During my recent trip to the States, I attend 7 press trips. The concept of a press trip isn’t new anymore. It is a well-known Public Relation activity in the travel industry. But for travel bloggers, one of the most powerful media outlets, there is still tremendous growth potential. For this reason, tourist organizations recognize the importance of travel blogging press trips.
These are the most common questions people have about scoring and executing a Press trip.
“Aren’t press trips only for big bloggers?”
Yes, it is true in some way. However, press trips aren’t a new thing in the travel industry. It is just a new way to phrase the service. For example, accommodations and restaurants have always provided this service for guide book writers. However, times have changed. The reason social media has gotten so big is that everyone can participate. It’s the same logic for press trips. Usually, you can get as much as you work for.
“Why would they host me?”
For the synergy effect. You, as a travel blogger, want to travel as much as you can and it would be great to have a chance to have different experiences. And the tourism board, is counting on your interwebbing ability. Guide books are still the best way to research a desired destination, but more and more people are relying on personal reviews.
I Love NY t-shirts provided by NY State Tourism Board.
Photo was taken at New York State Museum in Albany, New York
Now, based on my experiences, I give you six tips on how to score a press trip.
Know your numbers. Don’t be afraid to promote yourself.
This is not the time to be modest. We have to admit; looking good is important. However it doesn’t mean that you should be arrogant. Just be honest with your numbers. I believe we all had this moment at least once; ‘what should I say about myself?’. In this case, this is easy. Don’t be afraid to be your own PR person.
Here are basic stats you want to include:
• Alexa ranking
• Total Page Views
• Total Unique Visitors
• Visitors’ Map overlay
• Google Page Rank
• Social Media Influence: Twitter, Facebook, Klout
Gather your numbers to present yourself
Stress your strengths.
Stats are important but how you present them is more important. Numbers can be different depending on what analyzing website you use. Use numbers, that best present your strength. For example, even if your website’s Google PR is 2, you might have great Alexa global ranking. Or, even if the numbers of your website aren’t great you might have a great relationship with your readers through social media. The key is to stress how powerful social media is and how great you are. There are various ways to present yourself. Be creative, be honest and be proud.
Decide where you want to go and what you want to do. Then find the right person to contact.
When you decided where you are going, research it for what you want to do. Just simply saying ‘I’m going to your town, and I would like to be hosted by you.’ won’t work. Show them your interests. Then find out whom you should contact.
First, choose the organization. If you want to have a cheap Turkey holidays, You can directly email to regional tourism board offices (Turkey tourism board / City tourism board), or be more specific and contact the exact places you want to visit: hotel, museum, festival…
Second, make sure to include more than two people as recipients. E-mail is very handy, but also extremely easy to skip over. Tourism inboxes are likely to be even more packed than yours. It’s always beneficial to cc. someone to enhance your chances of being heard..
Watching Musical ‘The Producers’ at Washington Park, Albany, New York
As a result of presenting my interest of theater.
Offer what you can do.
Before listing your demand, offer what you can do for them first. Use your strengths to present what you can do for an exchange. It can be real time update in social media to your 6000+ followers, diverse publicity opportunities you can offer, or even your photography. Moreover, once you know where you are going to contact, it will be helpful to find out their needs in publicity. If any of their goals suit you, show them your ability to support their goal. For example, if their purpose is getting more traffic from foreign readers, you can present your global readership.
Don’t give up. Follow up.
Follow up your inquiries. Don’t give up if you don’t get any response in a couple of days. In that case, send them a follow up email with a kind reminder. Remember, all they can say is ‘no’.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Media Kit. After a long discussion about the itinerary.
Keep the promises.
You had a great time, and what next? It’s time to keep the promises that you made. My friend once asks about the strategy of the press trip; What if you don’t write about them? Do they just trust you to write something good for them?. Well, frankly, there’s nothing they can do but trust. Just like we drive/fly all the way based on their one email saying ‘Yes’. It’s important to build a trust and keep them since this is a business based on the internet. Once you publish your article on any publication, send them an email with the direct link.
The White Mountains Hiking with AMC and New Hampshire Tourism Board.
The White Mountains hiking video we made got great response.
Great tips Juno! One day I will score one of these…one day…. 🙂
Thanks Raymond! Wish you a good luck! 🙂
Great tips. Thanks for sharing. You saved me the trouble of typing it out. At least I can share your article with other fellow social media addicts.
Please do! Thanks! 🙂
Great post. I’ve been wondering about this. I also am curious if it works equally well around the world, or are certain places more interested in hosting bloggers. Specifically I’m interested if countries in eastern/southeast Asia (China/HongKong/Taiwan/Vietnam would do pres trips for bloggers.
Thanks Stephen! It has been a pleasure sharing the press trip experiences with you. I think the range are getting bigger for sure. So if we present it right, we can attract them. Worth of a shot! 🙂
Hi Juno, thanks for the in-depth post. Even though we have not got a huge following yet, nor have we been on any press trips we are actually in the process of trying to organise one to Egypt. Will use your techniques in the future! Cheers
Great tips!
Thanks for the great advice hun! It’s rare to find some effective info about this matter. And congrats on all your press trips! It must be such a satisfaction 🙂
Thanks Giulia! Yes, it was a surprise at first, somebody actually got back to me with ‘yes’. And I’ve learn a lot about it in the process. Hope this will helpful to a lot of bloggers out there, like me. Someone has to start sharing tips and spill the beans. 🙂 But still, I wouldn’t know about other big blog trips though.
