This story originally appeared in La Fronde’s June 18 issue.
Condé Nast Traveler released an excellent multimedia series this month profiling locals from all 50 states — from cowboys to civil rights activists to a crabber in Maryland — that was not just a fun little travel story. This was really a statement of why, as DEI is under attack, diversity is so important to American culture.
For this week's Maxed Out, I talked to Erin about how that series came together and some of the surprising ways the luxury travel magazine is showing up when it comes to current issues. Plus, Erin reveals her daily screen time that put her in the Maxed Out Hall of Fame and what she's reading on the internet.
Stephanie Williams: For this series we like to do a fun reveal where we ask people how much time they're spending on their phone. Now is the moment of truth: how much screen time are you racking up these days?
Erin Parker: So my weekly average is 14 hours and 38 minutes. And then today my screen time is nine hours and 56 minutes.
S: Wait, does that include your computer too, or is that just your phone?
E: This is my phone, girl.
S: Well, welcome to the Maxed Out Hall of Fame, my friend. That's a new record high — great way to get us started. Before we get into where you like to spend your time online, I'd love to give people a window into your day at Traveler. Since the travel space is saturated with content creators and influencers, how do you keep Traveler relevant from an audience standpoint?
E: We're pulling creators more into our ecosystem every year — we developed a creator program last year that's going really well. But I'd say a lot of our brand strength comes from the access we get. We get access that no other publication — not even Travel + Leisure — gets. We have behind-the-scenes first looks at everything. And it's also the luxury of the luxury, right? It's the really high, aspirational stuff. It's not like we're catering to Barbara down the street who is going to that hotel once a year — no, we're at Cheval Blanc or the Four Seasons. The things people might dream about, or have to save up to participate in. So we always have that look, which is very different from mass travel.
S: Yes — to clarify, your audience sits more in that top income bracket, high earners.
E: The majority of our audience makes $250,000 and above. Most of our audience is mid- to late-career professionals — they're typically older, at least on the print side, although that's probably changing a little on the digital side. If you talk about Traveler readers in the wild, the people who actually know travel are the finance people, doctors, lawyers — that upper-professional type of set.
S: On content: one thing I really loved was Traveler’s recent series speaking to people in all 50 states. Tell me about how that came together.
E: Everyone in the media space is talking about America250, and there's a lot of advertising dollars around it. But this year, when everything was happening — particularly with Minneapolis and ICE — we were wondering: how do we tell a really good story about America when none of us really feel great about America right now?
The one thing we kept coming back to is that a lot of the people in this country who work in the service industry or the travel industry are most likely immigrants, coming from backgrounds that are kind of antithetical to what our government is trying to push right now. So our solution was: can we tell a story about the people you don't see everywhere who still make a place run, who make it special — and more often than not, those are people who are marginalized, whether they're Black, brown, LGBTQ, immigrant, people in the service industry who create those really special moments you wouldn't otherwise get if you're going to New Orleans, or Albuquerque or Cleveland. That was really the motivation — we wanted to tell a really nice, personal story that didn't have to be politicized in any way, but that was also saying: there are many people who make up this country, many people who make up this particular industry. It's not all about one type of person.
S: Yeah, that's a really smart way to tackle that political element — it feels so on-brand, and obviously it gives people that good service of knowing people they should know and places to visit they might not otherwise hear about. That's also a question I have about your overall content strategy: How do you connect the dots between what's going on in the world from a news standpoint, and travel?
E: Yeah, it's a really hard balance. I think all of us want to be a little more politically charged, but knowing that for our audience — for our business itself — we might not necessarily be able to go all the way super left or super progressive, we do it by being as utility-forward as possible. A really great example is what we did when the Iran war broke out, which upended international travel completely — hubs were shutting down left and right, people were afraid to be on a plane, afraid to travel to certain regions. The thing we had to ask ourselves was: if I'm an international traveler who does this a lot, I want to know how I'm going to be safe, how I'm going to get somewhere, what the cost is. If I'm stuck in a situation, how do I get out of it? Who do I call? What are the resources? So being very utility-focused rather than reporting the hard news is kind of how we've navigated a lot of things.
S: Working in audience development, what are the trends that have been bubbling up in the travel space, especially in this current climate, with people being afraid to travel to the US and wanting to get out, and also just with the economy being what it is?
E: In the U.S., there's a lot more domestic travel than there has been in previous years. Whereas before, everyone wanted the Euro vacation, more people are looking at domestic options — road trips and national parks have both seen a huge uptick. Fuel consciousness is there too — the price of jet fuel is not lost on anyone, and it's showing up in ticket prices, so we've noticed a lot of uptick in deals content.
There's also been an offbeat trend on the international level. Whereas in previous years most people from the U.K. were going to Greece or Italy, now maybe they're going to Montenegro, or Croatia, or some offbeat Greek island rather than Santorini or the mainland. So people are still traveling. I don't think travel has stopped because of all the geopolitical stuff that's been happening — I think it's just happening in different ways, whether that's by road or train, which has actually been really popular lately, versus the typical modes of transportation.
The other thing I've noticed broadly from an audience development standpoint is that Google basically just released native checkouts across the entire internet, and what that means for anyone doing e-commerce is the million-dollar question right now. It's hugely helpful for a traveler, because you can book quickly and get exactly what you want, but it's also disruptive for a publisher business — so how do we really examine the level of curation we're publishing, and make it special, so there's that human touch that AI can't replicate.
S: You mentioned you're working with a lot of creators. Does Traveler take pitches from creators? And if so, what do you look for in a partner?
E: We did an open casting call earlier this year. We periodically do open castings, but we don't take pitches as of yet. We're really hand-selecting creators in various locations that are important for the brand. We're looking for that elevated, local aesthetic — really show me a day in the life. What's an average day in April in Milan? What festivals are happening? What are the trends? Give me that slice of life. We find that on social, people love to engage with that stuff because it feels experiential — you can post a video or a carousel of things that make you feel like you're there. So it's aspirational, but it's also useful — if you're researching, you get a flavor of what it's actually like to go there.
S: Yeah — something that comes from a true insider, versus someone who's just a creator dropping into a place. Now, finally, we get to your media tastes!
E: I'm actually reading Vauhini Vara’s latest called 'Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age,' which is a hybrid memoir-cultural criticism that examines how the internet, search engines and AI shape our understanding of ourselves. I found it in Greenlight Bookstore the other day and it reminded me of the research I was starting to do while I was doing my PhD at Columbia. I don't think there's enough critical thought around how the internet monetization system influences culture — for better and worse.
I'm also always reading about anticapitalism and politics as a result. I've been thumbing through Anton Jäger’s 'Hyperpolitics' for a while. Most of what I read is pretty academic, philosophical. I find that I need that balance — staying hyper-focused on media and trends, but also diving into something really niche and heady.