Who owns a trip?
Who owns a trip? Who owns a place? That’s where it gets tricky. Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) offer packages, bookings, and itineraries, creating experiences that feel personal but are often generated by algorithms. You search for your dream destination, book a package, and feel like you’ve crafted a unique experience. But is it truly yours, or does the OTA own it, because they control the product, the pricing, and the marketing? They shape the journey, the choices, and often even the memories.
Now, let’s talk about places. You visit a beach, a mountain, a city, and you take a picture. It’s your image, your memory, but what about the place itself? Is the city, the landmark, or the destination owned by the locals who live there, the government, the tourism board, or perhaps, in the digital world, by the OTA that markets it? They package, sell, and often profit from the experience, so where do you fit into the ownership? What happens to the soul of the destination when it’s repackaged and sold over and over again?
Philosophers have long debated the nature of ownership. Is ownership merely possession, or does it require a deeper connection to the thing in question? Think about Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who argued that true ownership isn’t just about control, it’s about a relationship to the land and the people. Does that apply to a place, or does the rise of mass tourism and OTAs disrupt that connection? Then there’s Hannah Arendt, who believed that public space, the places we share, belongs to everyone, but only in the sense that we contribute to them through collective experiences. If we’re all visiting the same spots, clicking the same pictures, and sharing the same story, does anyone truly own the experience?
In the tourism world, intellectual property doesn’t just belong to the photographer or writer, it can belong to those who control the access, the data, and the experience. OTAs shape the trip you’re going to take and even the story you’ll tell. They take ownership of the narrative, while you, the traveler, are left wondering: Do I own the experience, or am I just renting it? Can a trip, a memory, or a place really be owned at all, or do we all share it in a way that renders ownership obsolete?
As we move into a world where AI creates itineraries, algorithms suggest the best destinations, and OTAs become the middlemen between the traveler and the place, we need to rethink what it means to "own" travel and the destinations that shape it. Ownership, it seems, is no longer as simple as a picture or a plane ticket, it’s about who controls access to the journey itself.
The question is, in this age of digital convenience and commodified experiences, can anyone truly claim to own a trip or a place, or are we all just participants in a shared, fleeting experience?
