Many of those companies still remain and must surely be eager to re-build Libya’s tourism infrastructure. Indeed one agency, Sherwas Travel, began advertising a 3-day post-war tour within hours of Gaddafi’s death.
The same applies to international tourism & travel providers who had been taking travellers to Libya. Quite a few airlines like British Airways, the Lufthansa group (bmi, Lufthansa, Austrian), Alitalia, Air Algerie & Air Malta and hotel operators like Corinthia, Radisson, InterContinental, Sheraton and Movenpick, had been developing their presence in Libya and will be eager to get back and start work again. I count almost 20 tour operators from the UK alone, who were taking Brits to Libya before the war started.
Etihad Airways CEO James Hogan has already said he is planning three flights a week to Tripoli as soon as the NATO no-fly zone is lifted.
So, once the infrastructure is in place (embassies, visa arrangements, border controls, airport and port services) or maybe even before (see our post on travel to dangerous places), should bloggers be pioneering travel to Libya?
Put it another way. If not bloggers, who?
Sure, the traditional media will cover it when it seems safe for tourists to go again, with maybe one feature each, covering the popular sites and activities, but bloggers can be in there first and reporting detailed up-to-date information on a much wider scale. Even hunting down new places to go and things to do in Libya.
It feels like a win, win, win situation. Bloggers can satisfy their wanderlust, first footfalling in a country that has been off-limits for a year, would be travellers can find accurate information about travelling to Libya, and the Libyan tourist industry can be helped back on its feet providing jobs for cooks, waiters, guides, drivers, etc and foreign revenue for the country.
Who’s up for it?
Image: Steve Rideout
Alastair, I’m not in Europe but I definitely would be up for that adventure! Europeans will probably be there before the Americans so I’d probably need to plan travel through the UK. We shall see.
Hi Tawanna, Well under Gaddafi you guys came late to the party because you couldn’t get visas while we could. Then it opened up for Americans, then the Europeans were out of favour, then he suddenly demanded that all passports were translated into Arabic, etc etc.
Hopefully, under the new government, visiting Libya will be easier for all.
Speaking of which, I know Arkno Tours, one of Libya’s longstanding ground tour agency/operators, is exhibiting at World Travel Market in London next month. I’m rather hoping that, if they are really quick off the mark and take the initiative some other agencies or maybe a tourism representative from the National Transitional Council (NTC) can attend too.
Lepta Magnus is near the top of my places to visit. I’d gladly go in 6-12 months depending on conditions.
I’m up for it!
I visited Libya back in the pre-Ghadaffi days (showing my age!) and was mightily impressed with how outgoing & friendly the people were. I’d love to compare what I saw and experienced then with what’s to be seen and done now.
There was a strong Italian influence back in 1966 … Tripoli was the first place that I ever tasted spaghetti bolognese!
If not bloggers, who? How’s about one of National Geographic’s excellent reporters, they have plenty of web opportunities to deploy stuff to and do it fast. I love Daisann McLane’s writing and Keith Bellows does great stuff too. Nat Geo probably has a pool of seasoned war correspondents and/or journalists who’ve written about countries in transition. David Farley has written some really great stuff for Afar, I bet he’d do the job right on Libya. Anthony Bourdain, hey, there’s a guy who gets dirty. I loved Ian Wright, maybe he could come back to Globe Trekker to do a series on Libya. Andrew McCarthy is all over the place these days, why not send him to Tripoli? Susan Orlean writes incredible insightful pieces about travel. She’d be awesome. How’s about some of those guidebook writers who know how to do hardcore detail driven research on a destination? Seems like they’d be likely candidates, too. Wend is a great adventure travel mag out of Portland, Oregon, I’ll be they’ve got someone in their writer pool that would totally do justice to Libya.
If not bloggers, who? LOTS of others, that’s who.
I think you’re making faulty, premature assumptions about what kind of coverage the traditional media would provide. I’m not saying bloggers wouldn’t do great work, some of them totally would. I love me some bloggers, hell, I am a blogger. But bloggers in the generic sense are not, by default, a better choice. They are — WE are — just another option.
Hi Pam,
Yes, of course there are loads of expert traditional writers (I would know that since as Vice-Chair of the BGTW I represent 275 of them) and publications. I was really thinking about the mainstream press, who will tend to cover the mainstream sites, for a mainstream audience.
And the ‘one-shot only’ problem – most editors will commission one article, not a series. Self-publishers (bloggers) can go on writing as many posts as they like… on Ghademes the town, the festival, the airport, the museum, the village just outside, the restaurant in the village just outside, the sweet shop in the village just outside, another village nearby, the games the boys play in the other village, the WW2 battlefield site just outside the other village that nobody has witten about before, etc etc … you see where I’m going.
Following on from Pam’s point, I don’t think the medium matters. There’ll be some great writing from bloggers on the ‘new’ Libya in the coming months, and there’ll be a bunch of mediocre stuff as well. The same applies to traditional media – I wouldn’t expect anything insightful to come out of the Murdoch-owned press, but publications with a reputation for quality on the subject (like NatGeo) will undoubtedly continue to provide it in this case as well.
I’m not really convinced that an independent blogger with no logistical support is going to be able to do a better job than an established war correspondent in a country that won’t be particularly safe or straightforward to be in for a while yet. Does that mean that we shouldn’t go there and write about it? Of course not! I just think that the message will get out – and get out well – in a variety of different media, and that bloggers won’t be the only ones doing it.
“I wouldn’t expect anything insightful to come out of the Murdoch-owned press, but publications with a reputation for quality on the subject (like NatGeo) will undoubtedly continue to provide it in this case as well.”
Worth noting: National Geographic and the “Murdoch-owned press” aren’t entirely distinct entities. All the NatGeo TV channels are joint ventures of NG and Newscorp. Murdoch also owns the Times of London, which is far from a tabloid. The man is just as capable of earning his money from reputable news outlets as he is from suspect ones, so we may well see some quality Libya reporting coming out of Newscorp’s holdings at some point.
There’s a lot of stuff I’d like to see in Libya. Only thing that ever put me off visiting before was visa hassle and having to go on babysat tours But at the moment, it’s still a warzone, and we don’t have any indication what this new bunch in charge will be like. Let’s see how things clear up, and then I’ll happily go.
As it is, there are plenty of other places that I’d love to see that are less fighty. That puts them top of the list.
Update: Qatar Airways has announced plans to launch scheduled flights to Libya’s second largest city of Benghazi on November 1. Operating four-times-a-week non-stop from Doha.
With a sense of danger sure to linger long after the war has ended and, I assume, the tourist infrastructure knocked about a bit it will most likely be backpackers heading in first. Traditional media doesn’t tend to write for them so the field is open for travel bloggers to promote the country.
Fingers crossed the new regime will be more open to independent travellers. We’re the canaries that will go in and assess whether the situation is suitable for high end tours or mass tourism or whichever direction Libya decides to go with its tourism stratgety.
Feeling a bit ashamed.
I’ve just discovered a long-time mate, Nick Redmayne (@nickredmayne), – not really a blogger, but I’m working on him – has already been. He went in May to Benghazi. http://www.travel-media.co.uk/blog/?p=209
He’s also just been to Syria too!
I thought he’d been a bit quiet recently!
I’d gladly go. But not alone. Yet.