The freebie debate The debate about whether journalists and bloggers should accept freebies is so old and hoary that I’m reluctant to bring it up again. But my recent experience in Germany shed a bit of new light on it for me, so tough, back to the well-chewed territory… For those not in the know, [...]
Continue reading about Travel writing and freebies: The bias that matters
Yesterday, I received a truly staggering press release. The sheer number of words for a topic that no-one will ever write about makes it something of a beauty that ought to be cherished. In fact, it’s so good, I thought I might share it. The PR’s name has been left off, but everything else is verbatim. [...]
Continue reading about Korean Air and the world’s most niche press release
Close encounters of the guidebook kind This morning, I had what I thought was an extraordinarily encounter. Guide book writers may be more acquainted with it than I am. But, to me, it just didn’t make sense. I am currently in Bath, researching a city guide for a major Australian newspaper. As part of that, [...]
Continue reading about Lesson for hoteliers: How to disappear from the guidebooks and lose customers
Budget airline add-on fees When it comes to budget airlines, Ryanair is the traditional whipping boy. People love to hate Ryanair, and automatically assume that it is the worst airline for underhand practices and add-on fees. The truth, however, is that Ryanair has largely eliminated many of its naughtiest habits. Yes, it charges a fortune [...]
Continue reading about Is Flybe’s web booking system fair – or even legal?
As Jeremy Head rightly points out in his new post, there is so much destination guide content festering on the internet that much of it becomes interchangeable. Why, in essence, should you go to one site’s guides above another’s? Many websites – be they for hotel, airlines or generic travel companies trying to build their [...]
Continue reading about How to make destination guides distinctive
In recent weeks, I have been writing a few city guides, which means that I have had to visit a lot of hotel websites in order to get contact details. On the way, I have encountered some phenomenally irritating sites, but that of the Hotel De Las Letras in Madrid was the straw that broke [...]
Continue reading about How to make a really bad hotel website in ten easy steps
iPhones and iPads For someone who does most of his work for websites and is almost surgically attached to his laptop, I can be something of a technophobe at times. I don’t have an iPhone, and neither do I understand why I need one. I have a long-standing mistrust of Apple products (anyone bandying about [...]
Continue reading about Three reasons why printed guidebooks won’t die any time soon
Round the world trip As some of my regular readers may be aware, I recently spent two months travelling around Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Singapore. I was on a somewhat whistlestop round-the-world trip, and I primarily did it because I had a number of commissions for various clients in the UK and Australia. [...]
Continue reading about Corporate blogging: Does it compromise a writer’s independence and integrity?
A lesson learned Last November, I learned a valuable lesson. We were half-planning a Caribbean holiday, when we saw flights to the Seychelles for under £400. Figuring we’d never be able to get there as cheaply again, we snapped the tickets up and decided to take the opportunity to do a famous luxury destination on [...]
Continue reading about An important travel lesson: When good deals make for bad holidays
A PR’s job I am acutely aware that there is more to doing travel PR than forever leaping every time a journalist clicks their fingers. In fact, some PRs may argue that dealing with journalists only forms a small part of their job. But it is a part of the job nonetheless, and the whole [...]
Continue reading about One common mistake that PR companies make – and how to fix it