Hugh over at Blog Relations takes up the theme and explains why a lot of travel coverage is flawed.
If you’ve ever wondered why the travel pages are so dreadfully dull, it’s because of the corrupt relationship between journalists and the travel companies who pay for them to go on free trips which they then write up. If, as a freelance writer, you try to get in with an interesting travel piece, there’s no chance. The pages are booked up for the next year with nice trips that the editor has been on.
Not just the editor. Let me tell you about a common situation where trips are allocated according to whose turn it is. It could be a sports writer or a fashion sub editor or – and I have seen this on three occasions – it could be the travel editor’s personal assistant.
It doesn’t matter whether they can write travel copy or not. And believe me, writing a good travel piece is very different from preparing a fashion spread.
They are happy enough to go on the trip but typically the newspaper requires them to deduct those days in Hawaii or Rome from their annual leave.
In other words, they are on vacation and often they would much rather be lying on the beach than working hard to discover unheralded new galleries or budget restaurants or simply attempting to distil the essence of a new destination for the travel section.
What sort of service is that to offer your readers? How is that going to help them decide whether or not to spend their hard-earned savings on a week in Lombardy or Boca Raton?
Hugh says “Forget the press. Woo the bloggers.” But I don’t see it as a straight swap and I am not proposing travel companies drop the mainstream press entirely.
Here is where I think some sort of blogger incentive – discount, upgrade or free excursion – makes sense:
The trip should be a niche product and buzz-worthy. I can’t see this working for typical sun, sea and sand breaks in over-crowded resorts. For example, some of my best trips have included husky sledging in Greenland, llama packing in Northern California and renting a lighthouse in Norway – all great blogging fodder.
I still wrote about my high season trip to Benidorm but I don’t think the PR company was thrilled.
It probably also helps if your bloggers can have easy access to wifi for their laptops while away or at least a machine in the lobby where they can write regular posts. Not so easy when you are camping on Mount Shasta with a llama.
I am reluctant to bring up the whole A-list versus the rest debate but the quality of your readership (not necessarily quantity) probably matters a lot. A travel PR should not just consider a blogger’s Google ranking or number of page views but also think about demographics, the blogger’s regular network of readers, specialist subject etc. However they do have to justify ever blogging incentive.
What do you think? What other requirements or preconditions should be met before a travel company splashes out and sponsors a blogger?
Tags: travel, travelpr, blogs, blogging
{ 14 comments }
Well, I’m an ex local paper hack now a blogger working for as a volunteer for a streetkids charity in Hanoi. I agree with every word.
Trips in local papers were simply a little extra that poorly paid journalists could enjoy. Worse still, later in my career at a local paper a new editor started and she took 50% of them. She didn’t take them as holiday and gave herself the job of travel writer alongside her editorial role.
I’d love to get a few travel writing gigs. But I’d hope I could do it objectively. TV is even worse than the papers.
But isn’t this attitude now pervading all levels of journalism. YOu only get access to the PM if you tow the line. Tell Ferguson at Man U that he should retire and he’ll ban you from press conference. Interview David Beckham and he’ll insist on copy approval and in the accompanying photos insist on wearing Addidas branded clothing.
That’s the beauty of blogs. They cost nothing so we don’t have to pay anybody. Sure it would be nice to earn a living doing it – but if you started to behave like your average daily newspaper then your readers would soon depart.
But just to prove that I am not all cynicism if anyone wants to offer me a free stay in the five star Life Resort in Hoi An, Vietnam – then I promise I will accept it in good grace.
I was talking to the online travel editor of a national paper last year – a paper which now has its own travel blog – and he implied that rather than commission journalists to go on press trips to somewhere like Vietnam, he would be more inclined to take a short contribution from someone already there. And I would think bloggers are more likely than most to be consulted.
So, who knows, you might get asked to cover your five star resort yet. From reading your blog, I reckon you probably deserve it more than a few hacks.
Thanks for your comment and it’s good to find your blog.
Well, I’m an ex local paper hack now a blogger working for as a volunteer for a streetkids charity in Hanoi. I agree with every word.
Trips in local papers were simply a little extra that poorly paid journalists could enjoy. Worse still, later in my career at a local paper a new editor started and she took 50% of them. She didn’t take them as holiday and gave herself the job of travel writer alongside her editorial role.
I’d love to get a few travel writing gigs. But I’d hope I could do it objectively. TV is even worse than the papers.
But isn’t this attitude now pervading all levels of journalism. YOu only get access to the PM if you tow the line. Tell Ferguson at Man U that he should retire and he’ll ban you from press conference. Interview David Beckham and he’ll insist on copy approval and in the accompanying photos insist on wearing Addidas branded clothing.
That’s the beauty of blogs. They cost nothing so we don’t have to pay anybody. Sure it would be nice to earn a living doing it – but if you started to behave like your average daily newspaper then your readers would soon depart.
But just to prove that I am not all cynicism if anyone wants to offer me a free stay in the five star Life Resort in Hoi An, Vietnam – then I promise I will accept it in good grace.
I was talking to the online travel editor of a national paper last year – a paper which now has its own travel blog – and he implied that rather than commission journalists to go on press trips to somewhere like Vietnam, he would be more inclined to take a short contribution from someone already there. And I would think bloggers are more likely than most to be consulted.
So, who knows, you might get asked to cover your five star resort yet. From reading your blog, I reckon you probably deserve it more than a few hacks.
Thanks for your comment and it’s good to find your blog.
