Online travel group, TravelBird, has released a comprehensive listing of the most “Instagrammed tourist destinations” in the world – placing South Africa’s Kruger National Park 49th on the list.
Only one African country made it into the list of the “Top 500”, determined by Instagram’s API, which sniffed out the locations that drew the most hashtags in the local language, as well as translations into English, Chinese and other languages.
According to TravelBird, phrases and taglines associated with specific tourist destinations were also included (such as #TheHappiestPlaceOnEarth for Disneyland), but common terms were excluded (such as #Disney), which is related, but not specifically about Disneyland – BusinessTech reported.
South Africa’s most popular tourist destination, Kruger National Park, recorded 410,763 tags – featuring just above Cedar Point, U.S.A, and just below Anfield, England.
As one of the largest and most well-known game reserves in Africa, Kruger receives close to one million visitors each year. The park’s top attractions include: Buffalo, rhinoceros, cheetah, leopard, giraffe, hippo, elephant, lion among many others.
TravelBird stated that the Instagram barometer is a good indication of places that millennials are travelling to and experiencing.
Half of the top 10 destinations on the Instagram barometer were in the U.S., with Disneyland, California being the top-tagged destination in the world by some margin – 14.6 million tags on the site.
Eiffel Tower, Paris came in second with 7.2 million tags.
Many factors are linked to why no other African countries feature in the top list. Safety is a huge concern for many, along with accessibility and cost of travel. As globalisation and structural improvement take effect, chances are those countries on the continent will start to feature on the list.
