When Travel Becomes a Performance: What The Spectacle Reveals About Modern Tourism

A line of tourists waits patiently at the edge of a cliff. One by one, each person steps

forward, positions themselves in the exact same spot, raises their phone, captures the moment, and then steps aside for the next person. For a brief second in the frame, it looks like solitude—a lone traveler standing at the edge of the world. But just outside the frame, twenty more people are waiting to take the exact same photo.

This is one of the most striking scenes portrayed in "The Spectacle", a short documentary by Yasmin van Dorp. With little narration and no heavy-handed commentary, the film quietly observes tourists at iconic natural destinations as they chase the perfect image. What unfolds is both familiar and uncomfortable — a true reflection of modern tourism that forces a deeper question: have we started traveling to experience places, or simply to capture proof that we were there? 

Shot taken from "The Spectcle", a short reflective documentary that explores the world of modern tourism.

What the film reveals is a subtle but powerful shift. Travel, in many ways, has become a performance. Visitors arrive at well-known viewpoints and instinctively follow the same routine: step into position, strike a pose, capture the photo, and move on. Each person wants the moment to feel unique and personal, yet everyone is recreating the exact same image. The destination becomes a stage, and the traveler becomes the performer.

Social media has accelerated this transformation. Platforms like Instagram and TikTok have made travel highly visible and easily replicable. One beautiful image spreads, and suddenly thousands of people are chasing that same exact moment. The goal quietly shifts from experiencing a place to just reproducing an image of it and telling people you did.

As a result, many destinations are beginning to function more like photo sets than lived environments. Travelers interact with landscapes the way a filmmaker interacts with a backdrop: step into frame, capture the shot, and leave. Waterfalls become selfie locations, mountains become drone shots, and villages become aesthetics. What gets lost in the process is everything that actually gives a place meaning—the people, the traditions, and the cultural depth that can’t be reduced to a single frame.

Destinations turning into backdrops and photos sets as seen on Instagram feeds.

Behind this behavior is a force the tourism industry rarely addresses directly: the algorithm. Travel discovery is increasingly shaped by platforms that reward content which is visually striking, instantly recognizable, and easy to replicate. This creates a feedback loop where certain locations go viral, travelers flock to them, and those same images continue to dominate global travel feeds. Over time, this forms what could be considered a global travel script—one that subtly tells people where to go, what to see, and even how to experience it.

But this isn’t just on the traveler. Travelers operating this way is to be expected and isn’t the root of the issue. However, to let it be the entire experience, is where the blame falls on the destinations and operators. The tourism industry helped build this system. For decades, destination marketing has relied heavily on iconic imagery—postcard landscapes, bucket-list landmarks, and “top 10” lists. These strategies were effective at capturing attention, but they also conditioned travelers to see destinations as collections of attractions to check off rather than places to truly understand.

The challenge now is that the modern traveler is evolving. More people are seeking depth—authentic experiences, cultural connection, and meaning beyond the surface. Yet much of the industry is still marketing places the same way it always has. It continues to sell locations, while travelers are increasingly searching for stories. The destinations, operators, and industry leaders that fail to realize this and adjust will soon be outshined phby their competitors and slowly put out of business.

A Guatemalan cooking experience with De La Gente—where culture is learned through doing, not observing.

That’s the shift that matters.

The destinations that will lead the next era of tourism won’t be the ones that simply showcase what can be seen—they’ll be the ones that communicate what can be felt. The ones that lean into culture. Instead of saying “come see this place,” they’ll tell stories about the people who live there, the traditions that shape it, and the experiences that can’t be captured in a single image.

Because the issue isn’t photography itself. Taking photos have always been part of travel. The problem arises when the photo becomes the entire experience.

The Spectacle resonates because it reflects something many of us recognize in our own behavior. We’ve all taken the photo. We’ve all chased the moment. But travel and tourism was never meant to stop at the frame.

The true essence of traveling and tourism isn’t just to see the world— it’s to understand it. And the destinations that embrace that idea, that move beyond visuals and into narrative, will be the ones that shape the future of tourism.

Stefan Liautaud

CEO of LiveFrom631