The internet: killing travel journalism?
A while back, I weighed in with my thoughts on how the internet is supposedly killing travel journalism. At the bottom, I made a small point which I didn’t think too much of at the time, but I am increasingly coming to think may be important.
Travel companies as publishers
Here it is again: “I can also see travel companies such as airlines, hotels and tour operators further branching out into publishing on their websites.”
Travel content on travel company sites
In recent weeks, I have stumbled across more and more travel companies that have blogs and travel content on their sites, over and above the standard destination guides. Bing Travel, Kayak and Vtravelled are obvious ones, but quietly other companies, booking engines and online tour agencies are doing the same.
Viator, Roundtheworldflights and Skyscanner
I’ve written a few pieces for Viator’s blog, for example. Mark Eveleigh is writing a blog on Roundtheworldflights.com. Skyscanner’s at it as well. I’m sure there are plenty of other examples of this that are largely flying under the radar, but the important thing is that very little of this content is obvious PR puffery. The companies are investing in pretty good quality material from writers with a distinct voice.
Drawing people to a website
This is a trend I can only see increasing. It’s about drawing people to the site, and not just when they’re about to book something. If people are visiting the site to read a good story, then it’s going to stick in the mind when it does come to booking time. It’s a way of sticking a company’s head out above a large, broadly similar crowd.
Social media influence
Social media plays a big part too. People are not that likely to put a flight deal on their Facebook page or retweet a hotel sale price. But they will do this for an article which entertains them or grabs their interest. The meritocratic power of social media means that the RT Effect won’t work for PR puffery – it needs to be something that genuinely captures attention and is worth reading in its own right.
Power of retweets
And, if a company wishes to harness the power of retweets and status updates in this way, it needs to have a good writer or two on board to create the content. Generic guides and promotional fluff are not enough.
New market for writers
For writers – particularly those with reasonable web savviness, a Twitter presence and a distinctive voice – this is a potentially lucrative new market. Companies are beginning to see good writing as a way of gaining credibility, brand recognition, traffic and gravitas. In effect, they are paying to have their own star columnists, much like newspapers have always done. And this is a phenomenon I think we’re going to see a whole lot more of.
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In-no-way-related public service announcement
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Tags: Bing, Kayak, online travel, paid content, Roundthewordflights, Skyscanner, social media, Travel Writing, Twitter, Vtravelled
You’ve really put your finger on a new trend here. Absolutely agree. There are lots of new avenues for travel writers out there, and some of them are even reasonably well paid, amazingly.
Yes, and when you look at the cost of content in terms of drawing in visitors versus cost-per-click, it’s even more of a no-brainer (if that’s possible!)
Completely agree. Indeed, it’s the model we follow at iCrossing. I’ve been commissioning a lot of quality content for numerous travel companies from pro travel writers. It’s all about engagement and SEO benefit. Just one example:
http://www.virginholidays.co.u.....ards_from/
(Before I get bombarded by journos looking for commissions… I am NOT commissioning at the moment!)
It certainly seems that there is a shift back towards paid travel content. We saw this first in 1999, in the run-up to the dot-com boom. It was later killed off by the rush for user-generated content. I see now a new raft of companies experimenting with paid content, particularly in the “online PR” and SEO sectors, although I’m not convinced of its long-term sustainability for travel writers.
I also don’t think your examples are great. The kayak news feed – despite the UK domain – is a straight lift from its US site. The Bing travel blog is also US-facing, and judging by the plugs that the writers get for their companies I suspect they might be writing for free. And I guess you won’t be paying Mark Eveleigh to write a blog on your RTW site?
Yup good post as per David. Travel agents becoming content providers (Mr Murray Harrold was spot on at WTM blog camp – travel agents need & can become a lot more web savvy) and travel writers becoming travel company owners (one bit of hard learned advice – watch your staff numbers like a hawk as letting people go is something you never want to experience). Yup its the strange mashed up world of travel.
Well all I’ll say is that sponsoring great writers & photographers has worked for us offline and online in the past. In return we get SEO, quality links, cheaper CPC than with adwords – important with adwords CPCs arriving at the prohibitive level (Google wants to watch that) and in a world of falling airline RPKs/and slashed marketing budgets; and the much undervalued kudos by association – something I never read about anymore. Also avoids Coren/Brugge/Bainbridge cat-like issues involving undigested mice in the online kitchens if one has helped a wee bit in the creation of original content/recipe – an acceptable cat/mouse creative baguette as it were.
Whether there is enough volume of click throughs and subsequent bookings is a different matter as Mark alludes to. Maybe all you can hope for is a heavy flow of peoples RTW travelling juices in a Pavlovian manner through great writing.
Moreover another Brucey bonus is that we get to sponsor (is that the word – makes me feel like Gertude Stein/Erza Pound in a Parisian saloon in the 1920′s) great writers, like Mark Eveleigh, (and Jeremy Head in the past) and we trust them to get on with it. Win win methinks. Watch this space for 3 more sponsorships (they’re almost sorted) next year. Emerging but worth a shout I reckon, n’est-ce pas?