ASPIRE BRUNCH CLUB


‘SOCIAL MEDIA INSPIRES BUT UPLOADING IS A DISTRACTION’


Social media has led to an increase in bucket-list bookings, but can also mean holidaymakers miss the full experience because they are too busy on their smartphones to enjoy it. The panellists at Aspire’s September Brunch Club said the trend to share travel-inspired photos and experiences on social media sites such as Instagram inspired more holidaymakers to travel to destinations on their wish-list. Wild Frontiers founder Jonny Bealby said there was no doubt that photos and comments on social media were a “major factor” in inspiring others to go to bucket-list destinations. “If you keep getting photographs of other people’s perfect experiences


it’s going to make you feel you should be out doing something too,” he said. But he admitted some clients failed to fully enjoy the experience while on holiday because they were distracted by social media and wanted to tell others what they were doing. “People are so focused on taking a photograph, they miss the experience,” he said. “This is the sadness of the social


media world we live in. “Previously you were much more in the moment, enjoying it, whereas now it’s more about reporting it. “I do sometimes have to tell people on the tours to look out of the window and enjoy it because they may never come back.”


Pip Casey, Tourism New Zealand


WILD FRONTIERS AIMS TO SELL MORE OF ITS TRIPS THROUGH THE TRADE


Specialist adventure and tailor-made operator Wild Frontiers is looking to work with more agents. Founder Jonny Bealby said agents’


customers now wanted the type of holidays offered by Wild Frontiers. About 5% of the operator’s bookings currently come from agents. He said: “When I started Wild


Frontiers in the early 2000s, the experiences and the trips we were offering were more at the extreme end and the trips agents were offering were at the softer end, but I think now the two have converged. “What we offer now is less extreme


and agents are offering more- experiential trips. There is now a much better marriage between companies like us and agents.” He said it was important agents


understood Wild Frontiers offered comfortable trips suitable not only for “hardcore adrenaline junkies”. He added: “The key is to have


Jonny Bealby, Wild Frontiers


a really good relationship with an agent, and to educate them properly on the experience we are offering so we offer it to the right person.” He admitted the Wild Frontiers name had put agents off in the past.


aspire december 2016 — 35


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