Travelfish newsletter Issue 316 : Travelfish turns 14 + Instagram
Hi everyone,
Last week Travelfish turned 14 (and me a year or so more). Before anything else, I want to say thank you to all our readers over the years, both of the website and this newsletter, for their support and taking the time to use, read and share our creation.
I also want to particularly thank our team of hard working writers—both current and past—for their efforts. Without our team of writers, Travelfish would not exist, so thank you so much for doing so many of the hard yards over the years.
As it is our birthday and all, we’ve a one–off (late!) newsletter this week, and we’ll return to our regular programming next week.
In the online travel field, hitting the grand old age of 14 makes us feel a bit old and wise (or is that wizened). Yet many of today’s household names were around well before us. Booking.com in 1996 is one of the older ones, Google in 1998, then TripAdvisor in 2000 and Agoda (then as Precision Reservations) in 2002. The same year that we launched (2004), Facebook did as well—how is that for a differentiating trajectory!
In writing this birthday post, I wanted to zoom in on something that is really changing travel. The industry, like the practice itself, is ever–changing, and, again like the practice—not always for the better.
Initially I was thinking changing travel patterns (where have the overlanders all gone—spoiler, they’re still all there, just along with a bunch of other short timers), or perhaps another piece lamenting how the guidebook business has changed, or (yet again) overtourism.
Instead I decided to write about something that didn’t exist at all when we launched Travelfish, and something which is creating considerable changes in destinations—both in the destination themselves and the way and reasons why people are visiting.
I’m talking about Facebook–owned Instagram.
Instagram’s massive user-base (one billion in June 2018), combined with the near ubiquitous smartphone adoption and the prevalence of “selfies” has seen destinations increasingly promoting themselves on the basis of their “instagrammability”.
What started with artistic (or not) shots of lattes and short blacks spread to pho and steaming curries and now to entire destinations. An innate desire to “keep up with the Joneses” has travellers flocking to destinations—often fragile, previously little visited ones—solely to take “that classic shot”.
Of course, in a way this is nothing new. People have been recreating postcards with their own photos for generations, but, like many things, the internet and social sharing seems to be given this phenomena oxygen that lowly postcards never got.
Amplifying this, today we often see destinations (particularly in Indonesia, but it is a growing trend elsewhere) working to “improve” nature by building all manner of Instragram props—be them cliff-top piers jutting out from earth, heart–shaped tree–houses, giant motley fake animals by a lava pit, and, of course, just enormous signs with the destination name on it.
Off the back of this there are “Instagram–tours” one can do (here is one in Bali for example) where you can get carted around to all the top Instagram spots in a destination.
These places became instagrammable in the first place due to their natural or spectacular beauty, and really, take our word for it, we’re yet to see an Instagram–prop which made the destination better looking!
Sure there have always been travellers for whom getting “that snap” was the primary reason for going somewhere, but like watching a traveller spend so long rearranging their food and coffee for Instagram photos that the meal is cold by the time they eat it, wasn’t the meal really about the taste—not how it looked?
How many Insta–meals go uneaten?
Likewise how many of the tourist throngs hitting fragile destinations like Nusa Penida, really only go there because they saw spectacular Kelingking on Instagram (or the Travelfish homepage!) and don’t get further and deeper into the island as they need to be at another Instapoint in 30 minutes time.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy Instagram myself and it has been useful in the past (less so now, as there is so much advertorial trash in it) for finding interesting spots and locals, but I’d be pretty leery of planning my trip around it. As the saying goes, too much of one ingredient can spoil a broth and the same goes for Instagram.
And to destinations, please please please please stop trying to improve your destination’s Instagrammability. Travellers were taking photos and enjoying it perfectly well before you decided to add that two metre grizzly bear made from hairdressing cuttings, take my word for it.
Back to our regular programming next week.
Good travels & thanks again for your support over the last 14 years!
Stuart, Sam, and the Travelfish team
Till next time
That’s it from us for now. As usual, enjoy the site’s new additions and drop us a line if there’s something in particular you’d like us to cover in Southeast Asia.
Travel light!
Stuart, Sam & the Travelfish team
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