“It was a way of giving them a chance to fly, and exposing them to the airline’s products, so it was almost a PR exercise as well, and the passengers would pay for it!” Of course, like every game of chance, the cards didn’t always play your way. The dream may have been to get up to the beaches of Queensland, or cross the country from coast to coast, but there was also a very real chance you could end up in, say, Canberra for lunch. Regardless, they were a hit. Mystery flights traversed the country for decades, until airlines began to put on the brakes in the 1990s, due to the arrival of sophisticated last-minute booking systems. (Qantas resurrected them briefly in 2021, when international borders were still closed due to the pandemic, to give lockdown-weary Aussies a chance to spread their wings.) Today the concept is back. However, now it is the element of surprise that’s driving the trend, with the focus on getaways rather than just the plane fare. And this time they do reveal where you’re going a little bit prior to departure, so you know what to pack. Agencies like Wonderlust Escapes and Cheeky Weekends will curate a surprise itinerary based on your budget and preferences, with experience company RedBalloon offering mystery weekend packages departing from the east coast. While these are not the cut-price excursions of yesteryear, they do show the lucky-dip approach to travel still appeals. Time to fasten your seatbelt.
EYE ON THE FUTURE LIVESTREAM SHOPPING Joining celebrities in real time in their living rooms is the entertaining extension of shopping online.
C atherine Zeta-Jones is sitting in her New York apartment, telling an online audience that she’s here because it’s “the quietest room in the house” and laughing that husband Michael Douglas, the Hollywood superstar, won’t be “walking in and out” as she talks. It’s a glimpse into her life, yes, but what she’s actually doing is selling make-up from her lifestyle brand Casa Zeta-Jones on Talkshoplive, an American livestream shopping network. As she guides viewers through the products they can comment, read up on them and even ask her to hold them closer to the camera. When they’re ready to buy they just click and pay. Elsewhere on the network, country star Trisha Yearwood is selling autographed copies of her cookbook while myriad other celebrities and influencers have spruiked products, too, from Oprah Winfrey to Matthew McConaughey. Welcome to the future of shopping, where platforms such as Amazon Live and NTWRK sell
everything from cosmetics to crypto with a click of a button. While it may sound just like a TV shopping channel, livestream is a step beyond that. It’s portable, entertaining and addictively interactive. As well as the US, livestream shopping is huge in China, where nearly half of its one billion internet users have tried it. While there’s no dedicated shopping site where you can buy products in Australia yet, the signs suggest it’s about to take off here, with several popular social media platforms and tech companies in the livestream testing phase. If you can’t wait to get started, Amazon Live ( amazon.com/live ) automatically directs Australian users to overseas livestreams spruiking products that can be shipped Down Under (albeit with somewhat exorbitant postage). There’s also nothing to stop you from viewing celebrity sales like Catherine’s (watch them live, or play the videos on the site later) and then ordering the products elsewhere. Stay tuned for more.
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SENIORS.COM.AU
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023 DARE
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