Travel bloggers & influencers: Establishing the authenticity from the facade

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Living the dream

Over the last decade, travel blogging has become a career path that many people have undertaken. Once established, your blog can earn thousands of pounds a month, leading to other income streams outside the blog. The same goes with travel influencers: The very best can make thousands of pounds a post on Instagram.

It’s a remarkable life to live: living continuously on the road and creating content all year round. Life couldn’t be any better if you love travelling. You are living the dream.

I first started hosting my podcast at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, which can be seen on my YouTube channel, and several questions hit me when I was interviewing someone: Are travel bloggers or influencers who they say they are? Can we believe what we see on social media? What lengths do bloggers and influencers go to, to be part of the industry? Are there too many material incentives that cause freebie grabbers to give up telling their genuine accounts and travel experiences, and how does this impact other bloggers’ and influencers’ business?

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Impact of social media

Not very long ago, if you wanted to be known in the public eye, you had to be either a movie star, a musician, a sportsman, a tv host or an explorer, such as Sir David Attenborough, to be classed as an influencer.

Before social media came into our lives, I occasionally wondered what my favourite football player was doing when he wasn’t playing. I would also wonder what the cast of Friends got up to when they weren’t filming or what travelling was like since it wasn’t prominent in anyone’s talks. I was fascinated by the thought of travelling to another country and being in a different time zone or meeting someone whilst travelling and whether we would keep in touch. Back then, it was a long-distance phone call or post.

That has all changed now, of course, with how prominent social media has become. It has almost come to a point if you’re not on social media, then you are not with the times. You can now…