Ego tripping

Two weeks in the sun is not the glamorous getaway it used to be. These days it's more important to name-drop a destination that spells trouble, or has decent green credentials, as Claire Coleman discovers

Forget eco-tourism, the latest trend when it comes to disposing of your 25 days of annual leave is ego-tourism; choosing your holiday on the grounds of how it makes you look. Whether it's impressing your friends with your environmental travels, or wowing them by opting for somewhere nobody's been before, there's a whole new set of rules to play by if you want to come out on top in this particular game.

"Holidays are a real status symbol," explains Clement Wong, travel and tourism manager at market research firm, Euromonitor. "And, although they always have been, it's no longer just about inviting your closest mates around to see slides of your week away. Now websites like Flickr, YouTube and TripAdvisor allow people to post photos, videos and reviews of their holiday, while social network sites, like Facebook, let people broadcast what they've been up to. So it's not just the friends you already know to whom you're regailing your experiences."

With a wider audience, the stakes are raised and people are going to greater extremes—and further afield—in a bid to out-holiday their rivals. First and foremost among the ego-tourists comes the green brigade. They are the ones who can quote whole extracts of Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth, wax lyrical about the fabulous organic butcher they've found, and talk endlessly about how they're thinking of getting an urban chicken coop for the garden. Once upon a time, a week in Barbados would have trumped a fortnight in Bognor, but now that you can play the carbon footprint card it's not so simple.

"Five or six years ago, if you'd said you were going on an eco-holiday, people would have thought you'd be pulling shopping trolleys out of a canal near Reading," says Justin Francis, co-founder of eco-holidays agency Responsible Travel. "Now green is cool and, as a result, more people want green holidays."

But if your next-door neighbour tells you he's ditching a flight to Miami in favour of the train to Mumbles, he's probably lying. "Research indicates that while people say they are flying less and want to stay in the UK, the reality is that we're flying more," says Francis. This isn't necessarily so bad. "If we stopped flying altogether in a bid to reduce our global carbon emissions, it would be an economic disaster," he claims. "We should be trying to fly less, but it's not the only way to reduce carbon emissions."

Flights aside, eco-holidays are on the up. "From overtly saving the world with volunteer projects, to simply ensuring that your holiday is built in partnership with the local community, people are more interested in trying to make their holiday greener. And, as long as it really is green, rather than a 'greenwash', that can only be a good thing," says Francis. "Some tour operators will describe a holiday as an eco-holiday when it offers nothing of the sort. Others think that a lodge in a forest constitutes an eco-lodge. But people are becoming increasingly literate about what green means, so there's a limit to how long they'll be able to get away with that."

According to Francis, the other big bonus of opting for an environmentally-conscious holiday is that you get a very authentic experience. "Interacting with the local environment and people gives you double bragging rights. Not only can you say you've been on an eco-holiday, but you're also far more likely to come back with fantastic stories of encounters with locals."

But establishing the green credentials of your break is only the first step. If you're serious about triumphing in holiday Top Trumps, your choice of destination is key. Destinations gain kudos for various reasons, but chief among them is picking a destination that nobody has heard of.

"While none of our clients would book a holiday simply because of the obscure nature of the destination, we certainly get people wanting somewhere different that only those in the know, know about; somewhere that's going to be big," says Tom Marchant of Black Tomato, a bespoke travel company that specialises in extraordinary destinations.

"The price of travelling has come down and the world is increasingly accessible. That—coupled with the fact that we're a society that always wants something new—means there's a constant hunger for new destinations. Simply going away is no longer enough; we want somewhere exotic—and different. People are looking for alternative destinations. So, instead of Brazil, they'll look at Ecuador or Bolivia."

The joy of picking somewhere obscure, is that you have that moment of superiority when your interlocutor is forced to acknowledge they have no clue where the Gambier Islands are, allowing you to explain. The other approach is to select somewhere infamous for all the wrong reasons such as Ibiza and Tenerife, where fly-on-the-wall documentaries have showcased groups of young Brits doing unmentionable things to themselves and each other. It goes without saying that these activities happen within the larger urban areas, leaving huge swathes of the islands free for "civilised" people to enjoy. Thus, when eyebrows are raised at the mention of Ibiza for your summer jaunt, you can collapse into laughter at the idea that anyone would think that you would go for that kind of a holiday, before going on to demonstrate your knowledge. "Of course, Ibiza actually has some really lovely areas on the other side of the island—fabulous food, beautiful beaches, full of locals, you know?"

"Discovering a different side of somewhere that's usually seen as a conventional destination taps into our desire to dig out gems that other people don't know about," says Marchant. "There is an element of oneupmanship but, essentially, it's about not wanting to be surrounded by tourists and, instead, feeling more like a local. We're seeing this happening with quite well known places, where people are either exploring a different side of things, or choosing a different type of accommodation. So rather than visiting Tokyo, people will go to Japan and spend time on the islands instead. Or rather than staying in a luxury hotel in Rio or Rome, they'll rent an apartment in Ipanema or near the Campo dei Fiori."

Another way of upping the ante is to make sure your activities, while you're there, are not bog standard. "People might have been to Namibia, but now we can offer them a motorbike safari through the Namib Desert. Similarly, everyone's been skiing in Chamonix, but how many people can say they've gone ice climbing around the crevasses there," says Marchant.

But for the ultimate in forcing a really satisfying jaw-drop, why not choose a destination that's made headlines for rather more worrying reasons? That's exactly what's happening with "extreme tourism".
Wong of Euromonitor explains: "There's a definite trend for people wanting to visit areas that might be thought of as dangerous: Kosovo, Iran, Sierra Leone, Somalia and so on. Part of it is the desire to see, first hand, places that have such a reputation, and the opportunity to explore a tourist-free zone. Being able to visit Chernobyl, or having to take 10 bodyguards out with you are dangers that give some people a buzz and, of course, make for great stories."

But before you start dreaming of telling your friends about your whistle-stop tour of nuclear weapons facilities in North Korea or your lion-taming trip to the Congo, be aware that even the edgiest tour operator will draw a line somewhere. "One client wanted to do a road trip through 'all the 'Stans'—Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kazakhstan," explains Tom Marchant. "We wouldn't do it. We felt that was going a little bit too far."

The ins and outs of ego-tourism

In	Out
Johannesburg	Cape Town
Damascus	Marrakech
Sant Joan, Ibiza	San Antonio, Ibiza
Okinawa, Japan	Tokyo, Japan
Beirut	Blackpool
Iraq	Italy
Panama	Rio
Cornwall	Caribbean
Bhutan	Thailand
Libya	Egypt