Gay and Lesbian Travel Association convention in Fort Lauderdale

Fort Lauderdale, Florida will host the 2011 convention of the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA), which will see 1,200 attendees coming to the south Florida city for four nights.

The city was chosen over contenders Philadelphia and Chicago in a bidding process, the Convention and Visitor Bureau (CVB) said. Fort Lauderdale is the home of the IGLTA, and hosted the association’s first convention in 2002.

By selecting the city to host the meeting, it seems that the controversy created by Mayor Jim Naugle’s remarks about gays has been surmounted. The mayor will be leaving office at the end of this term, due to term limits.

Broward County’s Vice Mayor, Ken Keechl, who is said to be the highest-ranking openly-gay official in the state of Florida, said in a press release: “Our county, with vibrant ‘gayborhoods’ including Fort Lauderdale and Wilton Manors, has been a top-rated destination within the gay and lesbian community for more than a decade, and I know that it will be a place that IGLTA attendees will want to return to time and time again.”

Wilton Manors is a community of approximately 14,000 residents situated to the north of Fort Lauderdale’s city center. It has the highest ratio of same-sex couple in the U.S. Over the past decade, a gay-led gentrification effort has enlivened the downtown area, with several large condominium projects built, and the 145-unit Gables Wilton Park project under construction currently.

Thanks to www.travelmole.com for the above quotes, for more information on this article please visit their website.

www.iglta.org