Aussies feeling influencer fatigue

You’ve got to beware of the hype. I am writing this in Hobart, where I have flown to briefly see the Ponant icebreaker Le Commandant Charcot — truly a new benchmark in luxury expedition ships.

Le Commandant Charcot is the world’s first luxury hybrid-electric polar exploration vessel powered by LNG which has a PC2 polar class hull for extreme polar conditions. We’re talking the North Pole. We’re talking circumnavigating Antarctica.

Ponant calls it “a ship like no other” — but I’m not just taking their word for it. I’m here to see that for myself and, of course, will tell that story straight in Saturday Travel and Sunday Travel.

That’s us travel writers and journalists for you.

But then there are the influencers, funded by commercial agreements of one sort or another to, well, try to influence you.

New research shows that one in three Aussies are booking trips off the back of influencer content, but 57 per cent then say the reality didn’t live up to the hype.

“Instagram fantasy” meets real-world travel.

A spokesperson for travel insurance provider Insure&Go, which commissioned the research, concludes: “Australians are turning their backs on influencer travel advice, as many are discovering their dream trips don’t measure up to the hype.”

The findings were derived from a survey of an independent, nationally representative panel of 1000 Australians.”

+ In Australia, there are 20.9 million social media user identities, with 78 per cent of the population logging into these platforms and spending almost two hours a day browsing.