Richard Turen
It happened again. The first article in my morning newsfeed made me pause. (Actually, that's why I quit Starbucks.)
Advisors have been feeling very optimistic lately. According to the poll, the majority of travel professionals now believe their business is on a forward trajectory. Most of us have had a great 2023, continuing to emerge from COVID-19 with a renewed sense of purpose. I no longer flinch or bow when my relatives inform me that they are joining our profession. Our customers are traveling more frequently and their average spend has increased significantly. Vacations are becoming longer and extended families are traveling together again.
So when I saw this headline, it made me pause. “After years of lockdowns and restrictions, we will reach a new peak in 2023 as tourism spins out of control.”
I started reading because I didn't realize that one of our clients, or yours, was “losing control.” If so, I think we might have heard something about it.
The story went on to explain that the “glamour of travel” comes with “a certain ugliness.”
Really? Did you miss this big news article from Travel Weekly? To be fair, the article went on to “prove” its point with examples. Here are some examples that these professional news reporters used to prove that our American travel clients were “out of control” while traveling.
- A “massive brawl” broke out on a street in the popular tourist town of Sitges, Catalonia. At least one bar stool was involved.
- An American tourist used a “Ghostbusters-style weed blower” to spray marijuana smoke into a crowd in a busy street in Phuket, Thailand.
- A Yellowstone tourist had the “fear of his life” after reaching out to pet a bison and taking a selfie. He became upset and scratched her sweater.
- Tourists run up the stairs of the Kukulcan pyramid at the Chichen Itza ruins in Mexico. That was unacceptable, so a bystander attacked the tourist with a stick.
So, what kind of impact did this “reporting” have on the readers of the story? This was a rather typical comment. “I haven't flown since 2001, and I don't have any plans for air travel or long road trips in the future. Everything I need is within 30 miles here at home.”
This was the lead story aggregated for presentation in the daily feed. So you might be wondering what kind of obscure app created it?
Well, here's a hint. Just three months earlier, I had received another report from the same source at the top of my newsfeed with the headline, “Risk for American travelers has increased in more than half of the world’s countries.”
This piece used the State Department's “global alert'' in light of the Israel-Hamas war as a context. This article received a variety of reactions, but my favorite was, “…travel to most, if not all, of these countries should be banned. Otherwise we will be killed.” We're going to be trying to rescue people who weren't there.” ”
These two headlines did not come from the app. They were reported by FOX News Channel, which just marked its eighth consecutive year as America's highest-rated cable news network.
Our positive collective voice may simply be needed now more than ever when advocating for our clients to understand the part of this planet we all share.
