Right to respond

Just to prove that I can be even-handed, I offered them a right to respond to criticisms. I initially sent an e-mail, and then phoned as a national newspaper had indicated an interest in running a story on the subject. I was initially told that Door2Tour.com was “planning to ignore the e-mail” and didn’t want me to post their press release at Grumpytraveller.com.

Not exactly brilliant media relations, that, but I sent another e-mail spelling out that all I was trying to do was give a right of reply. And, if they didn’t wish to give a proper response, I would have to use the rather ham-fisted quotes I was given over the phone.

Response from Door2Tour.com

A couple of hours later, this came back from Door2Tour.com’s general manager:

“Thank you for raising your question and concern about today’s press release. We would like to take the opportunity to reassure that we did not intend to cause any offence.

“We are as sad as everyone else about the sudden passing of Michael Jackson. He is a global icon, and we have had many enquiries over the weekend and today about tours to the USA for people to pay tribute to him. We are just serving a demand from our customers who are genuinely interested in paying homage to “The King of Pop”.

“As you know, street sellers have been printing off t-shirts at Glastonbury, and visitors have been visiting Neverland and the Hollywood Walk of Fame in increased numbers as a result of the news.

“The Daily Mail has also run a story today outlining the phenomenon of tourism being boosted by the passing of a pop idol and does provoke an interesting debate.

“If you search on the web right now, you will see (*names online retailers and tourism sites*) all advertising Michael Jackson related products.

“We have also heard on the Radio News that Michael Jackson’s family would like as many people as possible to celebrate his life and death with memorials taking place in major cities across the world. Our tours will simply help people to get there. ”

Fair response?

To me, this is a reasonably fair, measured response. I’d call into question a couple of aspects, however. Firstly, the online retailers were already selling Michael Jackson products. Door2Tour.com most certainly wasn’t – it changed the description of an otherwise irrelevant product to capitalise on a major news story. In this respect, the company is in the questionable ethics bracket alongside the Glastonbury T-shirt salesmen.

Secondly, I’d query this statement: “We have had many enquiries over the weekend and today about tours to the USA for people to pay tribute to him.”

This seems rather unlikely to me. At a push, I can see the site having an increase in enquiries about tours to LA. But for fans to contact the site directly to ask about specific tours to the USA so that they can pay tribute to Michael Jackson? I find this hard to believe.

Again, I’ve asked Door2Tour.com whether this is true – that specific requests for Michael Jackson-themed tours led to them promoting Michael Jackson-themed tours . Over a day later, I’ve not had a response.

A few minutes ago, I received perhaps the most shameless press release I have ever received. I suspect other journalists and publications did as well.

Michael Jackson’s star

On Saturday, I blogged about the corpse opportunists trying to get themselves a scrap of the media spotlight at Michael Jackson’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. But it seems as though there is something more odious than these people – and that’s a travel company trying to make money by taking people there for that purpose.

Free publicity?

Reading through Door2Tour.com’s press release, it’s fairly clear that “Plenty of free time to see the sights of Los Angeles as well as the Hollywood Walk of Fame to pay your respects to at Michael Jackson’s ‘Star’” has been slotted into pre-existing itineraries. Why? Who knows, but a fair interpretation would be that it’s a flagrant attempt to latch on to the story of the day in order to get free publicity.

PR companies do this all the time; it’s just that the story of the day isn’t normally someone dying.

This is corpse opportunism taken to a whole new level. I have reproduced the press release in full below. I have also contacted the company and asked them why they saw fit to send out such a press release, and shall publish the responses here if and when they do respond.

Press release from Door2Tour.com

Title: Michael Jackson: pay your last respects with Door2Tour.com – press release from Door2Tour.com

Press Release                                                                                  

June 2009

Pay Tribute to Michael Jackson in LA with Door2Tour.com

- From only £1,374 per person -

The recent tragic death of Michael Jackson has seen an outpouring of mixed emotions from around the world. Many have travelled to LA to leave tributes & messages of condolence by his ‘Star’ on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. You too could pay your last respects to one of whom many would call the greatest music icons in the world by taking holidays by air to Los Angeles.

Door2Tour.com offers a wide variety of holidays by air with nationwide pick-up points across the UK including: London Heathrow & Gatwick, Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, Manchester and more.

