Hotels can capitalize on the Instagram trend of posting snapshots of meals by drawing visitors with photogenic food offerings, Mihir Nayek, senior lecturer at Hochschule Fresenius, said at Berlin’s ITB Convention.

“Today food is defining the culture for millennials,” Nayek said. “Millennials have a more emotional relationship with food; it is also a form of self expression.”

As proof, there are more than 35 million images on Instagram under the #foodstagram and popular food bloggers have followings in the millions.

In the United Kingdom food tourism is an 8 billion euro industry and globally 33 percent of tourist spend is on food, Nayek said. This is why destinations need to focus on preserving unique culinary traditions and not let food become homogenized.

“Posting photos on Instagram actually makes people travel,” Nayek said. “The reinforcement of likes and comments make millennials feel like their life is ok even if it isn’t.”

While many millennials are unable to afford the things their parent’s generation could, like buying a house, Nayek says they turn to less expensive pleasures to indulge in.

“Sourdough costs six euro for one loaf of bread, but it is still less expensive than a mortgage,” he said. “Many millennials post pictures of food but that is because they don’t have anything else to post about. It is about trying to feel like you are living a good life.”

Although millennials like to show off what they are having, Nayek says that some things are more popular than others.

“Seventy-one percent of millennials prefer smoothies to alcohol,” he said. “They believe that getting drunk belongs to an older generation.

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