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
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
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
Old school feedback As any writer who has written something for an online publication will probably know, feedback isn’t always that much of a blessing. In the not so brave old world, you would write a piece for your newspaper, and unless it was controversial enough to spark hundreds of letters to the editor, you’d [...]
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 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
‘The World Cup won’t help us’ This morning, I flicked over to the Guardian website to be met with a headline that is becoming all too common. Above a picture of black South Africans comes a cry of “The World Cup won’t help us”. The story then goes on to talk to lots of poor [...]
Continue reading about South Africa’s World Cup – why it can’t fix everything
Writers and photographers are increasingly expected to be multi-skilled. But are the two crafts compatible? Photo obsessives For the last three weeks or so, I have been on the road. And from Vancouver to Viti Levu, I have been constantly staggered by the number of people I’ve encountered who will happily take photos of [...]
Continue reading about Good writing and good photography: An unnatural mix
Going AWOL Over the next couple of months, I may be a little quieter on this blog and Twitter than usual. That will be because I’m travelling around the world (Canada, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia and Singapore) and won’t get back until the beginning of June. I’ll still pop up the odd post when something [...]