Cutting through the Insta break

Your perfect break: discover and book it on the device that tells you how to find the hotel, translates your menu and captures your memories with a rose-tinted filter. This is the power of the smartphone over our travel experiences, but does it have to determine how brands do travel content?

Control of the holiday narrative, once owned by a travel agent, select travel writers and publishers, has long since proliferated. Hotels have launched TV stations, airlines have curated and created enough online content to sustain any departure lounge wait, and influencers have made a business from a stopover and share approach.

On the most aspirationally visual of the social media platforms, Instagrammers design their entire holiday around a hashtag, while TikTokers search for a first-hand feel for their desired destination.

the-device-to-destination-effect

The pulling power and influence of digital platforms for travel hasn’t been without a negative fallout, from property market distortion to travel excess.

Shortly after Airbnb filed its IPO to list on the US stock market – 13 years after the digital holiday lettings business was founded – one of its founders reflected on the problems its business model had created. In an interview with Monocle 24 radio (of Monocle magazine), CEO Brian Chesky said: “Travellers going to a community is not bad. What we want is to not have everyone flood one city.”

Over-tourism is closely associated with huge growth in Airbnb, and Instagram, where the fear of missing out (FOMO) associated with social media groundswells drives up visitor numbers to unprecedented levels.

Then there are the tourist spots that have suffered the terror of TripAdvisor. Subjective and selective reviews through to sponsored positive posts distorting the picture. Anyone can review a restaurant or hotel bar right there, on the spot – but does that mean you can trust what you read? Or, do you care what someone else happened to think of the furniture and quality of the highchairs?

When the travel media production unit, the smartphone, is all powerful, where digital platforms pull in the guests, where is the opportunity for travel brands as publishers?

Counter currents

The transformation of travel by the internet and its devices isn’t immovable or unshakeable. Witness what happened to over-tourism in 2020 as world travel was restricted during the Covid-19 pandemic, leading to the staycation surge: travel went local. Such moments create new challenges and opportunities, at the same time as the megatrends press on.

What’s borne out through the long-run changes and shorter-term pressures, is the connection and authenticity brands can build with their audiences.

Even with the apparent dominance of social media in recent years, emails haven’t gone anywhere, and remain a valid channel to cut through in a digitally saturated society.

When it comes to the publishing platforms, it hasn’t all been about online. For the captive audience, on-train or in-flight print publications have lasting appeal. The same can be said for at least some travel books.

In her 2021 Guardian article, The travel guidebooks we still love, Lois Pryce quotes Bryn Thomas, founder of Trailblazer Guides, David Mantero at Stanfords bookshop and Andrew Dawson of the Wainwright Society. All concluded that the continued appeal of titles such as The Trans-Siberian Handbook, Japan by Rail and the seven-volume Pictorial Guide to The Lakeland Fells was down to a mixture of authenticity, trust, “authorial voice”, storytelling and inspiration.

It’s a reminder that it’s what you say that really counts and resonates, rather than the platform you’re on. It also points to the success of being specific, or finding your niche.

What the examples above have in common is that they’re sharing expertise on a specific place or journey. That’s value worth paying for, which isn’t so easy to come by.

There’s no doubt some specific info is best served real-time, on demand, like the cross-border train connection times, or the opening times for that temporary exhibition.

Inspiring stories and trustworthy retelling may be best found elsewhere.

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