Influencing for a Better World: The Rise of Sustainable Travelers

Triip is at its core a data company, but travel will always remain key to what we do. Innovations like blockchain and mobile technologies will be refinements to travel moving forward, changes and growth that are badly needed, in our opinion.

Consider just how social media looks on social media. It’s not just that Instagram-centric travel photos intended to induce FOMO and indulge some of the worst qualities of people (envy, nihilism, jealousy, et al.) are toxic emotionally, they’re also doing nothing to address the toxic practices of conventional travel:

• The aviation industry alone contributes between 2 (according to Vox) and 8 (according to the Washington Post) of all greenhouse gases created anywhere.
• 15 percent of global tourism are not bound to any emissions restrictions like those in the Paris Climate Accords, according to The Independent.

Can social media use its influence instead to remake travel in to a better practice for both us and the environment we live in?

For a new class of Instagram influencers, the answer is “undoubtedly, yes.”

Jessica Nabongo, Instagram influencer and travel blogger with Catch Me If You Can, has 175,000 followers that have watched her become the first black women to visit all 195 countries.

What’s special about her though is that she’s using her platform to promote social betterment through practices like volunteering and reducing plastic. She’s part of a new coterie of Instagram influencers are who are making their mark educating people about sustainability and social responsibility.

How big is it? There are currently 20,000 people who cooperate with a global advocacy group called the Impact Travel Alliance, a community that uses social media to advocate for sustainable travel.

“Nobody wants to go on a responsible vacation,” says founder Kelly Louise. “But if you lead with, ’Here’s how you have an amazing experience. By the way, here’s all the cool components focused on building a better world through travel,’ that becomes more powerful.”

Influence = Power to Change

The hashtag #sustainabletravel has been used about 157,000 times on Instagram, but it’s growing reports journalist Katherine Igoe in a piece she wrote for Mashable SE Asia.

It’s still just a fraction of a fraction of the number of times #travel is used, 454 million times. But Igoe opined that the difference may seem smaller as Instagram starts to reduce the power of it’s most followed and most trendy actors by hiding like counts.

What are people going to see if they’re not being served the hottest, most wanderlust-ey travel photos complete with fake-deep quote filtered to perfection?

Maybe it would look something like the @impacttravelalliance post highlighted in Igoe’s piece, that implore readers to shop local, support a small business through you voyage, to take direct flights and to go to lesser known places to combat overtourism.

(Psst: we’ve got plenty of these lesser known places listed with tours and accommodation on triip.me)

Travel can and must become better for the world we live in. Don’t just do it for the ‘gram, do it for the planet.

Further reading:

https://sea.mashable.com/culture/7277/instagram-influencers-ruined-travel-can-these-influencers-fix-it

https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/tourism-climate-change-carbon-emissions-global-warming-flying-cars-transport-a8338946.html

https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/7/25/8881364/greta-thunberg-climate-change-flying-airline

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/theworldpost/wp/2017/11/02/plane-pollution/