Ego Travel – Is it really that bad?
Recently, my friend shared Thomas Cook’s travel report with me. This report straight away targeted innocent millennials like me, who are exposed to the world of social media on daily basis and love posting beautiful pictures and selfies on their social media handle. According to their survey, 52% of the travel bookings made were based on the social media post considerations. Thomas Cook graciously calls it “ego travel.”
Typically, the term “ego” implies a negative connotation, so I wonder if ‘ego travel’ is really that bad? Does it truly imply that we the millennials have a narcissistic heart when it comes to holidaying in this modern world? One of the arguments that the ego travel critics gave is that the travelers are too fixated on taking pictures, do Facebook check-ins and make everything seem perfect on their social media handles that they forget to enjoy the real essence of holidays, that is relaxing and creating memories. However, aren’t taking pictures a way to preserve memories? I mean back in the days when there was no social media, people used to use disposable cameras, create physical albums and show them to every friend the stumble upon once they were back. I believe Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat have just streamlined the process and made it more effective and efficient that’s all! Now you can show off your cool vacation pictures in real-time, create memories while making your peers jealous!
Similarly, every person has a different method of relaxing and unwinding. Thus, how a person relaxes during vacations is totally up to them. For instance, some people enjoy exploring the city, doing yoga and watching the sunrise. Others like me find solace in eating traditional food, being lazy and getting more acquainted with the diverse culture.
On the contrary, sometimes the ‘personal journey’ with a billion Instagram posts with pseudo-philosophical captions like “The road to heaven” or “The journey to spiritual happiness” followed by some Rumi’s quotes that barely relates to the pictures are a bit too much! I would highly recommend keeping it simple by putting a check-in with one or two nice pictures, where the food looks good, the background looks beautiful and you look hot. So, we all can #StayReal? And that is the narcissistic traveler in me rambling!
Thomas Cook’s report does have some valid arguments but I believe he failed to understand that time has changed. The notion of ego travel has been around for a while, it’s just that the digital world has changed its form and it has nothing to do with millennials. This conceptual age has changed the travel dynamics profoundly and now not only we have more options to pick and choose from, but the social media has also created means to entice us to travel and explore more. It is actually helping tourism industry to a great extent, so be happy about it!
