How To Connect with the Obsessively Connected Traveler

If Rip Van Winkle woke from a 30-year nap today, he would be confronted with a host of very strange phenomena, things that had virtually no precedent 30 years ago.

He would see families sitting around dinner tables all silently looking down, not looking at or speaking to each other, almost as though in prayer.

He would see a disturbing number of people walking down the street alone, jabbering to themselves, animatedly engaged in what seems to be a conversation with no one. One used to occasionally see people 30 years ago possessed in such a way, but never in such great numbers.

And it would also be disturbing to him that no one seems to notice the strange behavior.

Rip would see many people stumbling blindly down streets, crossing intersections without looking where they are going, instead looking down at something in their hands, ignoring the cars that are passing near them as they cross the street.

He would often see people just stop walking, only to stand in one place, looking down again at that thing in their hands, barely able to find their way straight down a sidewalk without bumping into someone or something.

It would be very confusing for someone who had last observed America 30 years ago and had seen no sign of cell phones and hand-held computers. He might think he was observing the ravages of some cruel epidemic that had swept across the country and robbed a large part of the population of their wits, their senses, their coordination.

But if Rip was practical minded, if he had an entrepreneurial bent, he wouldn’t waste too much time with the whys and wherefores of these people’s condition, but would get right to trying to figure out how he could build a business to serve this new potential market of mysteriously obsessed people.

This is assuming no one yet has explained to him that these people that are exhibiting such strange behavior, who appear so helpless and bewildered on the streets have entered into this state of their own free will. Their cognitive processes still function, but only in the context of that tiny device in their hands. And unless you plug your message into that little rectangle, don’t expect them to receive it.

So if you were operating a tourism business directed toward the special needs of these people, what special services might you offer to cater to that niche market?

It may be that the only kind of tourism that is really viable for people who never look up from their hands would be virtual tourism, travel scenes played through those little rectangles.

Transportation costs would certainly plummet when moving to that model of touring. The group could stay in one location for the entire trip. In fact, they would not even have to gather as a group at all. They could just all participate from the convenience of their own armchairs at home.

There is certainly a business opportunity in there worthy of exploring. I am currently overcommitted and can’t take the project on myself, so I throw the idea out there to some able entrepreneur. Take it and run! You may end up being the next Steve Jobs.

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