Travel Rant #3: The Problems With Travel Blogs
Despite this being a travel blog, I never consider myself a travel blogger in the modern sense. Travel blogging used to be a hobby for sharing one’s vacations with friends and families. According to BBC, the world’s first travel blog was published by Jeff Greenwald in 1994. In the beginning. Blogging provides a more personalized approach to travel compared to traditional guidebooks. The proliferation of travel writing fundamentally broadens everyone’s versions and opens up the world. The rise of low-cost flights only helps fuel the democratization of travel. More and more people now have the means and desire to travel, fueling both over-tourism and exploration of previously under-discovered destinations.
With the advent of social media in the last 15 years, the term “travel influencer” has become the buzzword in the last 10 years. The modern digital economy also allows more people to be full-time travelers. A new class of “professional nomads” now travel the world full-time and are among the most influential bloggers. Nowadays, travel bloggers are a legitimate part of the travel business. They have replaced traditional print media as the primary shaper of public opinion. With it, travel blogging is now a big business. And like any business, the world of travel influencers could be corrupted while wielding undue influence on the public.
The outsized influence of travel bloggers could certainly move the market and exert undue influence on the itineraries of countless aspiring travelers. So, it is more important than ever for everyone to understand underlying issues often unspoken about. Over the past few months, I have pondered how travel blogging is a valuable resource and a potential menace in the travel industry. After reading enough so many travel blogs over the years, I began to identify many underlying issues facing travel bloggers nowadays. This post is not meant to offend or call out any particular travel blogger. Instead, I think it is time for all of us to have a much more critical perspective on the world of travel blogging.
The Age of Instant Experts
One of the biggest problems I see in the travel blogging sphere is the syndrome called “Instant Experts.” Sometimes, when I read some travel blogs, I was amazed by how confident many bloggers came across through their writing. Judging from the way they wrote about a place, you would think they have been going there all their life and know every nook and cranny of a place. It was not until I read it closer that you found they spent only one weekend at one place. It begs the question of how anyone could provide you with “The Ultimate New York City Travel Guide” when he or she only spent 36 hours in a city of eight million.
A collectioin of typical blog posts from Be My Travel Muse.
We should all be suspicious whenever a blog attempts to dictate your trip planning. Labeling ten restaurants in a city as a “must” for visitors creates unrealistic expectations and the fear of missing out (FOMO). We all know people who get depressed when they cannot get a reservation for a restaurant that some random travel bloggers recommend. Wouldn’t it be far more productive for travel bloggers to recommend ten local dishes to try out?
Like everyone on social media, travel blogging today is plagued with shameless exaggeration and sensationalism. It seems to me that half of the blog posts nowadays have descriptive words like “the best”, “the most”, and “the ultimate”. It is quite depressing that travel blogging becomes like a sea of clickbait you would find on BuzzFeed. While plenty of thoughtful bloggers still do intelligent writing, the internet is now awash with recycled content.
It Is A Business, After All
Among the top travel influencers on the scheme, few are particularly upfront about how they managed to travel full-time and stay at five-star resorts so often. It is one aspect of travel blogging that few are eager to discuss. It was like an underbelly in the blogging world, and it is simply not a sexy topic of discussion. Truth be told, very few bloggers can live off their travel blogging alone. I am sure a lucky few could fund their travel through rich parents, but most full-time travel nomads supplement income from their blogging with remote work such as language teaching or remote editing. Being a full-time blogger is a lot of pressure; it is a constantly evolving business.
One blogger who did a particularly good job of talking about money is Lauren Juliff from Never Ending Footsteps. I particularly love her honesty about the different revenue streams she counted on for funding her travel. Among the biggest income generators is the so-called affiliated marketing. Bloggers earn a commission by promoting a product or service if you don't know what that is. When a reader clicks on the ad and makes a purchase, the blogger could make a small commission on a portion of the sale. It is considered the easiest money for bloggers to make. Have you ever seen articles like “The Best Places To Stay in Rome” or “My Ultimate Packing List for Tokyo”? Well, those articles are written specifically for affiliated marketing purposes. Popular bloggers like Adventurous Kate, Nomadic Matt, and others participate in this practice. The affiliated marketing extends far and wide from purchasing travel insurance to VPNs.
While I think some advice, like hotel locations in these articles, could be useful, I find most lists inappropriate and self-serving. Similar to my previous point on “instant expert,” it is ridiculous that anyone could recommend a list of 15 accommodations in Brussels while only spending a long weekend there. Did they stay at all 15 places, or at least check them out? In the good old days of traditional guidebooks, the authors would personally visit each establishment before they went ahead and recommended them to the readers. All that seems to get out of the window in travel blogging. People nowadays feel comfortable recommending something they have never tried out themselves. Call me old school, but that is unethical and borderline manipulative.
Cringe-Worthy Sponsored Content
Since so many travel blogs exist to generate income, many bloggers nowadays seek “collaboration opportunities” with hotels or tour operators. Although top-tier travel influencers could be paid handsomely with cash and free service, most bloggers settled on a sponsored post on their website and social media in exchange for a few nights of stay. Judging from some of the sponsored posts I came across, I genuinely think it was a lot of work for a night or two of free accommodation. But more importantly, you do need to wonder just how well the sponsored content serves their loyal readers. I am often puzzled by the sponsored content some ‘reputable’ bloggers take on.
Adventurous Kate’s sponsored content for FlyOver Iceland.
