The 4 Seasons positioning itself with The White Lotus is without doubt one of the smartest advertising and marketing partnerships in journey. It’s a masterclass in old-school, top-of-funnel advertising and marketing, reaching one thing few luxurious manufacturers handle: catapulting into mainstream consciousness whereas sustaining exclusivity.
Some top-line numbers: The present’s Season 2 finale drew 9.3 million viewers, and the 4 Seasons Resort Maui reported a 425% enhance in web site visitors following Season 1.
To be clear, the model and advertising and marketing groups have finished their job, and finished it effectively.
My beef right here is that a lot of the media protection surrounding this phenomenon (and the launch of the brand new season set in Thailand) has been largely uncritical. The surge of consideration is ready to convey an inflow of hyper-tourism to Koh Samui, a small Thai island already grappling with infrastructure challenges: particularly water shortage and points with rubbish processing. A stupendous island is at risk of being fully overloaded.
Take into account this fundamental quantity: Whereas the typical native resident makes use of 150 liters of water every day, a luxurious resort visitor consumes almost 1,500 liters — a disparity that turns into critically necessary when multiplied throughout hundreds of recent guests.
But, main publications, from The New York Occasions to client journey shops like The Factors Man, are totally embracing the pattern, sending reporters on the last word press junket. The headlines are superficial, at finest: Here is What It is Wish to Keep at Each Resort Featured in The White Lotus. (Skift has additionally reported on the potential for a tourism spike in Thailand sparked by the brand new season.)
The PR orchestration behind this marketing campaign is sharp, and it’s no shock that writers need the luxe freebies. The timing was additionally good given the post-pandemic luxurious journey surge. The dimensions of curiosity rivals that of the Barbie advertising and marketing rollout — besides, on this case, the stakes are increased than simply dropping just a few mind cells to a blockbuster movie.
What Overtourism Seems to be Like
We want solely look to Bali for a glimpse of what unchecked luxurious tourism can do. The island has been mismanaged, a serious plastic waste drawback within the ocean, and cultural and non secular areas being disrespected by unruly guests.
Santorini, one other cautionary story, was compelled to cap every day guests at 8,000 as a consequence of infrastructure pressure. These locations realized their classes the arduous method, but we appear poised to repeat their errors.
It’s disheartening to see the identical publications which have beforehand reported on the perils of overtourism now behaving like golden retrievers chasing a tennis ball, sprinting after the hype with little crucial reflection.
A fast back-of-the-napkin evaluation reveals that main journey publications have produced 3 times as many “find out how to go to” items about White Lotus areas as they’ve articles analyzing the sustainability challenges these locations face.
The truth is that whereas The White Lotus and the 4 Seasons could have struck PR gold, the vacation spot itself could pay the worth. This is not nearly infrastructure and setting — it is about the way forward for luxurious tourism itself.
Embrace Accountable Luxurious Tourism
The trade stands at a crossroads: Proceed the cycle of discovering, popularizing, and finally overwhelming locations, or pioneer a brand new mannequin of accountable tourism that values preservation alongside revenue.
Journey should confront the uncomfortable fact that advertising and marketing success and vacation spot sustainability are more and more at odds. The following decade would require a elementary reimagining of find out how to promote and handle high-end tourism locations.
This implies shifting past superficial sustainability initiatives to sort out tougher questions. How will we steadiness vacation spot consciousness with preservation? What position ought to luxurious manufacturers play in infrastructure improvement? When does exclusivity serve environmental safety, and when does it merely serve revenue?
With out addressing these questions head-on, we threat watching an infinite cycle of locations rise and fall, every new “undiscovered paradise” following the identical path to overtourism and environmental pressure.
The success of popular culture and streaming platform tourism promotion has proven us the trade’s energy to form traveler wishes — now it is time to use that energy to additionally form traveler consciousness as effectively.
