kimsboy
JF-Expert Member
- Oct 17, 2016
- 9,785
- 20,164
Hii ni kwa mujibu wa mtandao wa kiisrael wa Haaretz
Tel Aviv Declared World's Best Gay Travel Destination
In a world-wide survey hosted GayCities.com and American Airlines, 43 percent of voters cast their ballot in favor of the White City, pushing it ahead of other proud towns including New York, Toronto and London.
Israel's LGBT community has a reason to be proud: It has officially been proclaimed the best gay travel destination of 2011.
In a world-wide survey conducted by GayCities.com and American Airlines, 43 percent of voters cast their ballot in favor of the White City, followed by New York City with 14 per cent, Toronto with 7 per cent, Sao Paulo with 6 per cent, Madrid and London with 5 percent each and New Orleans and Mexico City with 4 per cent each.
The crowning title of Best City was just one of the categories included in the competition of gay travel destinations. New York scored top votes for Best Night Life, San Francisco took Best Pride, Paris won Best Food and Seattle got Best Settle Down City. The smaller city of Buffalo took in quite a few votes itself, and was declared Best Up and Coming City.
Tel Aviv has always been known as a gay-friendly place, but it upped its presence around the world this year with a number of different activities, including its Tel Aviv Gay Vibe campaign, organized in coordination with the municipality's Ministry of Tourism.
About 5,000 gay tourists were recorded as visiting Tel Aviv last June for the annual Gay Pride Parade – 25 percent more than in 2010. Now that it's been voted best city, Tel Aviv can probably expect even more foreign visitors this June.
Pia kulingana na mtandao wa jewishpress
The Middle East is also home to the societies with the most anti-gay views. So, it may come as a surprise that one of the largest Gay Pride parades in the world is held in a tiny country in the heart of the Middle East, in a city consistently rated one of the best places for gays to live and visit: Tel Aviv, Israel.
Though LGBT Pride Week here officially kicked off on June 7, Tel Aviv began dotting its streets and the Mediterranean coastline with hundreds of rainbow flags a week earlier in anticipation of approximately 30,000 gay tourists from around the world who have since flown to Tel Aviv specifically for this occasion.
The parade, now in its 17th year, drew an estimated 180,000 people on Friday, making it the largest gay pride parade in all of Asia and the Middle East. Considering that the entire population of Tel Aviv is just 420,000, this turnout is proportionately higher than the 2 million who march in the annual pride parade in New York, a city of 8.5 million.
“Tel Aviv is regarded as the gay capital of the Middle East,” said 76-year-old Benny Raphael, who marched on Friday with the Golden Rainbow, a group comprised of gay activists over the age of 60. Raphael has lived here for seven years, the same amount of time he has been out of the closet. Before that he lived in South Africa and Fort Lauderdale – what he calls “the gay capital of the State of Florida.”
Tel Aviv, he says, is the most accepting, open and gay-friendly place he’s been.
Among the parade’s participants were drag queens and bikini-clad men and women – but also some you might not expect, including government ministers, political party representatives, teens, kids and families.
With this year’s theme dedicated to the transgender community, the city invited
Caitlyn Jenner to be the parade’s guest of honor, citing her as “a source of inspiration.” She did not attend, but another transgender celebrity, Conchita Wurst, did. The bearded, cross-dressing, Austrian winner of the 2014 Eurovision contest performed at the end of the parade route, in a beachside park across the street from a mosque. It’s quite possibly the only mosque in the world – definitely the only one in the Middle East – currently surrounded by rainbow gay pride flags.
Tel Aviv Declared World's Best Gay Travel Destination
In a world-wide survey hosted GayCities.com and American Airlines, 43 percent of voters cast their ballot in favor of the White City, pushing it ahead of other proud towns including New York, Toronto and London.
Israel's LGBT community has a reason to be proud: It has officially been proclaimed the best gay travel destination of 2011.
In a world-wide survey conducted by GayCities.com and American Airlines, 43 percent of voters cast their ballot in favor of the White City, followed by New York City with 14 per cent, Toronto with 7 per cent, Sao Paulo with 6 per cent, Madrid and London with 5 percent each and New Orleans and Mexico City with 4 per cent each.
The crowning title of Best City was just one of the categories included in the competition of gay travel destinations. New York scored top votes for Best Night Life, San Francisco took Best Pride, Paris won Best Food and Seattle got Best Settle Down City. The smaller city of Buffalo took in quite a few votes itself, and was declared Best Up and Coming City.
Tel Aviv has always been known as a gay-friendly place, but it upped its presence around the world this year with a number of different activities, including its Tel Aviv Gay Vibe campaign, organized in coordination with the municipality's Ministry of Tourism.
About 5,000 gay tourists were recorded as visiting Tel Aviv last June for the annual Gay Pride Parade – 25 percent more than in 2010. Now that it's been voted best city, Tel Aviv can probably expect even more foreign visitors this June.
Pia kulingana na mtandao wa jewishpress
The Middle East is also home to the societies with the most anti-gay views. So, it may come as a surprise that one of the largest Gay Pride parades in the world is held in a tiny country in the heart of the Middle East, in a city consistently rated one of the best places for gays to live and visit: Tel Aviv, Israel.
Though LGBT Pride Week here officially kicked off on June 7, Tel Aviv began dotting its streets and the Mediterranean coastline with hundreds of rainbow flags a week earlier in anticipation of approximately 30,000 gay tourists from around the world who have since flown to Tel Aviv specifically for this occasion.
The parade, now in its 17th year, drew an estimated 180,000 people on Friday, making it the largest gay pride parade in all of Asia and the Middle East. Considering that the entire population of Tel Aviv is just 420,000, this turnout is proportionately higher than the 2 million who march in the annual pride parade in New York, a city of 8.5 million.
“Tel Aviv is regarded as the gay capital of the Middle East,” said 76-year-old Benny Raphael, who marched on Friday with the Golden Rainbow, a group comprised of gay activists over the age of 60. Raphael has lived here for seven years, the same amount of time he has been out of the closet. Before that he lived in South Africa and Fort Lauderdale – what he calls “the gay capital of the State of Florida.”
Tel Aviv, he says, is the most accepting, open and gay-friendly place he’s been.
Among the parade’s participants were drag queens and bikini-clad men and women – but also some you might not expect, including government ministers, political party representatives, teens, kids and families.
With this year’s theme dedicated to the transgender community, the city invited
Caitlyn Jenner to be the parade’s guest of honor, citing her as “a source of inspiration.” She did not attend, but another transgender celebrity, Conchita Wurst, did. The bearded, cross-dressing, Austrian winner of the 2014 Eurovision contest performed at the end of the parade route, in a beachside park across the street from a mosque. It’s quite possibly the only mosque in the world – definitely the only one in the Middle East – currently surrounded by rainbow gay pride flags.
