Venturing out again: experts say the gay travel market is as hot as ever--although after September 11, caution remains the watchword. (Travel Report 2002).

In this year of uncertainty, how will gay men and lesbians approach their travel plans? In this special section, The Advocate talks to the people who know best about the outlook for gay travel 2002 and about the growing business of gay-specific vacations. We also profile some of the out professionals who guide travelers along the way.

There's no question that the travel world has changed significantly since September 11. The endless lines at the airport, coupled with a renewed fear of terrorism, have many American tourists yearning for the way things used to be while at the same time hoping that they will never be that vulnerable again.

These changes have resulted in considerable doom and gloom for the mainstream travel market--airlines have teetered on the edge of bankruptcy, and some hotels are emptier than they have been since being built. But when it comes to the gay and lesbian travel market, experts say the terrorism tragedy has resulted in little more than a fleeting setback. In fact, most of them say they expect business to spike this spring and summer.

What's behind the disparity? According to Robert Wilson, executive director of the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association, it's the fact that gay men and lesbians "have fewer family responsibilities, more disposable income, and understand the current travel situation in total better than many other groups." Gay people are also so booked on travel that they sometimes consider it a competition with their friends, notching up destinations visited, he says.

Underscoring Wilson's report, IGLTA member Vivianne Schael says business at her Seal Beach, Calif.-based Da/Si Tours, which specializes in trips to Spain and the Iberian Peninsula for upscale gay clientele, dropped slightly after September 11 but then picked up again immediately after the new year. Clients "feel that things are normalizing and that Spain is a safe destination," she says.

Research conducted by Community Marketing Inc., a San Francisco-based gay travel consultancy firm, is backing up Schael's experience. An online survey conducted by the firm suggests that about two thirds of gay men and lesbians plan to take at least three vacations in 2002, just as they did in 2001. The destinations of choice, according to CPI president Tom Roth, are those that are "close and familiar," including traditional gay U.S. destinations like Palm Beach, Key West, and other parts of Florida, as well as Canada, Mexico, and Europe.

Roth expects a boom in other traditional gay summertime destinations such as Provincetown, Mass., Saugatuck, Mich., and Fire Island, N.Y., because "people who have been traveling the world are looking to stay closer this summer and are looking for angles and reasons to go back to places they haven't visited for years."

Although gay people may be making the same amount of trips they've made in years past, that doesn't mean they'll always experience as carefree a passage. This is especially true for the foreign partners of gay men and lesbians in the United States. Because they can't receive permanent immigration status like the foreign partners of heterosexual Americans, gay foreign nationals often have to rely on work visas in order to stay in this country with their partners. And, according to April Herms of the New York-based Lesbian and Gay Immigration Rights Task Force, those visas will likely receive increased scrutiny when their holders try to travel in or out of the country.

Gay Middle Easterners visiting this country might face the most difficulty since unmarried men--and especially young unmarried Middle Eastern men--most closely match the profile of the September 11 terrorists. "We are living in a time when the rights of foreigners and travelers have been diminished, and we should not think that they have no impact on gay travelers," says Sydney Levy, communications director for the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission.

Levy says gay Americans traveling to Middle Eastern countries also need to take special care, especially when it comes to their interaction with gay locals. Because homosexuality is often condemned under Islamic law, those people risk severe punishment and imprisonment if government officials learn that they are homosexual. "We have to be careful for ourselves and not cause risks for the local population," Levy says, pointing to last year's raid of a gay disco in Egypt where authorities released the foreigners but arrested and imprisoned the Egyptian men. "There are some limits to what you can do," he cautions.

While Roth says he wouldn't discourage anyone from heeding warnings like those of Levy's, he adds that he hasn't seen too many reasons for gay and lesbian travelers to be more concerned than they should have been before September 11. Besides, he says, there are too many bargains out there to not get out and see more of the world. "Most travelers I have encountered see the slowdown in the travel industry as an opportunity to get great deals and travel a bit more," Roth says. "Travel is perceived as a gay birthright, and opportunity is knocking like never before."

Luongo is coeditor of Gay Tourism: Culture, Identity, and Sex, due out this spring from Continuum.