The writers over at Jaunted take planning a good vaca away from the job, nagging boss, pouty children or pet Scruffy just as serious as we do or any traveler for that matter so when the travel brochure shows a picture of a waterfall – there better be a waterfall. According to their report here there have been some recent glitches in travel advertising placing the wrong photo with the wrong place. Huh? Ouch! Yup!
I’m not sure which of these incidents happened first, but the Perrin Post Travel Blog does a fine job link traveling through this travel advertising matrix. The first error mentioned on their blog is how Tennessee’s tourism experts got caught using a picture of an Alaskan range in one of their Tennessee ad campaigns. Hmm… Tennessee and Alaska – aren’t they one of the same? I don’t think so. Following the bogus Tennessee incident was another Jaunted pointed out three months back when Royal Nepal Airlines used an image of Machu Picchu in one of their ad campaigns. It doesn’t end there. It just gets better. Tourism New Zealand also caught some heat for a digitally blended image and a commenter on all the hoop-la now questions a Discovery Channel “Club 1080” shot of Anguilla. What gives?
Sure, the pictures on restaurant menus are often deceiving and the fare looks far more delectable than what typically lands in front of us, but are we really going to have to do a double-take the next time we see a commercial for Bermuda to make sure it isn’t the Bahamas? Personally, I’ve never had an issue with travel advertising and most of what I was promised was delivered, but I can’t help wondering how many poor souls went off looking for that beautiful scene in Tennessee only to find it was in Alaska?