We’re seeing this in other industries – Nokia have given away free phones to bloggers, for instance, and Hugh MacLeod has distributed more than a few bottles of Stormhoek wine to the blogosphere – and I don’t see why the travel industry should be any different.
Shaking things up (“disruption” Hugh calls it) is a risk, and it may be a while before travel companies, who strike me as inherently conservative, are willing to embrace these new communications channels, but I’m sure it will come.
I also agree completely that it’s not (only) about how many readers you have, but about who they are. The same is true for any media, of course – look at Spear’s Wealth Management Survey, the newly-launched invitation-only magazine whose UK readers must have assets of at least five million pounds.
You have hit on one of my problems, Stuart. Or at least something I need to get my head round. Bottles of Stormhoek are comparatively cheap and Nokia is officially lending its phones, not giving them away. Handing out holidays is a different matter and any travel company launching a bloggers programme needs to work out what it could give away and then test the waters to see how much gets the blogosphere excited.
It might be a simple business of switching some of the press budget to bloggers (which, I guess, is what Nokia does) but it will take an enlightened travel company to make that choice.
But then I guess that’s the point of my post…
We’re seeing this in other industries – Nokia have given away free phones to bloggers, for instance, and Hugh MacLeod has distributed more than a few bottles of Stormhoek wine to the blogosphere – and I don’t see why the travel industry should be any different.
Shaking things up (“disruption” Hugh calls it) is a risk, and it may be a while before travel companies, who strike me as inherently conservative, are willing to embrace these new communications channels, but I’m sure it will come.
I also agree completely that it’s not (only) about how many readers you have, but about who they are. The same is true for any media, of course – look at Spear’s Wealth Management Survey, the newly-launched invitation-only magazine whose UK readers must have assets of at least five million pounds.
You have hit on one of my problems, Stuart. Or at least something I need to get my head round. Bottles of Stormhoek are comparatively cheap and Nokia is officially lending its phones, not giving them away. Handing out holidays is a different matter and any travel company launching a bloggers programme needs to work out what it could give away and then test the waters to see how much gets the blogosphere excited.
It might be a simple business of switching some of the press budget to bloggers (which, I guess, is what Nokia does) but it will take an enlightened travel company to make that choice.
But then I guess that’s the point of my post…
This is all very well but don’t forget that it’s the free stuff and cold hard cash that got papers into this mess in the first place.
The popularity of reading blogs is growing simply because people are sick of newspapers. They are sick of newspapers because their strings are pulled by everything from their politically motivated masters to their day to day advertisers.
Blogs are mostly free, cost little to run and are operated by individuals. They don’t have wages to pay or shareholders to keep happy. That is why people write honestly.
You start blogging just for freebies then the way you write changes and what you publish changes. Sure…we’d all love a few freebies but I think you also have to think about what a blog is, why it is different, and what makes you different to the mass media.
This is all very well but don’t forget that it’s the free stuff and cold hard cash that got papers into this mess in the first place.
The popularity of reading blogs is growing simply because people are sick of newspapers. They are sick of newspapers because their strings are pulled by everything from their politically motivated masters to their day to day advertisers.
Blogs are mostly free, cost little to run and are operated by individuals. They don’t have wages to pay or shareholders to keep happy. That is why people write honestly.
You start blogging just for freebies then the way you write changes and what you publish changes. Sure…we’d all love a few freebies but I think you also have to think about what a blog is, why it is different, and what makes you different to the mass media.
I wonder if independent bloggers will always be more resistant to the corrupting influence of freebies than, say, less independent bloggers. Don’t forget, if you dig around the Times Online site you’ll find a travel blog run by the paper using TypePad. That kind of blurs the distinctions usually made between blogging and mainstream media. It could be argued, in certain cases an experienced travel journalist writing in the newspaper’s blog might actually be more immune to pr wooing than a typical (is there such a thing?) blogger. Just throwing that thought out
I wonder if independent bloggers will always be more resistant to the corrupting influence of freebies than, say, less independent bloggers. Don’t forget, if you dig around the Times Online site you’ll find a travel blog run by the paper using TypePad. That kind of blurs the distinctions usually made between blogging and mainstream media. It could be argued, in certain cases an experienced travel journalist writing in the newspaper’s blog might actually be more immune to pr wooing than a typical (is there such a thing?) blogger. Just throwing that thought out
There seems to be a rush recently to make a living out of blogging. It’s not something I entirely approve of. It seems to defeat the whole purpose of blogging. The whole point of blogging to my mind is that we write what we want to write. The second you start taking money for what you do then you start writing to please other people.
I am suprised all of this seems to have been overlooked more and more recently in the blogosphere. Sure, raise money for good causes (I myself am a fundraiser for a streetkids project and the blog has been invaluable) but whatever cash or gifts you receive for what you do will, of course, negatively influence the copy you write and the impartiality you sure.
Impartiality is the biggest single difference between blogs and traditonal media – lose that and there is little distinction between the two.
There seems to be a rush recently to make a living out of blogging. It’s not something I entirely approve of. It seems to defeat the whole purpose of blogging. The whole point of blogging to my mind is that we write what we want to write. The second you start taking money for what you do then you start writing to please other people.
I am suprised all of this seems to have been overlooked more and more recently in the blogosphere. Sure, raise money for good causes (I myself am a fundraiser for a streetkids project and the blog has been invaluable) but whatever cash or gifts you receive for what you do will, of course, negatively influence the copy you write and the impartiality you sure.
Impartiality is the biggest single difference between blogs and traditonal media – lose that and there is little distinction between the two.
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