NB: This is a guest article by Alex Narracott, co-founder of Much Better Adventures.
Experiential travel, local travel, responsible travel, ethical travel, ecotourism. Can you spot the difference?
When you boil them down, they all really mean one thing, which can loosely be described as: "travel, done properly". Many websites and blogs out there love to elaborate on that notion in various ways.
So do we need any more terms?
I could probably argue a good case to have "adventure travel" added to the list, and if I had it my way I’d also add "much better travel". But that would be a bit facetious.
Whatever you want to call it, I feel very proud to be part of a travel sector that seems to be fast transitioning from a so-called niche to taking its place at the top table, starting to infect every nook and cranny of the travel world, from cruising to business, package to backpack.
I guess it is only natural that as "it" spreads its wings, new ways of expressing "it" keep cropping up.
Perhaps one day we will reach a golden moment where we can quit calling it "experiential travel" or anything else, and go back to simply "travel".
What a glorious moment that would be. Finally, a global understanding of what is truly great about going on holiday, embodied in a single word. We could look back on the era of mass travel and laugh at how naïve we were.
We could revel in how enlightened we are, and give ourselves a good slap on the back.
We could even amuse ourselves by watching near extinct travel dinosaurs try to differentiate themselves by unveiling their exclusive new range of "non-experiential travel packages".
Ah, that will be the day.
It’s not that I don’t like any of these current terms. It’s just that I keep finding myself wondering if anyone really cares.
Of course, as someone who runs a travel website, I care, insofar as making sure I am using the right words to communicate effectively with prospective customers.
But do any significant number of travellers have any preference between terms like experiential travel, local travel, responsible travel and the like?
I don’t believe so. Other than a very discerning few, I doubt they even know what they might mean, let alone care.
If ever there was a time and place where actions speak louder than words, then surely this is it. The experiences, and the way they are delivered, are definitely more important than the labels we give them.
So until we can start just calling it "travel" again, shall we just get on with having a damn good time, and making sure the people and places we visit are the main beneficiaries of that?
NB: This is a guest article by Alex Narracott, co-founder of Much Better Adventures.
NB2: Traveller experience image via Shutterstock.