By William Jones, Contributing Reporter
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – According to data released in November by Out Now Business Class, experts believe that the legalization and changing attitudes to same sex marriage will boost economies around the world with that market making its highest ever revenues in 2014.
Brazil has accepted same sex unions since 2004 for but it was not until 2013 where all Brazilian states were LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual) couples granted the same constitutional principles and absence of prohibitive legislation as married straight couples.
Last year Brazil joined a host of counties where same sex marriage is legal including the Netherlands, France, New Zealand, Argentina, South Africa, The United Kingdom, Spain, Sweden, Portugal, Mexico and more.
Charlie Rounds, of the Florida-based International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA) Foundation, is expecting tourism in same sex marriage to skyrocket in the coming months of this year. “It is going to be an inordinate percentage of the wedding market in the next 5 to 10 years,” he said in an interview during a visit to New York.
The data says that The United States accounts for US$56.5 billion of LGBT spending and according to the numbers are followed by Brazil with US$25.3 billion. However, Europeans should collectively spend US$66.1 billion in LGBT tourism.
Much of the boost in the market for gay marriage comes from those who have waited years to legalize their unions and want to celebrate their new found freedom with a vast and elaborate celebration. “Even though we are only maybe 4 or 5 percent of the population, the number of us getting married is probably going to be twenty times that because we couldn’t and now we can,” Rounds added.
In Brazil, where homosexuality is relatively widely accepted, members of the LGBT community are still condemned by religious groups and according to the BBC, hate crimes against them are on the rise.
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