Santorini: The Greek island that took off the photo industry

For the past few years, Flying Dress Photo photographers have been spending their summers in Santorini capturing the same image over and over again – female tourists posing against the backdrop of whitewashed houses and blue domes, wearing luxurious satin dresses with extra long tails.

Averaging eight flying dress photo shoots a day, each costing upwards of €550 ($605) per hour per person, this business – whose entire model is based on providing just one type of holiday photo shoot that are extremely popular on Instagram raked in nearly half a million dollars in sales in just four months, Bloomberg reports.

With a cost reaching 1,500 euros

The above estimate is extremely conservative. Clients tend to charge for additional services, which include transportation to and from the photo shoot location (€90), make-up and hair styling (€300) and a personal assistant to blow the tail of the dress (50 euro). For a customer booking the full package, the photoshoot costs a total of 1,500 euros.

From Santorini and Dubai to Aruba and Cappadocia, photography businesses are springing up to cater to tourists who want something spectacular.

Flytographer

But it’s not just photo studios with flying dresses that are making a splash after the pandemic. Canada-based photo booking platform Flytographer reported monthly sales of $1 million in May – the first time the company has topped seven figures in a single month, compared to sales of $400,000 during the same period in 2019. Flytographer provides access to local photographers in over 300 cities. Its three most popular photo shoot destinations this year include Paris, Maui and Honolulu.

“People have paused travel and put a lot of things on hold,” says Nicole Smith, founder and CEO of Flytographer. “This is the year that a lot of people are finally taking this trip and they want to make sure they capture it in the best possible way,” he added.

Sweet Escape

Booking a photoshoot through Flytographer starts at $385 per hour. A similar company from Indonesia, Sweet Escape, has 8,000 photographers in 500 cities and charges between $130 and $300 for shoots lasting an hour or more. Its founder, David Soong, says his business is almost back to pre-pandemic levels, especially now that Asian travelers – his biggest demographic – are starting to “re-enter” the world.

95% of clients who want this type of photo shoot are well-to-do mothers.

“We’ve had people travel just for the [flying dress] shoot,” says Chrisan Hunter, a photographer from Montego Bay who founded the flying dress photo service HerDress Jamaica in August 2020. “They come for three days and then they return home,” he added.

Hotels also in play

Even luxury hotels and cruise ships play the game. Five star hotels in Santorini such as Katikies, Canaves and Andronis, and luxury cruise ships such as Celebrity Beyond, Celestyal Crystal, Virgin Voyages and Disney Dream recommend the services of Flying Dress Photo. “This year we have a lot of groups,” points out Vera Arachelova, booking manager at Flying Dress Photo.