‘There’s more awareness about influencer marketing than before’
Food and travel blogger Devashree Sanghvi left a lucrative career as a lawyer to follow her passion of travel and food a few years ago. She started her food and travel page on Instagram called Thecrazyindianfoodie in 2015, and since then, has never looked back.
Her Instagram page boasts of 138k followers and is a verified account. “When I started the blog, I was a law student juggling internships, law school and also the struggles of running a new blog. In 2017, I graduated and got a job at a law firm. By this time, my blog had grown exponentially and so had my workload. I needed to dedicate more time to the blog. And law being a demanding profession, too, I decided to take a break. I focused my energy into the blog and there’s been no looking back since then,” says Sangvi, who clearly loves her life as a travel and food influencer.
Sanghvi truly believes that the digital marketing industry has changed drastically over the last few years. And she is glad that today, bloggers get the due respect that they deserve from brands and the market. “Now more than ever, brands realise the importance of working with the right kind of influencers. There’s more awareness and knowledge about influencers marketing than say two to three years ago,” she says.
However, things seemed to have taken a turn for the worse in the hospitality industry with the pandemic hitting and people getting confined in their homes. But Sanghvi is positive that we will come out of this with a new normal. “The lockdown has severely affected the food, travel and hospitality industry which also affects us indirectly. I don’t know about the vaccine but we have to accept and live carefully with social distancing and proper sanitisation measures. People won’t step out except for work or unless absolutely necessary, so this has and will really affect the whole dining out, travelling and vacationing in hotels business. But I feel that the future is bright. Once things start functioning, the need for social media and influencer marketing will rise, too,” she says, adding, “This will also lead to a boost in domestic tourism as more and more people will want to travel internally to places in India that are closer and safer than facing long quarantine periods abroad.”