t do on the other side of that and why people are still pushing back against cancel culture is that cancel seems finite. “Cancel. You’re done. You can’t learn. You can’t get better. You can’t change.” That’s the missing part of that conversation.
The reality is it was prevalent because it forced change. It may not be the right kind or way but it did force something that way. It forced people to do things that they were not open and willing to do prior but they had to, whether it was the economic pressure, the pressure of their HR and teams or the internal pressure of what they had to do.
That’s why we get the mess that we have where there’s pushback against things that have been forced on people without knowing why. Also, doing the ornamental things with not following up and building progressive cultures that make sense to people and understand why these progressive cultures are important to our communities, the companies and the people that they serve.
In the short-term rental space, I’ll have hosts and property members reach out. They’ll ask, “How can I be recognized as inclusive?” It’s a great question. I try to convey that if you have family travelers, let’s say you’re in Kissimmee here in Disney, you’re probably going to have themed rooms and bedrooms. You’re probably going to have toys. If you have business travelers, you’re going to make sure that you have great Wi-Fi on a desk. It’s about hospitality and anticipating the guest’s needs. In the LGBTQ+ space, I’ll have to ask, “What can I do preemptive? How do I get that message out there that I have an inclusive welcoming space?”
The first thing is to join FabStayz but then secondly, if you’re not on, that’s fine because we want to share information. We want an inclusive and welcoming world so we’re going to share information. One thing that an individual can do, on your profile where there’s the information of you as a host, having your pronouns, that little piece is sending a message that you get it. I don’t want to say that you are progressive but you understand that others might not fit into a specific gender.
Putting your pronouns out there is putting your guest at ease and saying, “This person’s being their self. I can be myself.” I find that it’s a very big benefit in putting that simple thing on a profile. We can put LGBTQ+ welcoming. I have that on my profile that I’m a member of the LGBTQ+ community. I have seen where images of your listing where one image doesn’t necessarily have to be a rainbow flag but it’s an image that says, “All are welcome here.” You’ve probably seen some signage but something. It could be general but it’s saying, “This is an inclusive, welcoming space where you can be yourself.”
We’ve all seen the different signs. I’ve found that has been a benefit as well. I have heard on the flip side. I have heard hosts, especially LGBTQ+ hosts where they have put on their listing rainbow flags. They’ve put LGBTQ+ messages and I have heard that their bookings weren’t as good. You want to make sure that you’re appealing to a broad market, especially if you’re on a broad platform. These niches allow you to go more specific but putting the pronouns or maybe having one of those images, sharing a welcoming message or an inclusive message seems to resonate quite well.
We’re getting to the end of our episode here. Two quick things. I want you to give us a wrap-up here for us but I did want to quickly ask you. You told us that you came into this space as a way to go ahead and be welcoming. Nothing went ahead and when negatively impacted, you go, “I need to go ahead and build this.” This is the reason why these negative things happen to me and happened to my friends. It’s more of like, “I want it more welcoming for both the traveler and the host to make a more inclusive and easy to navigate this business.” Did you have anything negative at all happen to you because you are out pioneering this FabStayz in this niche market?
We all know social media, the trolls and how people can hide behind their keyboards in things that we’ll post on social media. I’m active in short-term rental groups on Facebook, for instance. I’m not always met with open arms. Some people will comment and they’ve not been positive. On the whole, in general, it has been extremely positive but there’s always going to be someone out there that’s hiding behind the keyboard and doesn’t get it. That’s okay.
[bctt tweet=”Trolls hide behind their keyboards so they can post anything they want on social media.” via=”no”]
I’m not looking to change every single person out there or anybody. We have a great message we want to share. Those allies are what it comes down to. We are not a gay platform. You’ll know this message is coming from a White gay cis-male. We are an LGBTQ+ platform and it’s important to all of us that our message is getting out there and that everyone in the LGBTQ+ community is welcome along with our allies because no movement moves forward without those allies.
One thing I want to bring up before we get out of here too is an ally is a verb. It requires action. It shouldn’t be thought of as an adjective. It’s in that space because you say you are. Speaking specifically to our industry in our space that isn’t always the most progressive but has good people that oftentimes want to do better. They want to ask questions and learn more.
Some don’t and that’s fine. That’s their prerogative. That’s their choice but how do we encourage the hosts that are maybe behind the keyboard and don’t know? Maybe they come from a place where this isn’t the norm and maybe they haven’t had exposure. Maybe they come from a different experience. This is a broader question but how do we do better in terms of addressing the needs of those travelers? Specifically, these travelers in this space across our industry and what we do in the short-term aspect?
It’s a learning process for all of us and it first was having the will and the desire to want to learn. I’m learning. I’ve made mistakes. I may have mispronounced somebody and I have. I used the term transgendered. There’s no ED and I remember I was schooled on that. I learned. It’s evolving. It is non-binary. It’s continuing to evolve. It’s wanting to expand our minds and be open to that learning. I used the point that we and the community are learning and it’s evolving as well. It’s being open to that.
There are some great resources out there. Even in each community, there is typically a gay and lesbian chamber of commerce. It’s called the NGLCC, the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. There are branches in communities all over the world. There’s an opportunity to see what businesses and resources are in your local community for LGBTQ+ travelers. When they’re visiting your destination, there are some great resources that they could utilize in your area.
This has been the most fabulous episode ever. This has been enlightening. We’re super stoked to have you as a guest. Thank you so much, Robert. I hope that our readers check out your website and some of the resources that you’ve gone ahead and mentioned. Also, everyone that is reading, open up your hearts and minds. Together, we got this. Ally is a verb. We are allies of the LGBTQ+ community and all of this. Thank you so much, Robert.
It was great. Thank you for having me. Should your readers have any questions and they want to reach out, please do. We’re all in this together. We have one shot at this. If I can help anyone or assist in any way, don’t hesitate.
It’s the same here. If we can help you in the community in any way, shape or form, please let us know. We’re here to help.
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