Oxon Flyer

Just musing on what'll happen in the travel Social Media space now that most of the source material is locked down and everyone has more pressing concerns than discretionary travel.

What will happen to all the bloggers, vloggers and Youtubers who depend on clicks and views for revenue ?

The travel social media market was already super-saturated before Covid-19. What will the future hold ? Will there still be a demand for BRUTALLY HONEST reviews of an airline bread roll anymore ? Who will survive ?

username

I kind of wonder about that too.

I guess on one hand, there are a lot of people stuck at home so they will get new viewers. Maybe people who can't travel will watch those videos to remember the good old days. On the other hand, they can't make new content for a while. Some of them do need to rest and recharge anyway.

I personally am now watching more medical youtubers such as Medcram and travel youtubers who tell us what things are like in their own countries and cities. Youtube stopped recommending those flying ones to me.

jmw

I'll be honest.... I don't feel the least bit bad about them going into dire financial straits. As a whole, they've burned so many good deals and may have contributed to significant devaluations that I had to burn miles quicker than I'd like to dodge the devaluations I saw coming. If I were the parents of the bloggers, I'd tell them to "get a real job" and don't come back to the bank of Dad and Mom asking for money. I already have one blogger begging for change in my inbox.

Pickles

I think generally getting rid of these parasites, particularly the "influencers" would be a good thing.

Beltway2A

I think there's a group of aviation enthusiasts out there that will continue to produce high-value content when the long-haul market resumes. They tend to be the Jeb Brooks and Dennis Bunniks of the world, whose jobs require them to fly and who genuinely enjoy sharing aviation with the masses.

There's a separate group of people who use aviation as an excuse to market credit cards while paying for trips through family/the Koch's largesse. I think they'll be less successful when this is all said and done.

KRSW

Like many of the others here, I can't wait for this to happen. I believe they are a scourge on the industry as a whole. I hope they saved their credit card referral bonuses in a safe place instead of spending them.

username

Wow, you guys are brutal.

I only look at a few occasionally on my TV (so I can't see any comments/links) and don't find them to be selling anything (other than things like VPNs which they disclose). Sometimes they are sponsored/invited by the companies but they disclose.

To me, these people are travelling around the world for me so I can see things without being there or spending money. I help their Youtube count. I don't think they influence me. Am I missing something?

Thanks.

RetiredATLATC

I don't think you are.

Some people are heartless and just love other individuals' misfortune.

MSPeconomist

I'm not optimistic, but some of them could use the down time to learn something about the stuff they're writing about or even improve their writing skills, including basic grammar.

cmtlatitudes

There are some articles and reviews I find worthwhile and useful. Just this morning I was able to identify a departure city I wasn't aware of to search for availability this fall on Qatar for example, from a recent article on a blogger's site. Put a few flights on hold. This was very informative and useful.

For the most part though I find the "usual suspects" normally associated with Flyertalk/Aviation, just feed off each-other to the point of tedium when reporting events, boosting each-other's numbers within the favored circle. Half of their posts are retweets either in entirety, or might as well be, with a few verbs or sentences changed to try to present it as their own. Even when giving credit to the original author. 4-5-10+ people/sites giving basically the same rendition and same opinion on a topic in a small community is not that useful. I basically sigh and scroll and roll past those quickly.

Some of the bloggers do have original content that is informative, interesting, and useful though -- particularly when they focus on airline hard/soft product reviews, balanced destination reviews, and updates on unique award availability (rather than on selling credit cards). Balanced being ones where it isn't painfully obvious someone is being more diplomatic than warranted or someone doesn't have a prejudice or ax to grind. I grit my teeth when it's obvious a blogger is downplaying events they normally wouldn't, perhaps because they receive some sort of favored treatment or perks (like a room upgrade or dinner comps at a resort/hotel) - ostensibly not in exchange for positive reviews. Or don't disclose negatives because they are fearful they won't be welcomed back next time and/or receive that nice upgrade. (This is becoming appallingly common in high demand resort areas.) It's the same sort of thing that's basically stripped Trip Adviser forums of much of their useful content over time - no one wants to bite the hand that feeds them.

Some bloggers tend to be less reticent to call a spade a spade, and provide thoughtful & well written analyses that don't fall in line with the crowded playing field of fluff pieces. These are quite refreshing and I continue to enjoy reading them. They are in the minority however. Usually the original content of most bloggers seems to consist only of fluff destination reviews coupled with dumbed down writing styles.

Credit card -- personally, I find the credit card "sells", spilling into almost every article, detract from the content. I know this isn't likely to change, as it is most of the bread and bread feeding the blogger engines, and many folks avidly play the credit card game. Thankfully on some of the better bloggers/sites, the CC details aren't embedded in the actual reading content. You can choose to scroll by the links to the cc content.

All in all, I don't think it'd hurt anything to come out of this with a few less bloggers writing about virtually the same thing -- especially the overly "fluffy" ones.

rockflyertalk

I did wonder about this.

With barely any new content on the horizon with these unprecedented changes in aviation, I can see some struggling to come back from this, which I see as a positive for the SM industry, sadly not so positive for those that have to find another job. How many articles can you write about CV19 related travel in the next 12 weeks and not lose your audience?!

There are not many bloggers etc that I find very interesting or their content just isn’t quite as sharp or refined as you might hope it be. There’s some great ones, but a few that got in early become quite tiresome to read after a while as it’s very similar tones in writing and in video.

But then again keeping engagement and constantly redeveloping, reinventing your brand to stay relevant is incredibly tough to do in any industry. That will be the defining factor in keeping your audience post CV19 era.

Overall if some sadly come to halt, I personally won’t miss them but I do hope some survive and continue their great work.

I wonder how that expert aviation analyst is getting on? Sorry I mean that young kid who loves planes...Alex something?!

MSPeconomist

Lots of bloggers no longer research or write their own content but rather employ a bunch of apparently young kids who don't have much travel experience or other knowledge themselves to do the work. Some of them seem to also do some of the award ticket booking work associated with the blog. It's not clear to me whether they're generally free lancers (with or without contracts) versus remote employees. Nevertheless, I suspect that lots of them will now be attempting to collect unemployment, although if they're digital nomads it's not clear that they would be covered by any state's plan or be able to qualify if they're off in some foreign country and therefore not available for local work, such as helping in grocery stores for a premium over minimum wage.

My bottom line is that I *might* be willing to look at some content authored by the person who started the blog, but not all the other junk posted on these websites.

jspira

Or hire a good copy editor as many probably have availability at this point in time.

jspira

It's just Schadenfreude.

You Tube

KRSW

I just got this e-mail today from someone I'll call The Points Person:.
While I think Delta is probably the healthiest US airline and in best position to weather this storm, I think it's irresponsible to pimp airline credit cards and suggest buying SkyPesos in the current situation. While historically airline miles have gone through airline bankruptcies unscathed, given the class warfare going on by the DC politicians I can see this sacred cow being slaughtered.

Remember that in an airline bankruptcy, passengers with paid future tickets are considered to be unsecured creditors, the lowest level on the totem pole to get repaid...if they ever get repaid. In the most recent airline bankruptcy case I worked on, we did indeed have to send letters to certain (pre-bankruptcy) ticket holders that they were in-fact screwed. That's for paid tickets. Miles would be even further downhill.

Likewise, I'd imagine we'll see better credit card bonuses down the road. It may be 5 years from now. Even with the impending economic downturn I don't see banks/issuers rolling back the anti-gaming rules they've put in place over the past few years. Given that, I'd wait for the real welcome bonuses to come out.