America’s Golden West, from only £1,374 per person:

v      12 days departing on 20 July or 09 August 2009

v      10 nights room only accommodation in the Stratosphere Hotel in Las Vegas, The Vagabond Motel (or similar) in Palm Springs, The Airtel Plaza Hotel or Sportsmen’s Lodge in Los Angeles, the Best Western Casa Grande (or similar) in San Luis Obispo and The Radisson in San Francisco.

v      Plenty of free time to see the sights of Los Angeles as well as the Hollywood Walk of Fame to pay your respects to at Michael Jackson’s ‘Star’

v      Enjoy a city tour of Las Vegas & half day sightseeing tours of Los Angeles and San Francisco

v      Highlights include: The Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Palm Springs, Hollywood, Pacific Coast & San Francisco

v      All transfers between hotels & airport

Western Explorer, from only £1,624 per person:

v      15 days departing on 5 Aug or 2 Sept 2009

v      13 nights room only accommodation staying at the Airtel Plaza or Sportsmen’s Lodge in Los Angeles, the Holiday Inn Seaworld in San Diego, the Hospitality Suites Resort in Scottsdale, the Radisson Hotel in Flagstaff, the Stratosphere Hotel in Las Vegas, the Swan Court Hotel in Selma and the Radisson Hotel Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco

v      Plenty of free time to see the sights of Los Angeles as well as the Hollywood Walk of Fame to pay your respects to ‘Jacko’

v      Enjoy city tour of Las Vegas & 2 half day sightseeing tours of San Diego and San Francisco

v      Highlights include: Los Angeles, San Diego, The Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Yosemite National Park and San Francisco

v      All transfers between hotels and airport

For further information, please visit: www.door2tour.com or call

XXX

For further information, images or to arrange a press trip with Door2Tour.com contact:

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Notes to Editors:

Door2Tour.com is a consolidation of tour operators creating a diverse choice of UK and worldwide touring holidays, events packages, cruises and holidays by air to many exciting destinations. All have live availability and offer the customer the opportunity to book online, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Door2Tour.com is the ultimate touring and coach holiday booking and reference service as it offers over 30,000 tour choices from hundreds of regional UK departure points with some operators picking up passengers from their door.

Door2Tour.com is a comprehensive guide and a reference point as the site to date boasts 1,000+ originally crafted content pages with more than 6,000 images and this content is growing on a daily basis.

Door2Tour.com uses the Internet to attract new customers to the coach tourism industry, delivering the next generation of coach tour passengers.

Wrong star on the Walk of Fame

One of the strangest side stories resulting from Jackson’s passing away was that fans had rushed to pay homage at his star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame.

The only problem is that they got the wrong star – the right one was covered by the scaffolding for the Bruno film premiere. So the ‘fans’ were laying flowers and wailing for the cameras outside the star of a talk radio host.

For me, this just highlighted an insidious trend that some call ‘grief tourism’. I prefer to call it corpse opportunism.

Diana and Steve Irwin

We’ve seen this sort of thing before. There were the sheep-like thousands that turned up to sign the condolence book at Althorp House when Princess Diana died, or those that rushed to Australia Zoo when Steve Irwin was killed by a stingray.

It’s a horrible, ugly form of tourism. Let’s make no mistake about this; it’s not about paying respects to the dead – it’s about making people feel self-important and giving themselves something to talk about. It’s about basking in the reflected glory of the recently deceased in order to boost social standing.

Were people really affected by Diana’s death so much that they had to trek across the country to sign a book that would make absolutely no difference to anyone? Of course not – they went because, deep down, they thought doing so would make them seem temporarily more interesting.

Those that had actually known Diana, Steve or MJ, I can understand – but surely they would just pass on their condolences to the family? And privately too.

Faux mourning

To travel somewhere just to be seen to be mourning someone you’ve never met or had anything to do with is a horrible thing to do. Yes, you might have liked their music/ admired their charity work/ enjoyed watching them wrestle crocodiles on telly – but you really played no part in their life. You aren’t relevant, and what you’re trying to do is to make yourself relevant by shamelessly latching on to the biggest story of the day.

I can’t imagine it gives any comfort to the families of the deceased – rather disturbing in fact. What’s wrong with just being a bit sad that someone whose work you admired has died? Why the need to go somewhere and prove how much you liked that person by mawkishly weeping in the most public place you can think of?

Such corpse opportunism does no-one any favours. It’s like rushing to a disaster site just to say you were there when you really weren’t. What possible justification can there be for such grief tourism other than a vile, calculating desire to grab a pathetic crumb of someone else’s fame?