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Travel Writers Desperate for New Buzzwords as Staycation Meme Rages
Back in March, we marveled at the sudden ubiquity of the term staycation in the travel media, charting the trajectory from its 2003 birth in the pages of the Myrtle Beach Sun-News to a staggering 242 mentions in newspapers and websites that month. At the time, I assumed that the market was saturated with staycation stories and they'd soon begin to peter out, but I was dead wrong. Google News has 1,078 mentions of the grating portmanteau for the month of May, more than four times the number for March.
Tags: Staycations / Staycation Travel / Travel Media / Trends / → All Tags
Staycation Story Trend Saves Travel Journalism
There's nothing like a funny-sounding buzzword to launch a library's worth of stories in the travel media. Such is the case with staycation, a portmanteau that describes a vacation spent at or close to one's home, exploring local attractions and festivals. Just about every major media outlet has made the staycation a central theme of their recession 2008-2009 travel coverage, providing a treasure trove of previously-covered story ideas that need only to be repackaged and repurposed for a local audience ("Staycation in Cleveland," "Staycation in Schenectady," etc.). I don't doubt the staycation trend is real, but I find it funny just how much the term seems to have stimulated coverage of a phenomena that probably goes back to the Great Depression and beyond, namely, when people have less money, they cut back on leisure travel.
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Is DC Stealing NYC's Cool?
Washington, DC has spent the better part of its existence in the shadow of its larger neighbor to the north, and there's no better way to get a Washingtonian riled up then to go on about how much less cool their town is than New York.
So what's up with the Manhattan media elite fretting about DC overtaking NYC? First none other than New York Magazine wondered whether the balance of power and culture has shifted southward, undoubtedly thanks to the presidential cool of Barack Obama.
Now Mollie Chen from Conde Nast Traveler is going gaga for DC's suddenly cool food scene:
The inauguration may be over but Washington, D.C., is still on a high--and change is not limited to politics. Last week, we had dinner with many of the city's tourism officials, all of whom were giddy about their new White House residents as well as their own plans for the next few years. "I can't tell you how excited we are to be cool," one of the heads of Cultural Tourism DC said.
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Coffee Coffee Buzz Buzz
There's a new sheriff in town, and he won't tolerate any substandard crema. That's right, New York City, heretofore lagging in the coffee pretension business, is ready to make a great leap forward with espresso snobbery, according to today's New York Times.
Visitors to the city should be aware that they'll need to brush up on the origins of beans--just like grapes, only with more productivity--if they want to order in the city's finest coffee bars, including Gimme! Coffee and Café Grumpy. Both sound like laid-back places, right?
Here's what we say: It's charming, foreign, and authentic when you're and Europe and they make you an espresso dark as night and thick as Jessica Simpson. But when a tattooed guy is getting all pissy with you because you don't know, uh, beans about beans, well that's just tiring. Any way we can just pass on this trend?
[Image via yehwan/Flickr]
Related Stories:
· Espresso's New Wave [NYT]
