ASIA Forget seeing, be seen is new travel mantra
FORGET SEEING, BE SEEN, IS THE NEW TRAVEL MANTRA AS ASIAN TOURISTS PUT SELFIES AND INSTAGRAM BEFORE EVERYTHING ELSE
For millennial tourists, if you didn’t post it on Instagram, did it even happen? |
I n Indonesia’s Menoreh hills, villagers built a treetop adventure course in 2008 to lure thrill-seeking tourists. But an adventure of an entirely different nature is taking place here howadays visitors are coming for the perfect Instagram shot.
So perfect, in fact, that Kalibiru Tourism Village, near Yogyakarta, redesigned the attraction. Out went the zip-lines and the treetop platforms. In their place are full-fledged facilities for social media photoops — cameras and hired photographers to advise on the best poses to showcase the background of verdant hills and a shimmering blue reservoir. Images are uploaded directly to visitor’s phones.
Similar photogenic attractions are popping up across Asia as an increasingly footloose generation of young travellers competes via social media to show off their experiences. Today’s adventurer travels not just to see, but to be seen. When stunning images go viral, they can unleash a horde of tourists eager to get a copycat photo.
Tour guides beware
Social media is so important to millennial Asian tourists that tour guides who don’t offer to take photos of their guests will get dinged with bad reviews, says Eric Gnock Fah, cofounder of online agency Klook Travel.
As Kalibiru’s popularity soared on blogs and imageheavy sites such as Instagram, WeChat and Facebook, waiting times grew to six hours on popular days, spurring a nearby village to raise about $100,000 (Dh367,000) to build a second photo destination in the protected forest, which was once a barren landscape denuded by illegal logging and burning. About 7,000 tourists now visit the two sites each week.
Everyone is looking for that perfect Instagram moment, oneupmanship, with out of this world experiences to get that killer photo [ to show off to everyone].”
Tim Hartnoll | Resort owner
For a growing number of Asians in their 20s and 30s, travel has replaced Louis Vuitton handbags and designer clothes as the new status symbol. It’s created what the founder of travel app Klook refers to as “FOMO marketing,” slang for fear of missing out, where people see dramatic pictures by friends and want the same images of themselves.
Elite resorts join in
The phenomenon isn’t restricted to adventure-seekers and backpackers. As more people seek envy-inducing selfies, the pressure to create photogenic moments runs to the most elite resorts, fuelling the demand to find more stunning destinations.
“Everyone is looking for that perfect Instagram moment, one-upmanship, with out of this world experiences to get that killer photo,” said Tim Hartnoll, owner and executive chairman of the exclusive Bawah Island eco-resort in Indonesia, where guests arrive by seaplane and use the hotel’s drone to take aerial videos. “The new generation of wealthier tourists are always searching for those new and exclusive, unexplored locations.”
Gnock Fah says activities with social media components are among its fastest-growing segment.
To drum up demand, Klook maintains a network of 1,500 people who post photos of themselves in hot travel locales on WeChat and other social media sites. “Influencer posts have pretty much replaced travel ads,” Gnock Fah said. “Real people with thousands of followers are much more powerful.”