J. Christopher via The New York TimesThe Intracoastal Waterway is among the attractions in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. In 2015, the city became one of the country’s first destinations to market to transgender travelers.

Fort Lauderdale, Florida, has been courting gay and lesbian travelers for nearly two decades, an effort that most recently included a marriage-equality wedding promotion.

This year the city became one of the country’s first destinations to market to transgender travelers, with a new tourism campaign, and for the first time will host the Southern Comfort Conference, the largest transgender conference in the country, with about 1,000 attendees. (It begins Sept. 29.)

Much of the credit goes to Richard Gray, who arrived in Fort Lauderdale in 1991 as a hotelier and now serves as managing director of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender market. Gray, 57, also serves on the board of the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association. Following are edited excerpts from an interview with Gray.

Q: How has marketing to gay travelers changed since Fort Lauderdale started its outreach efforts in 1996?

A: At first, it was too risky to use the word “gay,” so we used “rainbow.” We started with a budget of $35,000, which has grown to over $1 million. We now welcome 1.3 million LGBT travelers who spend approximately $1.5 billion in the area.

Q: How did you decide to reach out specifically to the transgender market?

A: It was during a run less than two years ago that I really started to think about the T in LGBT It’s really the forgotten T. I realized I knew nothing about transgender travelers, and, as a gay man, I knew nothing about the transgender community. I researched and saw they had this conference that had been in Atlanta for 24 years, and I contacted their president, Lexi Dee. No one had ever courted them or paid them any attention before. They liked our commitment of raising the bar for trans inclusion. Around the same time, I organized a round-table discussion with some national leaders and also met with the research firm Community Marketing & Insights to put a transgender travel study together, because there had never been one.

Q: What did you learn from the survey?

A: We found that 62 percent of transgender people travel alone, many because they’re “stealth” — often they have a partner who has no idea they’re transgender. The Southern Comfort Conference is mostly male to female and that’s what we’ve looked at. Female to male blend easier; male to female often don’t. By far their biggest concerns were physical and verbal violence and a lack of gender-neutral restrooms. Unlike the gay market, trans travelers are more in line with budget travelers, without a lot of disposable income.

Q: How did you use those findings?

A: Through the local agency SunServe, we’re offering LGBT sensitivity training to our hospitality partners — hotels, attractions, restaurants, etc. The police already have their own training, and even have transgender employees. For the conference, I looked for a hotel that I felt would best fit the community — the Bonaventure Resort and Spa (in Weston). It’s like an oasis, without a lot of foot traffic, at a great price. It felt very safe to me.

Q: How are you spreading the word?

A: We’re rolling out a new campaign called “Where Happy Meets Go Lucky,” which includes a landing page on our website devoted to transgender visitors — sunny.org/TLGB. I put the T first because I want transgender travelers to know we are committed to them and respect them. The one thing the trans market has in common with the LGBT market is we’ve all experienced discrimination, safety issues and a lack of acceptance. I want trans people to be like all travelers — free to be themselves, free to be accepted and, most of all, welcome and safe.