The advice came as TTG hosted its latest LGBT+ seminar aimed at helping dispel myths for agents when selling to LGBT+ clients and delivering them the best possible experiences.

Uwern Jong, editor of OutThere, a luxury travel magazine primarily for gay men that has since diversified its audience, said no two LGBT+ travellers were the same and there was no cookie-cutter solution as to what made a perfect LGBT+ holiday.

“We need to listen better as an industry and really make sure we deliver what that person wants,” Jong said. “Information is king, the connection between the travel agents and the information provided by the supplier is super important.”

Aisha Shaibu, founder of Moonlight Experiences, an LGBT+ events organisation, said there was a lot of untapped market within the community that agents needed to be aware of.

“There’s all this money that isn’t being utilised, we aren’t realising that a lot of queer women travel, a lot of black queer people travel, there’s the older queer demographic and they are not just looking to do things during the day.”

Jong said staff training was key in terms of educating the trade and stressed how it needed to happen repeatedly throughout the year.

“The community is ever-changing and growing but Pride for many has become just a date in the marketing calendar,” he said.

Shaibu said she asked companies wanting to support the community why they were getting involved, and that performative engagement was see-through, adding that support didn’t need to cost a lot of money.

“If you want to learn about the transgender community, there’s a lot of charities you can donate your time to, read their books, Google,” she said.

The experts said readers were now looking beyond "safe bubbles" and there was a responsibility to try and find pockets of change within countries where travel for LGBT+ people seemed completely off limits.

Shaibu said financial contribution to change makers in destinations that, at first glance looked like hostile environments, were a way of empowering not only the activists but the traveller themselves.

“There are quite a few queer owned restaurants, bars, clinics in some of these Nigerian states that people would not know if they didn’t live in those locations, it’s about handpicking these destinations. Money from the booking is going back to the right people trying to affect change on the ground. We can’t change these countries, but what you can do is empower the collectives already doing the work,” she said.

LoAnn Halden, vice-president in communications at IGLTA, said some simple questions could get an agent far in terms finding the right supplier and holiday.

“Ask suppliers if they’ve had same-sex couples there, what diversity training they’ve done, if a company has said it is LGBT+ friendly it needs to stipulate how it will deal with negative experiences,” she said.

Halden said having someone in the team as a person with whom to address LGBT+ concerns was another good strategy.

She said IGLTA would be releasing a hotel accreditation scheme at the end of 2022 and already had a page on their website detailing LGBT+ owned tour operators along with destinations guides covering LGBT+ places to visit.