Well done! You’ve come a long way!!
Thanks Kevin! Indeed my friend… indeed.
Great article Juno. 🙂
Congratulations on such a fruitful trip in the US and looking forward to reading more posts.
What did you think of the Producers? I want to go and see it when I’m in NY!
Hi Nicole! I loved the Producers. I knew that would be hilarious, but it was way beyond! “Keep it gay, keep it gay…” I can still hear it. Eventhought it was an outdoor stage, the actors were just so great, had everyone’s attention.
You’re doing great, Juno! You’re so friendly and helpful — I’d take tips from you any day! Keep ’em coming!
Thanks Abby! That means a lot to me…! 🙂
Great tips Juno! I just worked with a Visitor’s bureau for a couple of press trips and had a great experience. Great tips and questions a lot of bloggers may have on how to do this. Good reminders for me as well!
Thanks Jeremy! Glad to know those are good points as a visitor’s bureau’s view. I had all these questions before I start everything. Hope this is helpful for all of us.
Great tips Juno, thanks for sharing. I am sure these will come in handy for many of us 🙂
Wow, very helpful tips! I’m pretty insecure about these things sometimes but the part on trust boosted my confidence 🙂 thanks!
Congrats & thanks so much for the insight! You’ve inspired me to get off my butt and start emailing 🙂
Great tips Juno! This is super helpful to other bloggers. I love the one-pager you created that combines all of your social media stats in one place.
Some helpful stuff here Juno! Thanks so much for sharing! I am in the process of writing a solicitation letter today and some of these tips are coming in so handy.
Good luck Mica! Let me know if you have any more questions!
So helpful Juno! Well done. I think I’ve attended more than 15 press trips in my life and you’re absolutely right about the “keeping promises”–blogging and writing are hard work!
Thanks Charu! 15 press trips! That’s awesome! 🙂 It is really a win-win situation for us. And I really appreciate to have all those opportunities. Please keep’em coming! 🙂
Thanks for the writeup, often Ive tried to work out how press trips work. Ill have to give some of your tips a try
cheers Peter
Thanks Peter. Glad you liked it. Hope everything will work for you. Let me know if you have any other question.
Hi,
I’m so glad i came across this post–in fact today I was just asking twitter folks about how this works…hopefully I can land one soon…seems like a great opportunity!
Thanks!
Thanks Vitra. Wish you good luck!
thanks for a really informative post. My blog is nowhere near ready, but just went over 8,000 views in 8 weeks, so I’m hopeful. I’m bookmarking this post for later!
Good luck with everything! Glad to hear that this post helped you.
great post with a lot of information!
i am also trying to combine a few trips in one big. but if you are in contact with the regional bureaus you need to pay the flight on your own or who covers that one?
would be glad for that tip…
heike
Some good tips here. I definitely agree that you don’t need to be the best blogger in the world to score press trips but selling yourself is very important. If you can show value to them then generally you are 90% of the way there.
We managed to score some amazing freebies while traveling through Indonesia recently and very grateful for them.
You rock, Juno. You’re the first travel blog post I’ve seen to put it out there for us. I’ve been interested in getting press trips for some of my travels, for freebies of course, but to also see if there were more interesting things to see or do than the normal guide book stuff to do. I thought bloggers were personally solicited for PR trips and I’m sure that happens too. But it’s nice to know we can get the ball rolling if they aren’t. Soliciting for press trips seem like a lot of hard work in itself, but I’m sure it’s worth it.
I love the one-pager you created that combines all of your social media stats in one place. Great post.
Thanks for the tips!
Definately will try and score some Press Tips, but I’m thinking it will probably take a bit more time.
Again, thanks for the tips
This is definitely something to strive for, along with boosting the figures you’ve mentioned. As one more traveler looking to do more for less, a press trip would be a great score. You wouldn’t believe how many people asked about my funny shaped travel guitar on the last trip! I may have to use these tips and contact the manufacturer!
Thanks for the tips and always great to read how bloggers are an important part of the growing travel industry. But I must say, my favorite part of this post… your I Love NY t-shirts… You have style – hope you truly loved NY.
stay adventurous, Craig
I just stumbled upon your blog and I think it is great. It is really good reading this post as well, as it is quite encouraging. May I ask you how long it took you to build up your facebook and twitter audience to such a big number? I am a blogging novice and my site started off as being an update for family and friends only. My readership is starting to grow now and I have been blogging for almost a year now, but my stats are nowhere near as big as yours. Blogging isn’t my main job and I only do it in my free time, which is probably why. But I’d be interested to see how long it took you before you could confidently approach organizations for press trips for example, as I am not sure what number or ranks are impressive enough to land you a trip etc. Thanks!
Hi, thanks for this post, very usefull !
We are going to an international tourism event in Tokyo next week, so we think about organise travel blog press trip. Thanks !
Thank you for all the tips Juno! I haven’t been out there yet! I have been invited once, and I’d like to experience that again!
Great post, Juno! I’m going to have to give this a try.
Very inspiring for us up and coming bloggers! Especially those of us who are starting to see very high gains. Thanks for keeping us motivated!
It does not feel like corruption to you if you get paid/sponsored for writing something and make it look like a travel blog?
The travel industry is already suffering from overly positive marketing messages causing disappointments. It is not really interested in finding long term fixes as long as it can make a quick buck. That is why it would be better for travel bloggers to keep the expectations lower and let travellers be happily surprised when things will be better than they expected. And as this is probably not possible if you get paid for the job, then for the sake of integrity refuse to accept bribes.