I have been thinking about this post for ages but today’s discussion on Thumbrella about travel writers receiving free accommodation, travel etc. negatively impacting on the independence of their stories prompted me to finally write it. I am in no way going to try and take that debate as I think the Thumbrella stuff is awesome.
Instead I think an important discussion is the dumbing down of travel stories on the Internet in the interests of generating more page views and therefore advertising revenue.
As you know Travel Generation is a website that we manage and edit the content for. I personally do all the work on promoting the website online, driving up page views and search engine traffic – it is my pet project. The interesting elements is what generates traffic and what does not.
I am happy to say that search engines are our main source of traffic, followed by articles that have been Stumbled by our readers and Twitter accounts for less than 10%. Search engine traffic is great because it is sustainable whereas Stumble traffic is unfortunately very short-lived. For example the other day my own article on whether Adventure Tourism Had Gone Too Far rocketed to a massive 1,000 visitors in a few short hours because it had been Stumbled and liked by a few people and then petered away just as quickly. A side point, however, is that we do get a large number of new subscribers (readers who choose to receive the content via RSS feed or email) from Stumble Upon and Twitter traffic so they are pretty important visitors, and from our analytics, more readers subscribe to our content via the destination related articles than they do via other resource based articles.
The important point though is that most new traffic is bought about by our weakest articles – articles we call resource articles, such as “10 Ways to Beat Loneliness”, “5 Ways to Get Naked on The Beach” and such rubbish. In effect I would call it dumb travel writing – it would appear that this is what the masses want!! Well it is not strictly true, what actually happens is that most of the social media whores don’t really read the Internet properly, instead they jump around from heading to heading and skim read. It is easier and quicker for them to skim down an article with nice headings and pretty pictures and then Tweet it, Stumble it or link to it in other ways than it is to actually read and appreciate a well-researched piece on a destination or activity. So, it is these sorts of articles that attract readers into a website.
What does this mean for travel writing and travel websites. Well, I think firstly it comes down to the editors of the site and their overall goals. At Travel Generation we would like to think we are building a resource that will last so we temper the need to print lists for the lowest common demoninator with good quality articles. We have had some fabulous stuff written by Peter Smith (such as a recent articles on Wadi Rum in Jordan and Bullfighting in Andalucia), Stuart Wilkinson (on Bolivia’s Salt Plains), Margo Rhy-Jones (who has literally travelled everywhere cool from Antarctica to Lithuania, Iran and Poland) and an eternal favourite in Bruce Thurlow (and his zany articles on travelling in India and Europe). But at the end of the day – traffic equals advertising – so we also have our fair share of resource articles.
Daniel Scott of Sydney Morning Herald fame wrote on Thumbrella: “I worked for two years for one of Australia’s top travel websites and saw it go from reasonably intelligent destination stories to nothing but this lowest-common denominator crap.”
Just one final point, however, is that list writing does not always have to be of a poor quality. Bruce Thurlow recently wrote a piece on the social spaces within a city that make you appreciate a city and it’s culture that received good traffic as well as intelligent discussion on and off (links and trackbacks from other sites) the site, Grant Currie wrote an excellent list piece on 8 Essential How-to Tips on Train Travel in Europe, Peter Smith produced two good lists on his 5 Top Beaches in The World (with an accompanying argument on what makes a good beach) and 3 Reasons to Throw Away Your Guidebook, and of course my opinion on adventure tourism obviously hit a nerve.
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HI Dan!
This is a subject I feel very strongly about! Travel writing online is mainly rubbish – bit size pieces that tell you nothing and have little passion. I still prefer to read travel in print for that reason.
When we redid our mag’s website four years ago I had a huge disagreement with the IT geeks who were designing it. They wanted to butcher the features down to three paragraphs, to fit what they saw as internet content. I refused, and still post our articles in full. In fact, sometimes they are longer as I have to shorten them for print, but run the full version online.
Most people disagree with me…but I stick to my guns on this one. So great to hear another zealot on the topic!
Great points.
Lists have a place — sometimes that is all the readers are after. As you say, they can be a good lead in for traffic, but overall, you won’t keep the traffic with lists alone — there has to be some meat on those bones! Easily the most read features on Travelfish are the more in depth pieces — especially ones that explain, in detail, how to get from A to B — something that can easily be done with a list, but is far better — for the site, the reader and the traffic — if done in depth.
No need to have just one or the other – a mix works well.
Janet – been a long time — you published my first ever bit of travel writing! While I’d agree there is a lot of rubbish out there, there is a lot of good stuff too — you just need to know where to look
Hi Stuart – longtime. I’ve printed quite a few writers’ first pieces – hope you guys will all look after me in my old age!!!
The great thing about this and the Thumbrella debate has been that it’s stirred me to search the web more for quality, and I’ll try to put those sites in front of our readers in a future issue…
Thanks for the truthful commentary. I’m an avid traveler and I have to admit – I’m sick of lists. Unfortunately though as a society people are so busy that they only skim – I call it Hurry Sickness. It’s kind of like reading the cliff notes in a way. So I guess the real challenge is writing good content to really grabe the readers attention. I like to live by the motto – “if you build it, they will come.” Hopefully I can build it really well!
We’re also going through what I call the “lists vs. content” issue on Indie Travel Podcast. We focus on video and audio shows which generate a strong following, but it is articles that drive social media traffic, especially the stumbleupon crowd which, being tech-savvy, often converts into new listeners.
We’re looking to build a quality travel brand in the long term, focussing on new media publishing. It can be hard to avoid quick wins, especially when advertising budgets are tight, but we’re aiming for consistent quality (and hoping to keep finding it).
Granted, the lists are popular and do generate traffic, but can they really be called ‘travel writing’? How does a mindless post about 10 ways to get the shoes you always wanted into your pack rank with a classic travelogue (print or online). Does the fact that someone actually has to scroll make a travel piece unsellable? I wrote apost about it comparing a recent piece by Christopher Hitchens on a trip to the new Acropolis museum with top 6 pieces, no comparison.
OK, hands up. I’m one of those writers that ends up churning out the lists (and for the site that Daniel Scott is almost certainly talking about).
Can’t say they’re ever the pieces I’m most proud of, but there is a certain skill in them. It’s the idea that counts, and the ability to link 5/ 10 places by a theme. It’s not in-depth, it’s not ‘proper travel writing’, but it does attract eyeballs. And that’s what websites rely on.
I do think it’s a little snobbish to say that there isn’t a place for such pieces, although I’d personally prefer to read (and write) a proper, well-crafted 1,500 word story.
I think of them as inspiration pieces – they’re for the armchair reader that probably won’t go to one of the world’s wierdest restaurants or most dangerous beaches (etc), but they’re interested in knowing that they exist. They’re not aimed at ‘travellers’. But they do a job for someone who wants something light and interesting to read – and there’s no crime in that.
I agree with Troy. Lists are NOT travel writing.
However, they do have their place – particularly for newbie travelers looking for info about a specific topic. And there’s nothing wrong with that. My site includes Tips (bulleted lists) and travel writing but most people click on the tips off of the home page because they want bite-sized information and inspiration.
There’s nothing dumbed down about this – it’s just the chopping up of books (or book-like) into material that can be read in small chunks.
I once heard a writer asked “why did you write such a long story?” He answered that he didn’t have time to write a short one. I think the point is made that short pieces in the right hands take a lot of time and skill to craft. The longer articles I’ve read on Dans site lose me in the first couple of paragraphs as the writers struggle to drag me in. So I think the longer articles that Dan applauds, such as Bruce T’s, are quite painful, whereas the short and punchy articles are great.