Irina, a young consultant in a Western company, loves boasting to colleagues about her trip to Argentina and showing off her tan and holiday snaps. The only thing is: she’s never been there.
And this doesn’t matter, according to the man behind this novel idea for arousing envy — fake trips with real side effects.
Meet Dmitry Popov, president of the Perseus-Tour and a pioneer of what he calls “virtual vacations”.
“Our turnover has gone up by 50% since we started organising these fake voyages in May 2005 for some 30 clients a month,” said Popov.
Irina was one of those seduced by the option of spending $400 for a prestigious, though fictitious, trip that in reality would cost them some $3Â 000 in Brazil, Argentina or India — either to impress colleagues, seek attention, or even push for a promotion.
In Irina’s case, it was to impress the boss.
“It’s difficult to get ahead just by working. In our company, everyone slaves away like crazy,” said Irina (23), who dreams of becoming a manager and asked not to be identified.
“My boss is passionate about extreme vacations. He goes to South America, even to Iraq. To impress him, I decided to go all alone to Argentina, a trip that in real life I could certainly not afford,” she added.
Last November she had her picture taken at Perseus-Tour so that its computer wizards could get to work on cutting and pasting her image onto the background of tourist sites.
She then underwent a course on Argentinian subtleties and learned by heart the addresses of restaurants and the best night-clubs, not to mention small details on “her” four-star hotel in Buenos Aires.
“In a week, I learned more about it than had I gone there for real. I announced my departure and went happily to see my parents in the Moscow region, not forgetting to visit tanning salons,” she said.
Fifteen days later, a resplendent Irina arrived on her company’s doorstep with a tale of exotic lands complete with every detail.
“Apparently I told my colleagues everything they wanted to know — how to learn to tango, how to behave with Argentinians, the real machos that they are but courteous in a sense,” the blue-eyed blonde recalled.
“For a moment, I nearly believed it all myself.”
Since then, her boss has “involved her in the more interesting projects” and if a manager’s post is free within a year, “it will be me that he will propose it to”, she said with conviction.
A third of Perseus-Tour’s clients go through this elaborate fraud to boost their “social status”, Popov said.
“A 28-year-old Muscovite, working with a Western company, even wounded her arm for better make-believe of a piranha hunt in the Amazon. All this to show her colleagues that her way of life was superior to theirs,” the travel agent said.
The other two-thirds of the clients, however, take this unorthodox path to later provide an alibi to a spouse.
Among these, 80% are men covering up a last jaunt before marriage, the travel agent said.
Andrei, a 27-year-old lawyer in St Petersburg, told his fiancée that he was leaving for a “seminar in Egypt” in order to spend five days in the company of “an old acquaintance whom I absolutely had to see again”.
“I brought my fiancée some Egyptian jewelry, photos showing me in a business suit and in a conference room, or on a beach, and told her lots of stuff about Egypt, where I have never been. She never suspected anything,” he said.
“For some girls, it is enough to ‘accidentally’ leave a plane ticket on the table, for others one has to invent a real tale that would be fit for a spy,” the apparently experienced Andrei laughed.
Encouraged by his sales, Popov is getting ready to send a new emissary to Brazil and Argentina in late April, to replenish his stock of souvenirs. — AFP