Social media has transformed human interactions by allowing people across the world to communicate with one another at the touch of a button. Instagram is a free social media platform where users share photos and videos with their followers. As Instagram grows, it is changing how people do things, and travel is not an exception. The platform has a global reach and through this reach, it is changing where people travel, how many people travel and why they travel. Instagram is changing travel by inspiring more people to travel locally and around the world.
More people are traveling to new destinations that are revealed and made popular through Instagram. Before Instagram, people toured well-known destinations as suggested by paper maps and tour guides leaving many unknown places unvisited (Miller, 2017). When one discovered a new destination before Instagram, they would only share it with their close friends and relatives. With Instagram, when one discovers a new destination, they can share it in pictures and videos to their followers. Tour destinations are also running Instagram accounts and popularizing themselves using hashtags (Riyanka, 2021). When one clicks on the hashtags, information about the experience offered at the destinations is presented in pictures and videos. The more people use the hasshtags related to a destination, the more popular the destination becomes. Through Instagram, people are discovering new destinations and many more destinations are becoming popular.
Instagram is changing travel by availing travel information to more people. According to Statista, Instagram has one billion monthly active users (Statista, 2021). Every post on Instagram is instantly accessible to a billion people. A broad Information reach translates to more people discovering travel destinations and influencing them to decide to travel. Between 2009 and 2014, tourists visiting Trolltunga increased from 500 to 40,000 after influencers popularized this destination through Instagram (Miller, 2017). Before information on Trolltunga was availed, the number of tourists to the place was negligible compared to after information was availed. This impact is from Instagram availing travel information to more people.
Instagram is becoming a source of inspiration to travel. Human beings tend to replicate what others have already done (Miller, 2017). In real-time, Instagram pictures and videos are showing what others are doing in various destinations. This is then inspiring more people to want to do the same and to have similar results. On Instagram, there are more than ten photos of people on the same spot on Trolltunga (Riyanka, 2021). All these people were inspired by the first person who posted an Instagram picture on that spot. By showing what is possible and what has been done, Instagram is becoming a source of inspiration for travel.
As a social media platform using images and videos, Instagram is at the forefront of changing travel. It is changing travel by enabling people to discover new destinations and by allowing travel destinations to popularize themselves using hashtags. Instagram has one billion monthly active users and this is allowing it to avail information to more people around the world. With such a wide reach, Instagram is inspiring more people to travel and achieve the results that others have achieved and posted on the platform. With Instagram, travel is not the same as more people are inspired to travel both locally and across the world.