A few weeks ago, I came across this sponsored post that Adventurous Kate did for Flyover Iceland. When I was there last year in Reykjavik, I came across the advertising brochure of Flyover Iceland and wondered what kind of people would want to visit such a blatant tourist trap. It is the kind of tourist attraction that suck money out of unsuspecting tourists. Why would anyone pay $38 for a half-hour mechanical ride when you are in one of the most beautiful places on earth? So I was stunned that a big-name travel blogger decided to do a sponsor spot about this place. Does she genuinely believe it is a worthwhile stop? I don’t believe one bit of it. Who knows how many of her readers spent their hard-earned dollars there?
Fortunately, the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) had a disclosure requirement for sponsored content. However, the compliance is far from universal and could sometimes be buried deep in the article. So it is still incumbent on us to look out for advertising, masking as genuine opinion. Sure, almost all bloggers profess opinions as their own. But in my mind, it really erodes a blogger's most valuable assets: authenticity and honesty.
A Salve To SEO
In this technology age, information is king, and page views and unique visitor counts measure the monetary value of a blog. Since advertising revenue is in direct proportion to the number of eyeballs, professional travel bloggers would do anything that could increase their web traffic. SEO, short for Search Engine Optimization, is optimizing your website to allow search engines to find and index it. Given the monopoly in the tech space, the only game in town appears to be Google. Having the best SEO strategy is almost like a topic of obsession. People either pay big bucks for SEO workshops or outsource to third-party professionals.
Suggested blog post title provided by Goats On The Toad.
A big part of SEO work is thinking about the content your audience wants. Google has a wizard to help content creators use the proper keywords to boost a website’s search ranking. Have you ever wondered why many blog posts have similar names like “The Ultimate Guide to Amsterdam” or “How To Spend A Perfect Weekend in London”? Post titles such as “11 Best Things To Do In Honolulu” or “20 Photos To Inspire You To Visit Italy” also seem very popular. You are not wrong to think that they all seem quite rigid and repetitive. They are byproducts of SEO best practices. It is depressing that a tech giant like Google shapes so much of the “creative” content. So many bloggers nowadays seem to write solely for their Google search ranking.
Personally, I am “grateful” that I have a full-time job and do not feel the need to monetize the blog. I have the luxury of only writing about things that interest me during my travels. My meager readership does not bother me; it gives me freedom. After all, I write this blog for myself, not anybody else. SEO is not fundamentally bad if you don’t let it dictate your content.
Who Do You Write For?
In today’s travel blogging, most people opt to write not for themselves but for their so-called “audience.” The more I listen to big-name travel bloggers talk about their writing, the more it is apparent that its keyword is “mass appeal” and serves the "needs” of your readers. Most readers are looking for a list of sights, restaurants to eat in, and places to stay. This is why so many successful travel blogs nowadays seem like a collection of checklists for first-time visitors. Many readers see travel blogs as the “Cliffnotes for travel.” A short list of things to do with one short paragraph for each item seems to be all they need.
This list-making approach to travel blogging reminds me of crowd-sourced resources like Tripadvisor or Yelp. Everyone should know by now that popularity does not equate to quality or authenticity. Travel writer Rick Steves once lamented that the No. 1 ranked restaurant in Paris was once a Tex-Mex place and advised against overreliance on pier-reviewed sites. Given their popularity and influence, travel bloggers should be responsible for not perpetuating popular stops for their own sake. You must feel sorry for anyone who had Tex-Mex as their only meal in Paris.
What I consider as soulless content from The Blonde Abroad.
On a more fundamental level, I do think travel blogs must convey a sense of joy. I sometimes look at blog posts like “The Coolest Airbnbs in Massachusetts,” I wonder if this blogger gets any joy from writing a post like that. I have no doubt they “believe” they are serving their readers valuable and curated information. But the cynic within me tells me this is all about affiliated marketing and greed.
Traveling Is A Privilege
The summer of 2022 has been branded a “summer of hell” because of the ongoing labor shortage due to the pandemic. As an aviation geek, I have a deep appreciation of the logistical miracle that is modern air travel. I get frustrated with flight delays or cancellations like everybody else, but I also understand that they are often out of the airline's control (and not the staff's fault). As frustrating as the current struggle may be, it is an underappreciated fact that the ability to travel is a modern phenomenon.
Those of us who can travel should count ourselves as lucky. Travel is a luxury, considering that over a quarter of the world’s population lives under $2 USD each day. Even for a relatively wealthy society like the United States, a large segment of the population still does not have the financial resources or the freedom to travel.
One kind of blog post title that bothers me is “How To Survive a 12-Hour Flight”. I may be wrong, but I can’t help feeling there is a sense of entitlement here. Flying has indeed become less and less glamorous than in the 1960s. However, the cost of a business class ticket today was roughly on par with a typical economy class ticket fifty years ago when adjusting to inflation. Unless your plan is diving toward the ocean, I don’t consider spending 12 hours in a well-cushioned economy seat and being served airline meals and drinks as torture.
The travel and hospitality industry relies heavily on low-paying labor compared to many other trades. We all need to be kinder to everyone who makes our travel dreams a reality. The issue with travel entitlement is particularly pronounced in luxury travel blogging, where staff members for airlines and resorts are routinely criticized for “not smiling” or “late for keeping my champaign glass full.” It is one thing to commend a place for a high standard of service; it is another to come across as an entitled prick.
