Covid-19 has grounded travel influencers – after being called ‘freeloaders’ by some in the travel industry, is that such a bad thing?
- In 2019, many followers woke up to the fact that the ‘independent’ opinions of influencers were often paid for with free stays, meals and hard cash
- With little to offer beyond sumptuous photography and vicarious thrills, it’s unclear what the future holds for these Insta celebrities
For the many travel influencers on social media, 2019 was not a good year. Hotel and resort owners from the Philippines to Dublin, drowning in demands for freebies from what they frankly described as “freeloaders”, went public with their disgust.
As a result, many followers finally woke up to what had long been obvious to others – that the purportedly independent opinions of their digital pin-ups were all too often bought and paid for, not only with sponsored stays, meals and travel, but with hard cash. There was clearly an incentive to label something “awesome” when such labelling would be awesomely well paid. A positive review might often be guaranteed up front, and the inclusion of certain comments contracted for at up to US$1,000 per 100,000 followers.
The irritated response of influencers, of course, is that what they do is not play, but work.
“It’s not just posting pictures or writing articles,” says San Franciscan Melissa Lau (“Don’t let time constraints or lack of resources get in the way of your travel dreams,” @wanderfultraveler, 46.6k followers), on a video call from London. “There are so many other factors such as being professional about how to build collaborations, and networking and, like, learning things like photography and editing, SEO [search engine optimisation], writing and other different components.”
Defenders would say that what influencers do is light entertainment. A bit of beefcake or a sylph in swimwear seen in highly edited artificial perfection, captured with the swirl of a colourful dress in front of a national monument, throwing shapes on the edge of a precipice, or wading into a field of flowers, is filling much the same function for destinations as car show models do for vehicles, although typically with rather less product knowledge. But travel influencers often also pose as oracular reference sources.
Christina Vidal (“Pretty place, nice things, good wine,” @jetsetchristina, 84.2k followers) had apparently never heard of Bali before 2015, but given that she spends half the year on the Indonesian island you might expect her “Ultimate Bali Travel Guide” to be something special.