Curated or Authentic?
These days hardworking reality-based DMCs are being increasingly asked for "curated" experiences. Some of us start rolling our eyes - why is that?
For us at Ahipara it comes down to pretentiousness mixed in with a certain naivety about our destination. It doesn't feel right re-creating an African safari scene where the weather is stable and labour is cheap and plentiful on a blustery mountaintop with a helicopter in New Zealand. Also - it seems a little strange to us to try and make our beautiful country look like a Hollywood director's substance-fueled imagination of a perfect day in Botswana. Surely people are here to see New Zealand? Botswana is stunning, and those settings are idyllic - but each to his or her own.
We're very much on the side of authenticity here. In my experience of travel since the age of two, the most enriching experiences have always involved spending time with locals doing what locals do. There's an innate truth and honesty in how locals live, far removed from the cinematic scenes. There are a myriad of geographic, historic, cultural and social reasons for people doing things the way they do - and realising (and experiencing!) how and why people live the way they do must surely be one of the greatest travel thrills out.
When I was a young corporate go-getter, everyone understood that the attraction of the Hilton chain was to remove people from the culture of wherever they were so they could operate more effectively, without interference. The trouser press was reliably in the little cupboard on the way into your room. So are these contrived settings, loved by a certain style of travel agent, a way of giving clients the same picnic experience they loved in Kenya, in Argentina, in Tuscany. Safe and mundane in their extravagance. And I suppose the locals will be cringing so hard they will not forget they are there to give a particular sort of service? You can always check with one of the chino-wearing waiters what country you are in.
Personally - if I see anything tagged as "curated", I stop reading and go elsewhere. It's possible there is nothing wrong with the experience and it's just pretentious buzzword-filled copywriting. But at my age my tolerance for anything in-authentic is at an all-time low. Real words spoken by real people describing real things are worth their weight in gold.
A marketing advisor may advise that by using that "c" word you can justify charging 20% more as people interpret it as meaning more than the bare minimum service level. Here, where we say what we do and do what we say, buzzwords have a short shelf life.