Hamad Al Jabri: Why real travel experiences matter in the age of AI and social media

Photographs and digital content cannot fully capture the details and emotions of exploring a place in person, despite advances in artificial intelligence and social media, Emirati content creator and travel writer Dr Hamad Al Jabri has said.

He made the comments at the 45th Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF) 2026, according to a statement. Al Jabri was speaking in a session titled “The Art of Travel Writing”, organised by Sharjah Public Libraries (SPL) under its “Behind the Scenes” pillar.

The session took place at Expo Centre Sharjah, where the fair, organised by the Sharjah Book Authority under the theme “Made of Stories”, runs until November 15.

Drawing on his travels across several Latin American countries, Al Jabri said the region’s cultural and social diversity drew him to explore its communities and heritage more deeply. He moved from sightseeing as a tourist to researching local traditions, and eventually to documenting what he found in travel writing.

He said he was struck by the cultural and human connections he saw between Latin American and Arab societies, despite the distance between them. Those similarities kept him studying the region’s cultures, and his encounters and observations became material for his writing.

Al Jabri said what sets effective travel writing apart is literary depth: the ability to show readers what places, events and personal encounters mean, not just what they look like.

Many people can witness and record the same scene, he said, but each writer’s interpretation and style shape how it reaches the reader. For Al Jabri, the value of travel writing lies in drawing out the human significance of those moments and conveying their emotional impact.

Travel writers, he added, must look beyond geographical descriptions to the deeper meaning of their experiences, shaping their observations into narratives that engage readers emotionally.

The session was part of SPL’s Library of Civilisation programme at SIBF 2026, which includes seven cultural events across three pillars: Book in Focus, Behind the Scenes and The Big Book Club.

The programme is meant to show how libraries preserve knowledge and pass it from one generation to the next, and to encourage discussion of books, reading and creative experience.