I believe starting a career as travel blogger or anyway within the social media influencing industry is not just a choice to take from one day to another, you need to be ready to fight to be recognized between million of users. So I did, I started to invest in my personal development, following social media courses online, investing in camera equipment and improving my skills to build up a strong relationship with each follower.
As part of my series about “developments in the travel industry over the next five years”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Francesco Mancini. Francesco is an Italian travel blogger & founder of travel company Lux Travel Official.
Thank you so much for joining us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
I was working 9–5 every week in London and even though I really liked my job i was not happy with my lifestyle. It was a very stressful day and I started to think that London was not my place, i missed to much the hot summer and the freedom of moving around without public transports. So I thought I will quit my job and start travel no stop making this passion my work. Thanks to my passion for photography and digital I’ve stepped in the influencer’s world and started to learn more about it.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?
I’ve just started sharing my adventures on Instagram and discovered that people and brands really liked the content, so i thought to start reach out tourism boards and luxury resorts to collaborate. Sent over hundreds email in one day and the day after my inbox was full of responses. The extraordinary thing was that I’ve managed to stay for free for over 2 months and half in Southeast Asia in amazing 5* luxury resorts and hotel. I was so happy that day and i couldn’t believe that i would be able to travel for free.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Certainly the “funniest” mistake was to accept over hundreds collaboration with brands or resort in exchange of contents. I was overloaded of work and didn’t really have time for myself. I definitely learnt that I had to schedule better my work and especially try to sell my work more than give it for free.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
Whatever I do, I’m doing it with passion and I always work hard to get the best results and to provide to my clients the greatest service. These days you need to be kind of unique if you want to impress your clients and so i do. It happened few times that i started a work relationship with a hotel or resort and I’ve became part of a family.
Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”? Can you share a story about that?
The strongest advise is to consider how much time and passion they are going to dedicate to this work. It’s more than a full time job, building up a community requires a lot of energy, investment in personal growth and dedication. I believe starting a career as travel blogger or anyway within the social media influencing industry is not just a choice to take from one day to another, you need to be ready to fight to be recognized between million of users. So I did, I started to invest in my personal development, following social media courses online, investing in camera equipment and improving my skills to build up a strong relationship with each follower.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
I need to be thankful toward my family, my parents always believed in me especially when things were not going right. In these moments I always felt that they were there ready to support me and to push me to win difficulties along the path.
Let’s jump to the core of our discussion. Can you share with our readers about the innovations that you are bringing to the travel and hospitality industries?
Lux Travel Official is an innovative way to travel because we are not just providing exclusive accommodations and itinerary, we are taking care of our clients h24 from the time of inquire to when the return from their trip. We like to be there next to each of our clients and be available for any question the may have. Finally our VIP services which are an extra inclusion to each trip, how many of you wished to have a personal photographer which create beautiful memories about your vacation? We love to take picture and create beautiful albums for you. last not least we provide also the opportunity to follow master-classes about how to become a digital nomad and how to level up your lifestyle, everything in one unique trip.
Which “pain point” are you trying to address by introducing this innovation?
Certainly, we’d like to take off worry from organizing every single detail of a complex journey for our clients. Now days with the multiple options available is becoming harder to pick the right one, that’s why we are helping our clients and letting them to feel relaxed and worry free from organizing their best vacations.
Can you share 5 examples of how travel and hospitality companies will be adjusting over the next five years to the new ways that consumers like to travel?
1. They will review their refund and exchange policy, too many people have been loosing their money or didn’t get the opportunity to change their vacations. This brought a lot of bad feedback to many businesses. Tourism lives with reviews of clients and therefore this for sure will change.
2. The hygiene regulations will be more restrict, guests need to feel safe to travel.
3. Travel restrictions for certain countries will be adjusted accordingly with the virus report. At least until we will have a vaccine.
4. Travel will be a luxury thing. In fact the cost of traveling will be higher since less people will be traveling this year and the cost for health and safety is increased due the plenty of regulations to respect.
5. Guests will look for more privacy and therefore B&B or small/boutique hotel will probably have more requests to accommodate than large chain.
You are a “travel insider”. How would you describe your “perfect vacation experience”?
There is one thing that I always look in each trip and this is to be exclusive. I believe the perfect vacation experience is when you feel that the location, the service and anything else is an exclusive thing made for you.
Can you share with our readers how have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
Since i started my career as travel influencer, I’ve always tried to inspire people and to motivate my followers to believe in themselves and to take always the opportunity to do whatever they think is going to change their lives or improve it. I’m myself a dreamer but also a very ambitious person. Saying that I’ve got a lot of people messaging me everyday to get inspired to improve their present and future.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Certainly i would say: live moments not things… one of the things that really changed me was dedicating time to appreciate moments and not material things. Doesn’t matter if i was broken or i had the most expensive camera, the most beautiful things where like enjoying a sunset or meet locals in the rice fields. I think the world would be a better place if we stop thinking about money or appearances and care more about feelings and memories.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
Simply on Instagram (@francescomancinistyle) or Youtube (@francescomancinistyle)
Francesco Mancini of Lux Travel Official: The Future Of Travel In The Post COVID World was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.