Well-Connected Wanderlust

Before the dawn of social media, travelers received ideas for their vacations and adventures directly from travel agencies. Upon the desk of a local agent, visitors could expect to find pamphlets and brochures extolling the virtues of faraway and exotic lands. On the walls hung posters showcasing beautiful vistas. Once the agent and traveler decided on a destination, the planning began.

Technically, the role of travel agents remains the same in 2018 as it was in the age before social media and the internet as a whole took over. Agents still know the market inside and out. They can still give customers ideas on destinations as well as provide booking assistance. A constant connection to social media means prospective travelers will always have access to new ideas and exciting adventures.

Millennials make up one of the chief adopting groups using social media for travel inspiration. Roughly aged 18–35, this group largely came into maturity when social media was taking off. Websites like MySpace began to connect people as early as 2003. Before long, Facebook and other applications like Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter changed the way groups communicate. Not surprising, then, that social media has come to play an important role in how, why and where millennials travel.

Scrolling through Facebook walls, Twitter feeds and Instagram timelines always presents the user with a bevy of potential destinations. Bloggers and friends just wrapping up a trip to Nicaragua, South Africa or Hong Kong readily drown out the posts detailing the monotony of daily life. It is easy to come across a destination or experience you want to add to your bucket list.

“When booking a trip, we find millennial travelers often reference a certain destination or locale they’ve seen on social media and want included in their next adventure,” said Megan Bailey, director of sales and customer experience, Intrepid Travel, North America.

In a recent social media post, Intrepid Travel accounts highlighted Chefchaouen by posting a video of the Moroccan city. Following the video, social media users who follow Intrepid Travel’s feeds inundated the tour operator with questions about which trips and tours went to the specific city, Bailey said.

Intrepid Travel operates small group tours all over the planet. These tours come in a variety of levels, ranging from “Basix,” where the tour group gets lots of free time to explore destinations, to “Comfort,” slower-paced tours offering more luxury accommodations.

According to Bailey, millennials are often on the lookout for adventure travel as well as travel experiences that will have a lasting impact. As a result, millennials often opt for the cheaper option with Intrepid as a way to really get to know the destination and the locals.

“In 2017, Intrepid Travel saw a 22 percent increase in millennial travelers globally, as an increasing number of this generation is looking to our company for a sustainable, experience-rich holiday. Often-misunderstood destinations, like Turkey and Africa, nearly doubled in bookings from 2016 to 2017, highlighting this generation’s desire to look beyond headlines and make judgments for themselves,” Bailey said.

In order to connect with millennials and other travelers, Intrepid Travel makes a point of staying active and engaged on Facebook and Instagram. The brand focuses on storytelling to evoke feelings of inspiration and wanderlust in the travelers, Bailey said. As a result, users begin to interact directly with the brand through social media.

“The customer journey for the millennial traveler often starts on social media, where other demographics are more likely to land on Intrepid Travel’s homepage through Google search or other platforms,” Bailey said.

The customer journey is not the only thing to begin on social media. Inspiration and information-gathering also largely happen on social media. “Instead of flipping through a guidebook or reading top destination round-ups online, millennials actively seek crowdsourced information through real-time conversations on social media channels,” Bailey said. For many millennials who are inspired this way, specific destinations and experiences are not set in stone. Those travelers simply want a culturally immersive trip, Bailey explained. Although social media inspires travelers to go to destinations they never thought to travel to before, it fails to instill the need for travel to specific destinations.

For those who make travel blogging their livelihood, social media represents an entirely different component of traveling and staying connected with an audience. Emily Kydd, 33, has blogged about her travels since she was 21. In the past two years, she has taken to blogging about her adventures more formally through her website, seehertravel.com. In that time, Kydd garnered a sizeable following on social media, with more than 8,000 Twitter followers; nearly 30,000 followers on Instagram; and nearly 1,000 Facebook followers.

“I would say social media is important, as a blogger, as it is the easiest way to keep folks up to date without writing a full blog,” Kydd said. Further, Kydd argues, an over-hyping of social media can make travelers portray their adventures in ways that never really happened, noting picture-perfect setups and “modelesque” images do not capture what travel is truly about.

As a travel blogger, Kydd’s audience might expect her to find all of her destinations on her own. Her pictures are the ones to inspire others to travel to remote destinations, one might think. While Kydd is not immune to the siren song of travel social media, she has only ever been affirmatively swayed to a particular destination once: a beer spa in Iceland.

Kydd will use social media to crowdsource information, however. “I love checking out photos and information about places I am heading and will check out a hostel’s social media presence, typically to see the amenities and menus,” she said.

“I still travel the way I want to regardless of social media. I’m not constantly taking selfies or going out on literal limbs to get amazing pictures for social media.” For her, the focus is much more on enjoying and absorbing the experience.

“I have always been a picture-taker, but even with social media, and as a blogger, I do not stop everything to get that shot,” Kydd said. The typical traveler might not think the same way. A simple scroll through Instagram, Twitter, Facebook or Pinterest will reveal photos of selfies by waterfalls, poses in front of mountains and, more likely than not, some dangerous positioning all in the name of a social media presence.

“I think people do get inspired through social media posts, and the great thing about widespread dissemination of the unknown is that people can increase their awareness of the unknown,” Kydd said.

“When social media is used for true inspiration and sharing, it is a beautiful and powerful tool. When it is used for one-upmanship and narcissism, it’s gross. Traveling the world is an amazing privilege that most humans don’t get, so treat every destination with the attention and respect it deserves, and experience the world as much as you can,” Kydd said, urging travelers to post on social media after their trip is complete.