Busting propaganda: How many amazing travel destinations have been ruined by exaggeration?
We’re living in an era which has seen the world grow smaller than ever; within seconds of unlocking a slab of circuits, you can be on YouTube and watching footage from any city on the planet.
With that in mind, we really should know a lot more about the world around us, but in some cases, we’re blinded by stereotypes, misinformation or tired and now extinct clichés.
There’s a phenomenon known as ‘Paris syndrome’ that details how some Japanese tourists feel when they visit Paris, and it’s not the romanticised, beautiful city they see in movies, and it can lead to depression, hallucinations and even self-harm. While in that example, a location has been built up to be better than it is, does the inverse also ring true?
I’m a huge believer that a lot of travel opinions are just regurgitated takes that the person has heard elsewhere, and that we allow exaggerated tales to determine our view of a place before we even visit it. As a Briton, I’m acutely aware of this, with my social media flooded by people, mostly Americans to be honest, saying that food in the UK is awful. The reality that most people find when people visit the country is that the food is far better than advertised, you see Filipinos gushing over Greggs sausage rolls, Brazilians enjoying a Sunday roast, and of course, the realisation that London has arguably the most diverse food culture of any city on the planet.
It’s believed that this stereotype originally grew from US soldiers stationed in the country during World War II, a time when the population were eating rationed food and making the best of what they had. When the soldiers went home, they’d tell tales about the corned beef and the stews with horror, which then, via the proliferation of American TV and cinema, became a stereotype shown to the entire world.
Countless potential holiday destinations around the globe have been ruined due to such portrayals, and one of those is Algiers, the beautiful capital of Algeria, sat on the Mediterranean Sea. There’s the beauty of the Great Mosque, the Notre-Dame d’Afrique perched on the cliff, the Kasbah with its picturesque market stalls and white walls, yet all you hear about is the crime rate. From personal experience, I’ve been warned about crime in Manila, Kyiv (pre-war) and Belgrade, and found nothing of the sort. The reality, like most of these things, is that if you are sensible, you’ll be fine.
Then you have the Spanish holiday islands like Majorca. When the UK’s package holiday boom started in the 1960s, it saw tens of thousands of Britons touchdown on the island in search of sun, sea and sangria. It’s now sneered at as some sort of throwback, but in reality, it’s moved on, just like the rest of the world has. I had similar views too when I first visited Magaluf on a lad’s trip some years ago, but while there were foam parties and litres of Sex on the Beach, there was more to the region than bacchanalia.
Recently, I returned from China, a place still subject to a lot of misinformation, despite an ever-increasing volume of tourists visiting the country. It’s safe, the people are friendly, they are not all brainwashed and no, the stereotypes around what they eat are not remotely true.
The sad truth is that nothing gets eyeballs like negativity; it’s why reading Jay Rayner tear into a restaurant once in a while is far more interesting than his many positive reviews, and it’s the reason why your Twitter feed is a cesspit. The same is true when people are slagging off travel destinations. Don’t worry about what people say, just experience it for yourself.
