NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE

By TAMMERLIN DRUMMOND/MIAMI BEACH

Hurricanes, riots, crime, awkward memories of Don Johnson running around sockless in a pastel linen jacket--deservedly or not, the developments of the past few years have not burnished South Florida's image as a prime tourist destination. And yet, even as the number of visitors to Dade County dropped in 1994, there was one conspicuous bright spot for local boosters: gay tourists, usually with gobs of money to spend, have been flocking to Miami Beach by the thousands. While Chamber of Commerce types in other cities might view this development with alarm, gobs of money or no, tourism officials in Miami Beach want the world to know all about their good fortune. "The gay and lesbian destination of the nineties!" crows a recently published brochure from the South Beach Business Guild.

Not so long ago, when most gays thought about Miami the first thing that came to mind was Anita Bryant's noisy but successful attempt in 1977 to repeal Dade County's gay-rights ordinance. Back then Miami Beach itself was largely a district of crumbling Art Deco hotels, a playground for cold-weather retirees. In the late '80s, however, the South Beach district was discovered by the ever restless fashion industry and quickly became a stopping-off point for photographers, models and other people who employ the word style as both noun and verb. Today the area boasts not only chic stores, restaurants and Madonna but a thriving and increasingly visible gay population as well.

"I would now rank Miami just behind San Francisco and New York City [as a travel destination]," says Billy Kolber, editor of Out and About, a gay-travel newsletter. Like straights, gays are drawn by the sun and beaches, but the comfort factor is perhaps an even bigger draw. "People will call me and ask if we have gay hotels," says Bob Guilmartin, owner of the South Florida Hotel Network, a Miami Beach reservation service. "I tell them, 'What do you need a gay hotel for? Everyone who works in the hotels is already gay.'"

Eager to tap into this lucrative market--gays are estimated to spend $17 billion a year on travel--Miami Beach has begun aggressively courting it. Over Memorial Day weekend, the city treated 17 journalists from the European gay press to an all-expenses-paid, four-day tour of Dade County in hopes that the happy junketeers would then return home and, just like straight travel writers, crank out some nice puff pieces. Local businesses, eager to come off well, donated hotel rooms, meals and transportation. Last week the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau sent invitations for a similar get-acquainted tour to 18 gay publications in the U.S. "It's not an ideological or political thing at all," says Jose Lima, a spokesman for the organization. "It's about hard dollars."

On any given day of the week, same-sex couples lounge on the beach at 12th and Ocean Boulevard, across the street from the now refurbished and landmarked Art Deco hotels. On Lincoln Road, a trendy pedestrian mall lined with upscale boutiques and restaurants, young men, stripped to the waist, stroll hand in hand. A sign in a popular bar avers, you want it, we got it, hundreds of women who are hot for other women.

"I love visiting Miami because you meet an interesting collection of gay men from all over the world," says a 32-year-old college professor from Chicago who makes the trip twice a year. But not everyone is as thrilled with the lure of Miami Beach as a same-sex social cornucopia. Locals have complained about noise and lewd behavior outside some nightclubs. "That's not the kind of society we want to see," says Phineas Weberman, a local Orthodox rabbi who claims that many tradition-minded families are abandoning the heavily Jewish area because of their new neighbors. Critics in other parts of Florida warn of dark--if vague--consequences. "You are going to have a lot of people over the years who are offended by the large number of homosexuals there," says David Caton, president of the American Family Association of Florida, which has opposed gay-rights ordinances throughout the state.

For others, gay tourists' choice demographics outweigh any prejudice. According to travel-industry studies, gays as a group represent a particularly affluent brand of consumer. Childless more often than not, gays typically have far more disposable income than do straights. "They clearly spend disproportionately more on travel than any other group," says Rex Briggs, project manager for Yankelovich Partners, a polling firm that surveyed gay and lesbian spending patterns. Gay travelers also tend to be more loyal than straights: surveys show they are especially appreciative of good service, and, if pleased, will return to a restaurant, hotel or resort again and again--as Miami's tourism officials discovered when they noticed that gays were continuing to visit even as less hardy travelers were being scared off by the area's troubles.

The message has not been lost on the rest of the travel industry. Consider the sudden about-face of American Airlines: in 1993 the airline was widely denounced after one of its flight crews had a man with AIDS removed from a plane after he refused to put away his IV bottle; a year ago, the airline appointed a sales manager assigned solely to the gay and lesbian market. "We realized that gay and lesbian people travel an awful lot," says American Airlines spokesman Tim Kincaid, and so far the company has booked more than $15 million worth of business from gay tours and conventions.

Virgin Atlantic wants a piece of the same action: later this month the airline will begin running advertisements featuring a male couple in Out and the Advocate, the nation's two most prominent gay magazines. Meanwhile, Avis and National Car Rental have dropped the additional-driver fees they used to charge same-sex couples who live together. And all around the U.S., mainstream tour operators have begun hawking gay-only packages for everything from cruises to a ski week in Aspen.

While gays and lesbians welcome this new acceptance, no one thinks homophobia is going to disappear from the American landscape any time soon. Still, as any student of human affairs knows, money goes a long way toward buying social acceptance. As Miami Beach Mayor Seymour Gelber puts it, "Gays pay like everyone else. We're glad they're here."