Insta tourism is booming – but it could end badly

Women balancing on dizzyingly high bridges or on the precipice of a breathtaking view: Looks cool – the location is already saved in the app as inspiration for the next vacation. Instagram is the new travel agency for Gen-Z. It’s better to be inspired by plenty of cool travel influencers than to watch sleep-inducing travelogues featuring middle-aged men.

Anyone who goes on vacation today always has the thought in mind which landscape would be suitable for an Instagram post. And often adjusts his journey accordingly. Instagrammers are often willing to shell out big bucks to find the perfect spot. The tourist industry is also slowly discovering this – with disastrous consequences.

There are now a few tour operators that offer special Instagram tours with the best photo spots. On the Internet you will find numerous travel guides that offer Instagram sightseeing, such as the “Instagram Tour Stuttgart-Mitte”, “Weimar for Likes” or the seven most beautiful streets in Europe including the “Top Instagram routes for planning your next tour including parking tips».

This is also the case internationally. For example, the “Malmö Instagram Tour: Guided Instagram Tour of Malmö accompanied by a local guide” or a five-star “Bangkok Instagram Tour: The Most Famous Spots” for tourists, as well as “Bali: Day Tour to the most beautiful Instagram motifs”. .

Capturing the perfect photo for the Insta community seems to be one of the holiday must-dos for many young travelers. But beware: often it is not a lonely landscape behind spectacular Instagram photos, but endless lines of people. And instead of an abyss behind a suspension bridge, just a meadow with a stream – a smart camera perspective or, if necessary, Photoshop can put a lot in the right light.

Find the perfect Insta spot with Google

Certain providers, such as the online tour operator loveholidays, have hired a professional photographer to take the perfect holiday photo, using Google pins and coordinates to find the perfect location and best time of day for Europe’s 15 most famous sights.

Al Murray, head of marketing at loveholidays, comments on the photo guide:

For those curious, here are all the spots including coordinates and instructions:

Destruction of nature through Instagram mass tourism

However, Instagram tourism only looks beautiful at first glance. It causes many people to rush to the same small spot – often with serious consequences for nature. Because it is not uncommon to find beautiful places in sensitive nature or in the middle of national parks.

If Instagram users then reveal these hidden gems to an audience of millions, things could end badly. One of the worst-case scenarios happened a few years ago in Bavaria’s Berchtesgaden National Park.

Here, a high-reach influencer posted bikini photos at the base of the waterfall, in the middle of the pool, dubbed “Gumpen” by locals, and illegally took drone photos of the place. She also shared exact directions to the “insider tip”. The consequences were serious, as a statement from the national park describes:

Not to mention the rubbish that tourists would often have left behind and the illegal campfires that pose a threat to wildfires. Many locals tend to stay away from the pool due to the danger of getting lost on the narrow path and slipping or getting caught.

However, following the Instagram post, so many young people flocked to the site that Berchtesgaden National Park had to close the waterfall for five months. The rangers of the national park administration should monitor the ban, violations can be punished with a fine of at least three figures, a fine can even reach 25,000 euros.

The search for the photo often ends in the hospital or worse

In addition, the national park sought an open conversation with the influencer, writing under her post:

For example, tourists who fall or injure themselves at the Königsbach waterfall come and go again and again to save people. In 2019, a particularly serious incident occurred in one of the lower “pools” of the Königsbach Falls.

When the water was high, two young men from Bautzen wanted to go swimming there and drowned. The 21-year-old had underestimated the strong current due to the large amount of meltwater – because in the oxygen-rich whitewater, a body has no buoyancy and sinks despite swimming movements.

Insta tourism leads to closure of places worldwide

The influencer eventually removed the directions himself and called the post to avoid the place in the future. But she herself has already received media attention.

Other places in the world are also struggling with mass tourism in places made famous by Instagram: for example, the romantic restaurant Aescher-Wildkirchli, which is 1454 meters high, the Trolltunga ridge above Ringedalsvatnet lake in Norway, a suspension bridge in the Zillertal Alps or a California poppy meadow in Walker Canyon.

The latter is now also closed because the flowers have been trampled. Mayor Steve Manos even spoke of a “poppy apocalypse” to the “Sky News” broadcaster. But the traffic chaos and overcrowded toilets also ruined the idyll.

With the massive sharing of precious natural areas on social media, only the appeal to personal responsibility remains: that the beauty of nature is worth more than a like.