St. Petersburg was named one of the 20 "hottest" holiday travel spots in the world for LGBTQ visitors by gay room-share app, MisterB&B.
St. Pete came in at No. 11 on the list, beat out by a few other Florida cities: Wilton Manors near Miami ranked No. 1, Fort Lauderdale No. 3 and Miami Beach No. 5. The app, similar to Airbnb but focused on gay travelers and LGBT-friendly hosts, compiled a travel index based off its own booking data.
The company measured the volume of searches by location for planned stays from September to December.
The City of St. Pete and its businesses have been working to make the area more appealing to queer tourists. The LGBTQ Welcome Center reopened last month with a new focus on tourism, as well as on helping LGBTQ youth. The Welcome Center, at 2227 Central Ave., has a Visit St. Petersburg-Clearwater kiosk inside and promotes gay-friendly businesses.
St. Petersburg is known for the largest Gay Pride Parade celebrations in the Southeast.
The full ranking is as follows: 1. Wilton Manors (metro Miami) 2. Palm Springs, Calif. 3. Fort Lauderdale. 4. Cathedral City, Calif. 5. Miami Beach 6. Provincetown (Cape Cod), Mass. 7. Wailuku (Maui), Hawaii 8. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 9. Limehouse (London), U.K. 10. Nashville, Tenn. 11. St. Petersburg 12. Las Vegas, Nev. 13. Lersoen (Copenhagen), Denmark 14. Arco da Calheta (Madeira), Portugal 15. Montevideo, Uruguay 16. Oakland Park (Near Fort Lauderdale) 17. Dallas, Texas 18. Vienna, Austria 19. Honolulu, Hawaii 20. Maspalomas (Canary Islands), Spain
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