Let me be blunt. I’m in the business of awe, excitement, and great memorable experiences. I sell the thrill of discovery, the warmth of a foreign welcome, and the stories that last a lifetime. So, writing this feels a little like biting the hand that feeds me. But if you’ve followed my website blog for any length of time, you know I believe in honest conversation. And right now, I need to write about a question or two that have been gnawing at me:
Are the joys of travel increasing or diminishing?
And more importantly, who’s responsible for the answer?
Having spent much of my recent time between Egypt and Ireland, I’ve had a front-row seat to the shifting landscape of global travel as well a close up experiences of every type of sales and services combo. And I have to say it: for the average consumer across the board and for the traveler, the magic is fading. The spark of joy and adventure is being doused by a cold, corporate calculus that values efficiency over experience and profit over people.
Let’s talk about why.
From “Customer Care” to “Customer Beware”
Remember the 90s? The buzzwords were “customer care” and “customer satisfaction.” Businesses seemed to genuinely compete over who could make you feel more valued.
Now? We’ve entered the era of the bland smile and the scripted brush-off. You know the scene. You’re facing a customer service agent—a person who is undoubtedly just as trapped in the system as you are—and they repeat the mantra: “I understand completely, and you are perfectly right to be upset…”
Then come the dreaded words: “However, in this particular instance, there is absolutely nothing I can do.”
What follows is a list of seven more hoops to jump through, a labyrinth of digital forms, or a dead-end 1-800 number. The intent of service is expressed, but the promise is almost never delivered. It’s a soul-destroying process for everyone involved.
For example: how would you feel if you booked connecting flights with the same airline then missed the second flight because the first one got delayed. But then, you are rescued by a lovely customer service agent who sends you off to a hotel for the night with a voucher that includes a bed and dinner to await your replacement flight. Wonderful yes? Wait for it – the hotel is inundated with people in the same situation as yourself – and now there are no beds – or maybe there is one for maybe 2 hours once housekeeping has finished turning it around – or maybe not. True story – who takes responsibility? Real responsibility? Nobody – because nobody cares, you were just a “passenger”, a number, to be passed along the line. And they are never going to see you again anyway, are they? And everyone followed “procedures”
The Security Slippery Slope and the Quiet Acceptance
Think about our journey through airport security. Not long ago, we complained about removing our shoes and limiting our liquids to tiny bottles. We accepted the pat-downs and the bag swabs.
Have you noticed how many of those old restrictions we lived with for years are being removed one by one? But have you also noticed what we’ve quietly accepted in their place? The full-body scanners, the biometric face scans, the digital tracking. A sceptic might wonder: was the initial friction just a way to soften us up for a new era of digital control? It feels less about safety and more about conditioning us for a dehumanised journey.
The Real Culprits Aren’t Faceless
This isn’t about blaming the frontline staff. The individuals I meet on the ground—the hotel clerk, the tour guide, the airport worker—are, for the most part, wonderfully helpful people. The problem lies higher up.
The pandemic, I fear, was a watershed moment. It taught the “top brass” in corporate headquarters that we, the travelling public, would put up with almost anything if it was framed correctly. They learned they could strip away services, offload work onto us (self-check-in, self-bag-tagging), and hide behind “policy,” all while often reporting record profits.
But here is the thought that bothers me lately: these decisions aren’t made by machines. The policies, rules, and attitudes that demean, demoralise, and frustrate us are created by people with names. They are carried out by people with names. People who live in neighbourhoods, whose children go to school with ours.
It’s a modern, corporate version of the banality of evil. The executive who signs off on a policy to charge for carry-on luggage isn’t a monster; they’re just trying to hit a quarterly target. The software developer who designs an app with no “contact us” option is just solving a technical problem. No single one feels responsible for the collective erosion of our travel and life experience. They are just cogs in a machine, following procedures.
And if I’m being brutally honest, we are complicit, too. We vote with our wallets, almost always choosing the cheapest fare over the most humane experience. We trade our data and our dignity for a slight discount or a marginally faster line. Why would a sports shop give you a 10% discount to put the shoes you want to buy back on the shelf then go to a computer terminal, type in the shoe details, your contact details and agree to wait 3 days to then return to the shop to collect your shoes? True story.
So, Where the &%$# Is This Going?
This path leads to the full commodification of travel. It becomes a sterile, predictable product—a tube we are shot through from point A to point B, stripped of spontaneity, humanity, and joy. It breeds universal cynicism and erodes the trust that makes real connection possible.
Why My Business is My Answer
This is a bleak picture, I know. But this crisis is precisely why I do what I do.
My business isn’t just about selling trips. It’s a rebellion. It’s a commitment to being the antidote.
In a world of bland smiles and scripted “no’s,” we promise a human “yes.” In a system designed to process you, we are one of the cogs to welcome you. We are the people with names, making decisions that put your experience—your joy—at the very centre of everything we do.
The future of travel doesn’t belong to the faceless corporations. It belongs to those of us who remember that travel is, and always will be, a profoundly human endeavour. It’s messy, unpredictable, and beautiful. And I, for one, am not giving up on it without a fight. What about you?
Last updated on 31/10/2025 by Marie Vaughan