There are two schools of thought about social media on-the-road – travellers should just forget it and enjoy their destination, or it’s an intrinsic part of our lives and should be embraced.
Both sides of the argument have some merit.
On the one hand, when else do people get a chance to “unplug” from their every-day existence other than when they are far away from home, enjoying the sights and sounds of a city or region (or simply just lying on the beach).
But equally, social media has given people a narcissistic streak whereby they want to share every minute detail of their trip because they assume those within their networks are interested, or at least curious, about the experience.
From a travel brand’s perspective, when that acitvity on social media is broadly positive, this ability and desire by consumers to share such information can be like gold dust, capturing images and videos of a destination or hotel.
Even the humble selfie on an aircraft carries some marketing cache.
So we all know how switched-on travellers want to be when they are on a trip – countless studies have said so and travel brands are quite rightly trying to make the most of this opportunity to stay connected with their customers, whether it’s an app or mobile website featuring destination-specific content or functionality.
But what are consumers doing? And at what kind of scale?
Cruise operator Royal Caribbean asked 2,000 adults, on average, what kind of social media-type activities they carry out on a weekly basis when travelling.
21 Facebook updates 21 tweets 14 Snapchats 28 Pinterest pins 28 Instagrams Seven Vine clips
(In terms of the travel blogger fraternity, one suspects you could 10x these figures)
In terms of other, non-social media-based activity:
28 texts sent 14 personal emails 14 work emails
Just the social media-related activity alone comes in at close to 120 individual items of content.
Broken down a bit further, Royal Caribbean found that men were twice as likely to post on their respective social media channels than women.
People aged between 18 and 24 found it harder to switch off from work, with them being three times more likely to check in with their boss and colleagues than those in the 45-54 bracket.
The irony of the survey, of course, is that ask the same questions about social media activity to those on an actual cruise trip and the results would be markedly different given the cost of staying connected to the internet aboard a ship.
Stuart Leven, managing director of Royal Caribbean International, claims the company’s new fleet of Quantum ships will have “incredible technical advancements”, such as RFID luggage tracking, robotic bartenders and wifi connectivity with speeds matching on-shore broadband services.
No information on the actual wifi charges as yet.
As an aside, Royal Caribeann also learned what types of devices are being taken overseas:
47% – iPads/ other tablet 53% – smartphones 20% – Nintendo DS / games console 25% – laptops 20% – Kindles 31% – iPods/music devices 13% – DVD players
NB: Beach selfie image via Shutterstock.
