Globus Travel

OK seriously, I can’t believe I keep blogging about magazines—this is the last one, I swear.

Sooo maybe I never made it all the way through Time magazine—you know, things to do, places to go, people to see, whatever, so I moved on to Budget Travel.

No sooner than I open up the magazine do I find something to blog about!

In the first few pages of Budget Travel from November is a two-page ad for various vacations in Italy from “the Globus family of vacations” (four different travel package programs catering to independent, luxury, budget and… I don’t know, one more kind of traveler). For some reason, all of their photographs of “real Italy” are totally ridiculous. I mean, it shouldn’t be possible to completely caricaturize, in so many different ways, a whole place in so few pictures. These photographs feature all of the essentials: the backs of two pensive American travelers, stopped at an otherwise empty sidewalk café in front of two empty cups of espresso (“A Monograms independent vacation gives you all the time you need ot sip espresso and soak up local culture”); a vineyard snaking over rolling Tuscan hills (“Globus travelers enjoy a private wine tasting and lunch at the splendid Verrazzano Castle”—as do Syracuse University study abroad students, incidentally); and photographs of a Venetian bridge, a few gondolas, and the Roman Coleseum. What strikes me as strange about all of these pictures is the total lack (except for the espresso shot) of people; neither tourists nor Italians show up in any of these photographs. Perhaps the purpose of this is to create a sense of intimacy with the sites that Globus is insinuating it is capable of delivering, but it’s almost disconcerting, implying that the impetus of travel lies in the confrontation between the self and the site, not the confrontation of the self and, well, the whole package.

I suppose it’s just the marketing of both a tour package and a place at the same time that strikes me as strange; Globus must make both their destination and their exclusive way of packaging that destination sound like they’re worth the money. By playing on almost ridiculously common stereotypes, and playing right into how people have come to characterize Italy and Italian culture, Globus puts itself in a position of being able to deliver on these specific things. Why go to Italy and miss your chance to “sip espresso and soak up local culture” when you can pay Globus an exorbitant amount of money to schedule it in?