Picture the scene: a gleaming ship glides out of Athens carrying 1,900 passengers on a ten-day sweep of the Mediterranean. On board are honeymooners and first-timers, retirees and chosen families, outfits planned for every deck party (three options each, obviously) and Patti LuPone, no less. All of them ready to spill into port towns and do what travellers do best: eat, drink, wander, tip generously and buy carpets they have absolutely no room for in their luggage.
Then Turkey slammed the door, with local authorities denying the ship’s entry at the port of Kuşadası declaring its passengers “incompatible with the fabric of our society and our moral values”. The ship rerouted to Alexandria instead, and in the middle of the night a note slipped under every cabin door to say that Egypt had turned them away too.
The bigotry speaks for itself, so allow me to talk about the money instead, because that’s the part these two governments clearly haven’t thought through.
LGBTQ+ travellers are some of the most valuable guests on earth. We travel more often, we stay longer, we spend more, and we are almost comically loyal to the places that let us exhale. The last time anyone counted properly, back in 2018, researchers at Out Now put our annual travel spend across the world’s key markets at more than $218bn, covering everything from flights and hotels to long holiday lunches, and it has only grown since.
And here’s some further detail in that same research that made me smile, then wince: the same research showed that Turkey’s own LGBTQ+ citizens were spending $6.6bn a year on travel themselves, and growing. A country that just turned away a shipful of gay travellers has billions in pink pounds sitting at home, quietly deciding where to holiday. I wonder where they’ll go.
So, to put things into perspective, the pink pound is hardly a niche, and this week two countries waved it straight out of their waters.
A cruise ship, after all, is a floating high street of tourist spending, and nineteen hundred people stepping ashore makes for a glorious day in any port town. The traders of Kuşadası didn’t ban anyone, and the guides of Alexandria never signed the paperwork, yet they’re the ones who watched a full day’s takings sail past the harbour wall because of a decision made far above their heads. One passenger put it perfectly when he said Crete would be enjoying their tourism dollars instead or Turkey – and you can now add Santorini, Kotor, Dubrovnik and Zadar to that list, the ports that said yes. I promise you they were thrilled to, because money rarely argues with a closed door; it simply finds another harbour.
I’ve spent my career travelling the world for food and drink, often as a visibly gay man in places where that takes a little more thought than it should, and if those years have taught me anything it’s that hospitality isn’t a slogan, it’s the entire product. A destination is only ever selling one promise, that you will be welcome when you arrive, and when that promise is broken for one group of travellers, everyone hears the glass shatter. The couple weighing up a package holiday to Bodrum next summer will remember this, as will their friends, and their friends’ friends. None of them will write an angry letter; they’ll simply book Greece (quietly, permanently) and take their spending money with them.
What makes this sting all the more is that both countries have welcomed sailings like this before without a whisper of trouble. Other LGBT+ cruise operators have called at Turkish and Egyptian ports for years. The passengers haven’t changed. The political weather has. Around the world it has become fashionable again to score points off our community, and that rhetoric crosses borders faster than any ship.
And yet, the response on board tells you everything about who really holds the power here. They threw a party. Of course they did. As one comedian on the ship put it, having fun in the face of adversity is the whole gay experience. We’ve had rather a lot of practice.
I’ve visited both Turkey and Egypt and adored them. The food, the history, the warmth of the people who actually greet you when you step off a boat, all of it deserves far better than this. I feel for their tourism boards most of all, left selling a welcome their own governments just contradicted.
So with that, and to both governments, I’d say this: you haven’t punished those passengers. They’re currently sipping something cold in Montenegro. You’ve punished your own ports, your own workers and your own reputation, and reputations take far longer to rebuild than itineraries.
To every LGBTQ+ traveller reading this: keep going. Keep exploring. Spend your money in the places that don’t ask you to shrink, and tip well when you get there. The pink pound is patient, but it has a very long memory, and few things speak louder than a full harbour that could have been yours.
Aidy Smith is an award-winning broadcaster, TV presenter, journalist and inclusivity spokesperson. The only global TV presenter with Tourette syndrome and a proud inclusivity advocate, he aims to offer wisdom and inspiration to help his community get the very best out of their travels. You can also follow his drinks discovery page on Instagram at @Sypped or his neurodivergence advocacy channels on TikTok or Instagram, at @DisLabeled.
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