Dream destination or social media hype
How platforms shape our travel destinations
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How platforms shape our travel destinations
by David Röthlisberger shows a real moment at the pier in Iseltwald.
by Basil Stücheli shows a scene that never happened. Musk was never there. The entire image was created using artificial intelligence.
Nevertheless, it feels familiar at first glance because it combines two stories that both actually happened, but have nothing to do with each other in real life: In May 2026, Elon Musk shared a video from Lauterbrunnen on X. Within a few hours, the post reached over 8 million views and more than 100,000 likes. Whether this post triggered additional travel cannot be proven. What is certain is that a single person with a large reach can direct global attention to a location in a very short time.
The pier in Iseltwald became an international photo spot thanks to the South Korean Netflix series Crash Landing on You. Fans travel there to recreate a scene from the series and take their own souvenir photo.
We often post not just to show where we were, but to make the moment count. The experience becomes evidence rather than a memory.
When a place suddenly pops up everywhere, we want to have been there too, without asking ourselves if we would have chosen this destination otherwise.
The more a place is shared, the more often it appears in your feed. This creates a self-reinforcing cycle that makes other, equally impressive places invisible.
We look for the perfect pose before we’ve even really looked at the place itself.
Do you really want to see this place, or do you just want to show that you were there? The answer often changes the entire trip.
A village with 406 residents and 1,000 guests per day carries a burden that is barely visible from the outside. Inform yourself before you go.
You don't have to play along. Simply showing interest without judgment makes your child's digital space a place you are familiar with too.
The most impressive places are not always the most shared ones. Ask locals or look into lesser-known corners.
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8 million views in a few hours. After Elon Musk shared a post about Lauterbrunnen on X in May 2026, the video was viewed more than 8 million times and liked over 100,000 times within a few hours. Musk had merely reshared an existing post, yet his reach multiplied its visibility.
(Source: Blick, May 2026)
Almost 49,000 paid pier visits in one year. Access to the pier costs 5 francs. In 2024, the municipality generated almost 245,000 francs from this, which mathematically corresponds to around 49,000 paid visits within a year. The money goes toward waste disposal, cleaning, and additional working hours, among other things.
(Source: The Associated Press (AP News), 2025.)
A village with 406 residents and around 1,000 guests daily. According to municipal data, Iseltwald has 406 residents. At the same time, an average of around 1,000 visitors come to the village every day. This was triggered by the international fame of the pier due to the Korean series Crash Landing on You.
(Source: The Associated Press (AP News), 2025.)
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