Last week, Stuart McDonald of Travelfish wrote a really interesting proposal for a press trip format. His suggestion was fairly simple – instead of getting writers on to a press trip, and setting up all the elements of that trip, they should just give the writers a lump sum of money to go and explore the destination and write what they want to write afterwards. That way, the writer picks what he or she is interested in, hunts down suitable accommodation that he or she would stay in if paying themselves, and experiences the country properly as an anonymous traveller.
McDonald suggested there would be no demands on what has to be written as a result – just an open invitation to go and explore, then blog whatever they like afterwards. And, if the tourist board has chosen smartly, the writer will also sell stories to newspapers, magazines and other websites.
There’s a lot of trust involved in such an approach, of course. But there’s also a lot of logic, too. The right person will want to get as much material as possible. They’ll want to use it to grow their blog, attract more readers and get existing readers sticking around for longer. It’s no coincidence that the longer a writer spends in a destination, the more stories they tend to get.
Unsurprisingly, I’m rather enchanted by this idea. And I’ll modify it slightly. Instead of offering me a press trip with a set itinerary and all manner of freebies, just give me the value of that press trip to play with. I can guarantee that I can make it last longer staying in the £50 to £80 a night hotels that travellers are looking for rather than luxury properties with huge room rates. And I can guarantee that I can find more stories worth writing with that extra time and freedom.
If the trouble is getting this past the beancounters, then let’s dress it up as an advertising budget. I’ve got a sponsored posts system. The posts are editorially independent, but sponsors get to give themselves a wee plug at the bottom. Give me the cash to set up my own visit, and I’ll let a tourist board sponsor a corresponding number of posts. And they can be the ones about the relevant destination too.
Interested? Then let’s talk…
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Just like book reviewing, but for press trips. Nice idea.
It’ll never catch on…
DMOs/tourism boards/suppliers terrified of not having control.
It is a very cool idea and a way to explore a destination for unique features. However, in my experience most tourist boards rely on hotels, attractions, car hire to be donated on a complimentary basis.
Usually tourist boards don’t tend to have the value of a press trip in actual cold hard cash and there would be quite a lot of red tape involved to give a journalist a lump sum for a trip.
But having said all this it would be a good way for some trips to work becuase the content and features would be completely unique.
The answer might lie in some kind of middle ground. Press trips with every minute planned to perfection are not my ideal either. But I wouldn’t necessarily object to a trip that contained 2 or 3 free days in the middle, bookended either end by a full day visiting the restaurants/hotels/attractions that the PR co. needs to cover in order to lay on the trip in the first place. Compromise needed on both sides, which seems fair. They get the coverage they need, and we get the benefit of a unique (hopefully) angle.
Nice idea, but I’d give it a week before someone Hunter S Thompson’d the shit out the budget and it was cancelled.
Thanks for the mention David. The core point I was trying to drive at is the importance of picking the right writers and giving them complete freedom. In investing in doing that properly, you’d hope to avoid the worst of the Hunter S antics (though his antics did work out well!). But it’s exactly the invisible hand of sponsoring hotels & other partners that I’m trying to get away from.
It’s all about giving the writer the tools and free rein to present to your readership. If you’re a writer with a blog that caters to the extreme high-end, blow the entire wad on a single night, secret shopper style, at a hotel here in Bali whose rates start at $7,000 a night — or if you’re a budget travel writer, see just how far and for how long you can travel in Indonesia on $7k.
Neither of these extreme examples are being addressed — at all — with the current press trip model. It’s a badly missed opportunity.
As for Kevin’s suggestion that this would never happen, my post is a part of a series — I’ll leave it at that for now
I have, on a number of occasions, answered offers to be included on blogger junkets (yick) with a similar (but cheaper, for the tourist board) proposition: I will, on my own, research some stories about your country, work up some pitches, and get the assignments. Then, you give me and my photographer partner RT air tix to your country. That’s it — no other compensation required. If I need help with contacts or fixers I’ll ask. Beyond that, I’m on my own. Oh, and seeing as I do have a food blog you can expect that I will be posting during or after my trip, just as I do when I travel on assignment elsewhere.
The answer? “We can’t do that”, or radio silence
It’s gonna take a major mindset change for tourism boards to sign on to this sort of thing.
We’ve always thought this would be the ideal to get us involved in a press trip. The thought of being able to do what you like with the sort of money that is usually expended is tingling my travel bugs. We could easily stretch out a meagre budget and still return a ton of press. We often joke that we would love to be paid just to go wherever we wanted and write about it.
Guess I’ll just sit and wait for the invites now, I’m sure they will come pouring in!
Thanks for the comments, everyone. Yup – I realise that the red tape is a major part of the problem and the tourist boards don’t actually have the value of the trip in cash. It’s not always the case, but they’re usually reliant on the hotels, restaurants etc to host.
I’m not saying every press trip should be done this way, however – just that it might be worth experimenting with if the right writer was picked out.
Working for the other side, i.e. the tourist board, I can definitely see the appeal of the idea. We have a huge amount of press coming through our very small place and it frustrates me every time to set up the same main attractions and stations on every press trip. This has a lot to do with the timespans of their stay being way too short but also very limited interest of writers to explore more.
There have been some exceptions and we are happy to adjust schedules and make them as flexible as possible. Our budget for these trips is very limited. We don’t pay for the food or accommodation of press visitors – this is either sponsored by the places themselves or by big companies, mainly airlines. Attractions that don’t require pre-booking (many off the beaten track activities around here do…) are a bit easier to visit spontaneuously.
To be honest: my dream press visit is someone who has accommodation fixed before but apart from that just comes into my office and says: “right, here I am, what can we do today?”
Jamie
Are you saying that Hunter didn’t promote Vegas? I know more than a few who went there because of what he wrote.