Voco hotels targets bird watchers

Voco hotels have spotted an opportunity to attract a growing subculture of avid bird watchers to their establishments.

Rolling out in the US and Singapore, the hotel group is specifically offering birding hobbyists a package that includes early check-in, breakfast and basic bird watching gear.

Having stayed recently in the Voco hotel in Joburg, we can personally vouch for the innovative approach this brand has when it comes to guest hospitality and smart marketing execution.

The rise of birdwatching as a hobby

Believe it or not, bird watching has been steadily growing in popularity, with all age groups, since the covid lockdowns forced people into their gardens.

@katiekreen Everyone’s looking good this morning. #fyp #foryourcat #birdnerd #birdwatching #birds #nature #pretty #redbelliedwoodpecker #bluejay #cardinals ♬ Moonlight Serenade - Glenn Miller

Relaxing time in nature simply looking at birds and trying to identify them using a simple field guide is also shown to have positive mental health benefits, which we know is all the rage right now.

On TikTok—which draws its largest base of users from folks under 24—the hashtags #birdwatching and #birding have over 1B views and 212M views, respectively. There were also 555,291 estimated global participants in Cornell University's 2023 Great Backyard Bird Count—up 44 percent from the 384,541 participants in 2022. Apps are seeing an increase too, with Birda reporting a monthly growth rate of 30 percent in signups. - via

The slow revolution

This is perhaps yet another example of the emerging slow revolution.

As a countermeasure against our modern obsession with speed, industries are popping up that offer the opposite; quietness, slowness...reflection.

Speed is quickly becoming a commodity, what's emerging that offers real value to us in the face of this are moments of calm and stillness. Faster is not always better.

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Grab Your Binoculars—Bird-Watching Is Now a Gen Z-Approved Way To Unplug and Better Your Mental Health

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Previously:

What’s behind the rise in popularity of board games?

There seem to be a lot of people talking about board games and expressing their increasing love for playing all sorts of interesting new board games.

CherryflavaJon Cherry