Gourmantic Turns Six

Today, June 26 marks an important date in our calendar, the date Gourmantic was launched six years ago. I still remember that quiet moment alone when I pressed “Publish” and the website was born.

I am often asked, “how do you do it?” Publishing a website for six years is no easy feat, especially when we post articles almost daily,. multiple times a day. We now have a total of 1660 articles that span restaurants, bars, spirit reviews, luxury, travel, food, events, interviews and news. It takes a lot of stamina, patience and dedication to maintain this kind of longevity.

I am also often told, “if you do something you love, it doesn’t feel like work”. As romantic as this notion sounds, the reality is that a lot of hard work goes behind the scenes, and it does feel like work because it is approached with the same professionalism and integrity as any job.

Six years ago, blogging and the online media scene were a lot different. Now, a lot of noise has flooded the internet and money talks when it comes to seo and rankings. The mantra of “I eat, therefore I must blog” resulted in a massive influx of food and review blogs while anyone travelling around the world must pack a travel blog in their backpack – an editorial I wrote back in 2011.

We’ve also seen a shift in traditional print media making a move into blog style websites complete with conversational tones and a strong focus on social media. While not new, listicles are now seen everywhere that even “traditional media” has embraced them for their clickbait appeal.

In my previous article on Blogging… Not As We Knew It, I alluded to the decline in  quality writing. Individuals are now calling themselves bloggers when they copy and paste media releases, verbatim, under their own names. Some just go to events and post a couple of instagrams. Others merely show up because they or someone deemed them to be influencers or “rockstar bloggers” (sic). Yet there are many others still producing quality pieces and while they may sometimes get lost amongst all the noise, they still shine bright.

On this momentous day, I’d like to take the opportunity to thank you, all our readers, supporters, social media buddies – many of whom have become friends – for all the support and encouragement over the years. If you’re looking for us tonight, we’ll be doing what we enjoy best, popping in to a few bars for a drink or two.