Deutsche Welle (English edition)
Travel influencers and the COVID crisis
Influencers are gaining more sway in the travel industry. But their image has recently been damaged by some of them traveling despite the coronavirus pandemic, in their quest for the perfect photo.
Like so many others, the coronavirus has robbed travel influencers of their livelihoods. International travel is almost impossible and advertising partners have drastically scaled back their orders. Many of them now advertise fashion, sandwich spreads or mail-order companies. But some influencers carry on regardless. Clients around the world are using them and their immense influence to market travel destinations ― especially during the COVID crisis. their glossy posts have acquired a bitter aftertaste. The fact that influencers can fly around the world while most people have to stay at home and can't even see their family and friends is a source of irritation for many.
What's more, some social media stars behave quite badly abroad. At the end of January, several influencers were deported from the Indonesian island of Bali. Indonesian authorities had invited thousands of influencers from all over the world in October and November in an effort to revive the island's struggling tourism economy. One of those expelled was Russian Instagram star Sergei Kosenko, who has some 4.9 million followers. He had celebrated a party with more than 50 guests, violating the COVID regulations, and had himself filmed riding into the sea on a moped. company's reach, but they also show vacation destinations from a new perspective, he explained. That's why collaborating with influencers is an "essential part" of the company's marketing strategy, Hüttenberend said. However, due to travel restrictions, many collaborations currently cannot take place.
Just how powerful the impact of influencers is on their followers becomes particularly clear whenever nature is involved. And when out-of-the-way corners suddenly become hotspots.
For about three years, influencers and their followers have been a problem for the Berchtesgaden National Park in southern Germany. "A veritable spider's web of makeshift footpaths has sprung up at the Königssee waterfall. This is almost entirely due to social media," explains Carolin Scheiter, spokeswoman for the national park administration in an interview with DW. Now the park's administration wants to close off the area around the infinity pool until the vegetation has recovered from the crowds of previous years. "This is not what we wanted, but we now had to pull the emergency brake," says Scheiter.
In Iceland, too, similar incidents have occurred time and again. In their quest for the perfect photo, many pay no attention to their own safety or the nature around them. They ignore barriers, trample on sensitive plants or drive off the roads. For years, the Icelandic tourism authority has been trying to combat this with educational campaigns.
New Zealand recently joined in and launched a campaign against "social media tourism." In it, comedian Tom Sainsbury encourages tourists not to copy the same photos they have already seen on social media.
Of course, it's not just influencers who are to blame for environmental destruction and over-tourism. Everyone is personally responsible for their behavior on vacation. Influencers, however, have an "inspirational and amplifying effect," as communication scientist Nadja Enke calls it. That's why it's important that they adhere to ethical principles, according to Enke, who drew up a code of ethics for influencers in 2019.
But there is another way, as shown by travel influencers like Kathrin Heckmann, who runs a travel blog called Fräulein Draußen (Ms. Outdoors). She has over 23,000 subscribers following her on Instagram. Heckmann is usually hiking in the mountains or on her bike. She not only shows her followers the beauty of nature, but also draws their attention to issues such as nature and species conservation. "Many people simply don't know the impact of walking crosscountry through a nature reserve," Heckmann said in an interview with DW. She also tries to pre-empt imitators by, for example, adding only rough location information to her photos.
She is critical of influencers who destroy the environment for beautiful photos or travel during the COVID-19 pandemic without addressing the issue. However, it is important to her that the word influencer does not only have a negative connotation in the public. "There are quite a few influencers who do good, who educate people about sustainability, environmental protection or political issues," Heckmann adds.
Communication scientist Nadja Enke said it is positive that followers have become more critical of influencers, but warns against "influencer bashing," Enke says some of it is not constructive criticism, but simply ends up as digital bullying, which serves no purpose.
Sustainable travel advocate Heckmann said that most travel influencers don't deserve any criticism at the moment, anyway. Most have stayed at home and called on their followers to follow suit. "There was a great sense of responsibility, even though most of them lost their livelihood from one day to the next."
industry, such as regular testing of the cast and crew and wearing face masks on set. Another recommendation was to modify scenes to allow more social distancing.
Denis Cote's film Social Hygiene, featured in the Berlin Film Festival's Encounters section, pushes the concept of social distancing to the extreme. The film's scenes are all set outdoors, in nature; the actors statically stand several meters apart from each other as they speak their dialogues.
The Canadian arthouse director is a Berlinale regular, and the festival's website describes his latest work as a "testimony to the way in which the constraints of a pandemic can be the mother of invention when it comes to cinematic forms and storytelling."
Yet, strikingly, Cote came up with the entire concept of this film — and even its title — five years ago. When actors around him started asking if he had something they could work on together during the pandemic slump, he picked up the project that had remained in a drawer all that time.
He wrote the story as "an exploration of the notion of distancing between people," he told DW. With its surreal theatrical approach, combining period costumes and modern-day references, the film actually offers several levels of distancing to ponder over.
Finding a true online connection in Language Lessons
For many people, the past year has also come with an overdose of online meetings, so a movie based on a series of video chats might not sound like the most attractive option for entertainment.
Yet that's the starting point of Language Lessons. The film, part of the Berlinale Special section, was directed by actress Natalie Morales and co-written by Mark Duplass, who had previously worked with her on the HBO series Room 104.
The film, which only features the two of them, tells the story of a wealthy man with a great sense of humor who develops a deep, nonromantic relationship with his Spanish teacher through their virtual contacts as he reveals himself during a period of grief.
For the story, Duplass was inspired by the Spanish lessons he had started taking a month into the pandemic. "Me and my teacher both hated small talk, so it quickly developed into something interesting," Duplass said during a Zoom press conference that felt a lot like the film itself.
In the film, the lessons are held online because the teacher and the student live in different parts of the world. The duo of actors/co-writers/producers felt the film would be stronger and more timeless if it wasn't about the pandemic itself. The metaphors of loss and isolation are so present throughout the work that adding the pandemic in the story line "would have felt like adding a hat onto a hat," explained Duplass.
"There's a weird nonintimacy/intimacy about the way we have been communicating since March last year, and the film is about how to break the falseness of that," Morales said. In these difficult times, she added, "even when you don't realize it, a connection with another person can serve as a healing balm."
The actors pull it off with their humor and genuine warmth. As Duplass put it, "ultimately, the movie is a big hug." And you'll suddenly want another Zoom meeting with them.