Website and new visitor center embrace the LGBT tourist.

All travelers want to visit places where theyll be greeted warmly and hospitably. Travel Gay Seattle, a program of the Greater Seattle Business Association (GSBA), is working to make Seattle such a place by offering listings of hotels, shops, golf courses, gyms and other businesses that have identified themselves as friendly to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals.

The travel site also supports GSBAs member businesses. LGBT individuals spend about $790 billion a year nationwide, of which $70 billion is on travel. Seattle has been a big beneficiary of that spending. For example, in the four months after the legalization of same-sex marriage last December, 2,800 same-sex couples got married in Washington; about 14 percent were from out of state.

Establishments listed on the Travel Gay Seattle site must agree not to discriminate against individuals because of sexual orientation. You dont have to worry about asking for a room with one bed for two men, says Rachael Brister, deputy director of the GSBA, which was founded in 1981 to create a unified voice for the LGBT business community and now boasts 1,000 members, most of them small businesses and corporations.

Although a similar website launched in the early 2000s has not done well, Brister is optimistic. I think Travel Gay Seattle will survive because we are focused on one area and the businesses featured on it are local, Brister says. Its our focus and our passion.

The GSBA also has opened the Seattle LGBT Visitors Center on Capitol Hill (614 Broadway E., inside the 1st Security Bank) to further its mission of providing information on friendly, supportive destinations that gladly welcome the LGBT traveler, in the words of GSBA Executive Director Louise Chernin.

The Travel Gay Seattle pitch (thegsba. org/travel) has three parts: Get Here, Stay Here and Play Here. Under Get Here, Travel Gay Seattle lists airlines and public transit in Seattle. Stay Here has listings of different hotels by neighborhood. Play Here offers activities and attractions, such as sightseeing, cafes, cultural events and shopping. The site receives about 2,500 unique visitors per month, Brister reports. We have so much to offer the LGBT traveler, she says. We want to see Seattle in the top five U.S. destinations that LGBT travelers want to visit.