Richard Gray spent more than 30 years promoting Greater Fort Lauderdale’s rich LGBTQ culture, accessibility to all, and as a welcoming place for “Everyone Under the Sun.”

He retired last month, but the appreciation continues. Gray has been named a 2025 Top 100 Influential Person by Awards Intelligence.

“I am especially proud as it's an award from the UK specifically, which means a lot to me in that my focus and work on 'Inclusion & Accessibility' is visible both in the USA but also globally,” Gray, a U.K. native, said.

In bestowing the honor, Top100InfluentialPeople.com writes, “Richard Gray has been one of the most active, visionary innovators in the international LGBTQ+ travel community for over 30 years. He is internationally credited as the hotelier who put Fort Lauderdale on the map for gay travellers around the world. Born in London, with homes in Poole, U.K., and Fort Lauderdale, he moved to New York in 1982 as an investment banker. Despite seeing an opportunity in the travel industry, his career in Wall Street kept him in New York – and the AIDS crisis kept him focused on other priorities, such as volunteering for the Gay Men’s Health Crisis. Having witnessed horrific discrimination – even from parents whose sons were dying – Richard, deeply moved by what he had seen and grateful to have escaped the crisis, became determined to make a difference.”

With Gray’s help, Visit Lauderdale, Broward County’s tourism arm, has turned the area into a multi-billion dollar LGBTQ destination.

Richard Gray. Photo courtesy of Visit Lauderdale.