Are "destination dupes" damaging?
It's a huge travel trend in 2024, but is it okay to liken one place to another?
The “Maldives of Europe,” the “little Venice of Croatia,” the “alternative Tuscany” - there are destination dupes everywhere you look this year as people scramble to find cheaper and/or lesser-known alternatives to some of the world’s most famous places (wow, that sentence was full of some of my most ick-inducing cliches, sorry…).
But after the tourism minister for Albania took exception to the Balkan country being coined the “Maldives of Europe,” it got me thinking, is it right?
I pitched this story to five editors and they each were intrigued by this moral dilemma. But none of them could quite commit to unleashing this debate on their homepages. Why? Read on and find out.
What are “destination dupes”?
Duping was originally a TikTok trend in which users shared more affordable alternatives to beauty, home and tech products. Now, it’s being applied to holidays.
It’s one of the top travel trends for 2024 according to Expedia, which defines destination dupes as ‘places that are a little unexpected, sometimes more affordable, and every bit as delightful as the tried-and-true destinations travellers love.’
The trend has transpired to travel publications looking to serve their cash strapped readers and compete against social media with headlines such as ‘X is the cheaper, crowd-free alternative to X’ and ‘The British X which looks like Provence.’
‘We have never called Albania “the Maldives of Europe”. Albania is Albania.’
Speaking to The Independent about her plans to attract high-end holidaymakers and deter mass tourism in Albania, Mirela Kumbaro said, ‘We have never called Albania “the Maldives of Europe.” Albania is Albania.’ She continued, ‘three quarters of Albania is mountains, forest and rivers.’
Does she have a point?
As a travel journalist, I’m guilty of drawing parallels between lesser-known destinations and more famous ones. The money-saving aspect aside, it’s an effective way of getting the reader to picture what I’m describing. I’ve never seen any harm in it and if anything, it puts that place on the map. But perhaps despite my good intentions, I’m disregarding the local culture, cuisine and everything unique about the place in the process?
We judge people who visit landmarks like the Taj Mahal, take their Instagram photos and leave without taking the time to educate themselves about the story behind it and the people and culture surrounding it. So by likening a destination to a more famous one, aren’t we encouraging this? Or are we in fact promoting sustainable tourism by nudging people towards lesser known, equally stunning alternatives?
When are destination dupes appropriate? Are they harmful? Who has the right to label? Or are we all just reading too much into it and is it in fact some harmless fun?
I pitched this as an opinion piece to several travel publications and five editors were interested, but they ultimately turned me down because essentially, they’d be cutting off their noses to spite their faces.
One editor admitted as much and said it would make the publication look hypocritical given they a) cover a lot of destination dupe-styled stories and b) were called out for doing so.
Another said he loved my idea but the rest of his team weren’t convinced.
Another liked my idea but fobbed me off about not having budget to commission (could have been genuine, I guess I will never know).
The other two said something along the lines of ‘interesting idea, but no.’
Despite pitching this as an opinion piece from my personal perspective and ultimately deciding I felt it was okay to dupe destinations because X, Y and Z - not to mention the SEO potential given high search volume around the trend, nobody wanted to touch it with a barge pole.
So let’s see, what do you, fellow travel writers and consumers, think? Should we be riding the destination dupe wave or leaving it firmly on TikTok?