If you’re of a certain age, you’ll remember this holiday scene; traipsing to the local shops to choose suitable postcards to send home, trying to explain that you want to buy stamps and then waiting for w-e-e-k-s until they actually arrived!
Well I do anyway – as a kid it was expected that you would send postcards home to family and friends, especially the grandparents who really appreciated it and stuck it pride of place on the fridge! The challenge was to choose something scenic to appeal to grandma and something of interest to please grandpa – if you know what I mean!
Well now the postcard is pretty much extinct thanks to the advent of social media. In fact, only 11% of people actually bother to buy, write and send postcards home now. Travellers prefer to post their snaps and tales direct on Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter. And the bonus is that social media offers an instant option – versus waiting weeks for a postcard to arrive. Some 58% of travellers opt to update Facebook whilst on a getaway, the biggest social network for travellers by far.
The days when a holiday meant being able to really get away from it all has long passed, with only 5% of travellers admitting to making no contact whatsoever with home.
But what about those people that aren’t on social networks – your parents, aunts and uncles and grandparents?
Why not go retro on your next holiday and take a moment to send a postcard home old-school style and enjoy the game of guess how long it will take to arrive!
