EmailThe world travel business is an $8.27 Trillion a year industry.
Or at least it used to be.
Not anymore.
Airlines are going broke, hotels are closed down, restaurants are shuttered.
No one is jumping on a plane to head to Paris or Rome or Japan.
In an instant, the virus has killed what was once a vibrant business.
But no one dies quietly.
The travel business is trying to reconstruct itself, using video and 'fvirtual visits' as a way to do that.
Will it work?
Probably parts of it will.
The virus is going to be with us for a long time and a vaccine is years in the future.
This morning, we got an email from Relais & Chateaux, offering us the opportunity to experience Provence in video.
It could work, but not the way they are doing it now.
It's beautifully shot, as befitting both Provence and Realis & Chateaux.
But what it is lacking in is characters and arc of story.
It is beautifully shot with lovely nat sound, but at the end of the day, it is nothing more than some lovely b-roll strung together,
This is not going to hold anyone's attention for very long.
Ever see Jean de Florette?
That's Provence
Ever see A Year in Provence?
That will hold your attention.
There's a real opening here for a new kind of travel based video, but not what Relais & Chateaux is doing,
And with iPhones (and a bit of instruction) they could do it.
As it happens, we have a whole course on How To Make A Travel Video!
They could make people fall in love wiht Provence (won't take much) but not with these slide shows.
Tell me a story.
It's as old as Homer
Who never made it to St. Paul de Vence.
Featured Courses
Recent Posts
The Uber-ization of Content
May 26, 2023
The world of television before cable had been limited to 3 networks and a handful of local TV stations. But the advent of cable meant that suddenly there were 60, 70 soon to be 100 or more new channels. And all of those channels needed content. But where were they going to get it from? A huge market for content had just opened up.
What TV News Can Learn From Netflix
May 22, 2023
Q: What do TV news and Netflix have in common? A: They both appear on the same screen. They both tell stories.
No News is Bad News
May 15, 2023
This morning, I went out early to buy my copy of the weekend FT — a great newspaper, by the way. I was a bit surprised to see that my regular newsstand, on 6th Avenue and 55th Street, had exactly 3 newspapers for sale — one copy of Baron’s and two copies of The New York Post. That was it. No FT, no NY Times, no Washington Post, no… nothing.