photo credit: Bigstock
There is an ugly pox plaguing the travel industry, and it is not COVID-19. For over a year, up to 90 percent of the “calls for submission” on travel sites like Matador solicited writers from the “LGBT Community,” and “Writers of Color,” or sought contributors for LGBT/BIPOC travel guides. Last May, they stopped soliciting submissions due to COVID travel restrictions, but their editorial preferences are, or were, clear.
Not unlike COVID-19, which attacked senior populations with compromised immune systems and preexisting conditions, this disease attacks ungrounded young adults with compromised value systems.
A new template for travel writing promoted by activist travel workshops and “travel universities” targets millennials and their Gen-Z successors: Begin with an attention-grabbing lead from a “foreign” location, then segue to a sordid confession (the more cringeworthy the better). Qualify the self-mortification with a sna