Destinations known | How social media and millennials are ruining your holiday, especially in Asia
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Love it or hate it, social media is omnipresent. A recent Pew Research Centre survey has found that 88 per cent of Americans aged 18 to 29 use social media while the number of users in China is forecast to increase to 616.5 million this year, according to statistics portal Statista. And it’s not only mobile payments that are changing the way we travel, social media is having an impact, too.
On Instagram, more than 97 million images have been tagged #holiday, suggesting that vacationing has been turned into a competitive sport, with millennials venturing further and wider than ever in search of the perfect post – a pursuit that has an adverse effect on popular tourist spots, as well as those who frequent them.
One of the most common complaints is that, in real life, destinations don’t live up to their virtual promise. Instagram is awash with carefully composed, nearly identical photographs taken in front of everywhere from the Great Wall of China to Bali’s Lempuyang Temple and the Taj Mahal in India. What few show are the hordes of people vying for the same shot.