Study reveals most discussed tourism types in 2021
An analysis of GlobalData’s Social Media Analytics platform has revealed ‘Virtual Tourism’ as the most discussed type of tourism, followed by ‘Space Tourism’, in 2021
Governments are taking various measures to revive the toruism industry’s business from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, and Smitarani Tripathy, Influencer Analyst at GlobalData, listed the most discussed types of tourism in 2021.
‘Virtual Tourism’ tops as the most discussed tourism type among Twitter and Reddit users in 2021. Discussions around ‘Virtual Tourism’ were related to how virtual tour has provided a new experience to the visitors through different technologies.
Smitarani explained: “Their sentiment was largely positive about ‘Virtual Tourism’ as it became an alternative solution for tourism business to rebuild interest among travellers during the Covid-19 pandemic where social distancing became a new norm.”
Space and adventure tourism popular
‘Space Tourism’ emerged as the next most discussed tourism type. Majority of the discussions on this topic were based on the launch of two successful space flights – ‘Virgin Galactic’ by Richard Branson and ‘Blue Origin’ by Jeff Bezos in July and August, respectively.
Discussions around ‘Adventure Tourism’ were mostly driven by ideas shared by Twitter influencers for various adventure travels in different countries like mountain climbing in Tuscany’s Rolling Hills and Dolomite Mountains in Italy, Sperrin Mountain in Northern Ireland, Choquequirao trek in Peru.
The conversations on ‘Food Tourism’ were largely about attractive food tourism destinations with reasonable prices, such as Vancouver and Nova Scotia in Canada and Bern in Switzerland. The contributors also discussed their foodie experiences, delicacies, and the culinary heritage of different destinations globally. Mole Poblano Sauce of Mexico was one of the top discussed food items among influencers.
Discussions around ‘Wine Tourism’ surged the most during the first week of September 2021, led by the fifth UNWTO Global Conference on Wine Tourism in Portugal, which was focused on the potential to generate development opportunities in rural destinations.