Bianca Graulau is a Puerto Rican journalist who has written extensively (muckrack.com/bianca-graulau) on marginalised communities and the environment with a focus on the Americas. This video (by and of her) looks at the impact of tourism in Oaxaca Mexico, and is a really deft piece of work highlighting the challenges writers can face reporting comprehensively on some of the issues around tourism.
While I can’t speak to the situation specific to Oaxaca, though take my word for it they’re a big deal in Southeast Asia lol, but these challenges are global, and sometimes I don’t think general readers really understand just how much self-censorship is required by the writer to avoid issues such as harassment, arrest, and deportation—even when writing about a supposed soft issue like tourism.
Anyways, if you have an interest in this kinda thing, it is definitely worth the 20 minutes of your time you’ll need to watch it.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLEuid8jUhQ
Comments
This is one of the best interviews I've watched all year. Highly recommended if you're a startup, entrepreneur, or just curious about where the travel industry is heading.
My favourite quote from Brian Chesky:
"The more we live remotely... the more people are going to actually need connection. Suddenly travel will not just be about seeing places, but seeing people. The entire identity of travel has changed."
As always, great analysis and content from the team at Skift (www.skift.com)
Really interesting. Thanks for sharing @Ian
Loved the interview. Very good insights there!
I'm a little dubious on there being some kind of impending boom in family travel though. Brian mentioned people being a lot more flexible with dates and destinations recently, which makes sense. But family travel is mostly restricted by school holiday dates meaning prices are always at a premium during just those times. Unless there is some giant increase in supply, I just can't see how family travel can get much bigger.
I think this is also why there is so little effort put into it by travel companies - because it's already at a maxed out level in the time periods that familes can travel. And it is next to impossible to convince familes to just take their kids out of school during other times.
Totally agree with the predictions here, backed up by own experience 2020, 2021 doing all that, meeting other people on the way, and my research for VDR the German Business Travel Association (www.geschaeftsreiseanalyse.de) and for the Western Balkans' rural areas (seerural.org/featured/economic-diversification-policies-and-rural-tourism-in-south-east-europe/). Adding: Sustainability as a component of competitiveness.
Brian makes some excellent predictions in this interview.
In particular the longer term effects on business travel, but the continuing pent up demand for leisure travel.
Some really great insights. Definitely also betting on pent up demand for leisure travel continuing into 2022.