Seven tourist stereotypes – which one fits you?
From the social-media addict to the disillusioned old hand to the guidebook hugger, we’ve all bumped into one of these when travelling abroad
It’s been a tense summer for the tourism industry. Residents in popular travel destinations have voiced anger at the impact mass tourism is having on their quality of life and have called on authorities to do more to manage the high-season influx in a sustainable way. Legislation aimed at capping visitor numbers is being introduced in some countries, which means, for better or worse, there will be fewer of the following characters around.
1 Social-Media Addict
The Wi-fi-hogging, selfie-stick-wielding approval seekers of the tourist circuit, SMAs used to upload 200 holiday photos a day to their timeline but have “managed to cut back to 100 carefully curated images”.
Indexing, applying “glamour glow” filters and sharing the snaps across multiple social-media platforms keeps these smartphone obsessives so busy they have no idea where they are or what they are looking at. So, instead of destination information, photos are accompanied (self-branded) with faux-profound captions, such as, “A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.”
Unfortunately, the relentless stream of near-identical selfies and blurred culinary creations tests the patience of a rapidly diminishing number of Facebook friends until the only “Likes” are from mum, gran and the weird guy in accounts. But that’s OK, because SMAs befriend enough travellers on each trip to give their Instagram and Twitter profiles a new lease of life.
Most likely to tweet: “There are no strangers here, only friends I haven’t yet met.”