“The White Lotus” effect: More and more people are basing their travel plans on television
70 percent of Gen-Z and Millennials were inspired to take a vacation through binge-watching.
If you’ve spent the entire second season of The White Lotus contemplating how beautiful Sicily is, it seems you’re not alone. More and more people are using their favorite shows as their personal travel agency, according to new data from a report by American Express.
According to the American Express Global Travel Trends Report, 64 percent of travelers said they made travel plans or were inspired to visit a particular country or destination after it was featured on a TV show, news source, or film. The same percentage said they had used travel TV shows as inspiration for things to do in their travel destination, and 61 percent of respondents said shows and movies had inspired them to visit certain shops or restaurants. However, more respondents (75 percent) said they use social media to inspire bookings, leaving Facebook and Instagram as the dominant vacation planners.
These trends are even more significant and visible among Gen Z and Millennial respondents, who were defined in the survey as those born between 1981 and 2012. This is significantly higher than the percentage of respondents who said they were inspired to visit a place by Instagram (46%) and TikTok (29%), two of the most popular social media apps in the surveyed age group.
American Express did not track specific information about which shows inspired most travel plans. However, according to a report by Bloomberg, some of the most notable examples are on-location shows that premiered during the pandemic, including HBO’s White Lotus and Netflix’s Emily in Paris.
Season 1 of The White Lotus, filmed at the Four Seasons Resort Maui in Wailea, Hawaii, generated a 425 percent increase in web traffic to the property over the previous year. The Four Seasons San Domenico Palace in Sicily, where Season 2 was filmed, also saw a surge in bookings, according to Four Seasons, and other luxury resorts in Sicily saw a similar surge in demand, according to luxury travel company Little Emperors. So wherever the HBO show sets up for Season 3, be prepared for a surge in bookings.
American Express’ report is based on data from an online survey conducted by business intelligence firm Morning Consult February 3-11. 2,000 travelers from the US and 1,000 travelers from Australia, Canada, India, Japan and Mexico, and the United Kingdom were surveyed. Respondents had a minimum household income of $70,000 and reported traveling by air at least once a year. The results of the survey have a margin of error of plus or minus three percent.
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https://www.indiewire.com/2023/03/the-white-lotus-effect-more-people-are-basing-travel-plans-on-tv-1234822279/ “The White Lotus” effect: More and more people are basing their travel plans on television
