Expedia.com, the world's leading online travel agency, announced that it has opened an LGBT travel site to serve as a resource for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender travelers. Expedia.com developed the store in partnership with the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA), the leading global organization dedicated to connecting businesses in the LGBT tourism industry.

Expedia's LGBT site currently features 10 domestic destinations and five international destinations that feature a broad assortment of gay-friendly hotels, events and festivals, and hotspots. North American destinations are Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, New Orleans, Palm Springs, Provincetown, Puerto Vallarta, San Francisco, Toronto and South Florida. International destinations are Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Paris and London. Hotels are searchable within each destination.

"At Expedia.com, this is in keeping with our mission to be the best place to book travel," said Tim MacDonald, senior vice president and general manager, Expedia.com. "This page will simplify and improve the shopping and booking experience for LGBT customers. It was based on research illustrating the difficulty in finding LGBT-welcoming hotels, and our solution was vetted by a group of LGBT professionals at Expedia and a roundtable of gay travel community members. IGLTA helped us determine the hotels that populate the store."

During the shopping process, travelers can now search under Hotel Preferences for "LGBT-welcoming" hotels. At kick-off, about 500 hotels currently meet this definition.

Expedia.com customers booking accommodations can save big when booking LGBT-welcoming hotels as a package through Expedia.com. And as always, there are no flight booking fees, nor Expedia change or cancel fees, when booking through Expedia.com.