S5 E53: Inside Travel Media Bootcamp Part 2: Maximizing Your Chances of Being Hosted

Get the show’s transcript

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:06] YD: Welcome to the Travel Media Lab Podcast. I’m your host, Yulia Denisyuk, an award-winning travel photographer and writer, entrepreneur, community builder, and a firm believer that every one of us can go after the stories we’ve always wanted to tell with the right support, encouragement, and structure. 

I’m on a mission to help women storytellers everywhere break into and thrive in the travel media space. If you’re ready to ditch your fears to the side, grow your knowledge and confidence, and publish your travel stories, you’re in the right place. Let’s go!

[EPISODE]

[00:00:42] YD: I recently went to Waco, Texas to lead my first ever two-day intensive workshop called Travel Media Bootcamp for 12 people interested in publishing their own travel stories and learning how to work with tourism boards. Our attendees had a firsthand experience of what it’s like to be on the media trip, plus learn so much about pitching, working with tourism boards and PR agencies, storytelling and more. 

Last week on the podcast, I shared with you a conversation we had during Travel Media Bootcamp from a perspective of a travel journalist. That’s me. Today, I’m excited to share with you the perspective of a travel PR professional. In this conversation, you hear from Paula Carreiro, my Travel Media Bootcamp partner and industry veteran with over 15 years in the travel media industry. Paula is currently representing the Panama Tourism Board. And most recently, she was leading Abu Dhabi’s Department of Culture and Tourism here in New York.

In this conversation, you will learn how to maximize your chances of being hosted, how to find the appropriate media contact for a tourism board, why LinkedIn is important, and why PR agencies want us to succeed. Paula also touches on the holy grail of travel PR, So listen on to find out what that is. Our first Travel Media Bootcamp was a great success, and Paula and I are already working on our next destination. If you’d like to know when the next trip opens, and which destination we’ll go to, be sure to visit travelmedialab.com/trip. That’s T-R-I-P to be notified when we do. All right, let’s get into this episode.

[DISCUSSION]

[00:02:23] PC: Okay. How to maximize your chances of being hosted? We talked a little bit about this. Know your options. I think this came out yesterday from being totally hosted to have your own individual press trip, right? Sometimes it’s all about the flight. But because you can organize, if you manage to go to the destination by yourself, you can organize the trip the same way as I do it yourself. You don’t need me, you can reach in contact with stakeholders by yourself, you have far more flexibility, you can bring your plus one out here. There is less competition. You can contact me saying, “Hey! I am going to the destination, either you want me or not.” And yeah, you are talking from another point of view, right? Now, you have the power.

“I am going to your destination. This is what I’d like to visit. What can you offer? Can you help me with the hotel? Can you help me with a restaurant experience? Can you help me with the tour experience?” I’m like, “Okay. If you’re going there by yourself, and I just have to manage to offer you this and we’ll still get credit for what you’re doing. I’m listening.” That’s one thing versus coming to me and pitching, “Okay. Can you offer me a trip to Panama or to any destination?” Now, I will have to vet you.” But in this case, you’re just going by yourself. You found out the way to work with the airline, you find out the work to do your itinerary. You did the hard work ahead of time, you can pitch or not or you can tell me that you will sell afterwards. That’s your business.

[00:04:16] YD: Which is an important point, right? That pressure of placing a story is there, but it’s not as high or –

[00:04:22] PC: Yeah, it’s not – it’s not as high because you tell me, I mean, I am going and I sold the story or I’m selling and I’m like, “Okay. Now, we are partners, because you rather sell your story because to make money for yourself.” So it does make much more sense for both parties. It’s only about the difference that because you can have a totally hosted press trip, if you go by yourself.

[00:04:50] YD: I like that trip and –

[00:04:51] PC: You have much more flexibility and that works specifically if you’re not a tier-one with a strong portfolio, but you can start there, you know.

[00:05:04] YD: How do you decide who is tier one and what is tier one in your –

[00:05:07] PC: Tier one publications are the ones that have the largest outreach, AFAR, Travel and Leisure, Condé Nast. Of course, all the major newspapers. Forbes? I don’t know. Those are tier one. Thrills, Matador, Lonely Planet can also considered a tier one. Smithsonian, well of course, the Lifestyle magazines, but we don’t work with that much with them. I don’t know, BUG, Elite. That’s very hard. 

I mean, if you come ahead of time, you are one step ahead as a travel writer and you said, “Okay. I am going to choose a destination.” So now you do the hard work, you do what’s the itinerary and then you know ahead of time, or you look for the PR agency and you tell them, “Okay. This is what I’m going to do. This is what – and this is what I’m preaching.” Normally, I received very light-hearted pitches. It’s like, “Okay. I would love to go to Abu Dhabi. What can you tell me about Abu Dhabi?”

[00:06:10] YD: Well, we covered yesterday, right? It serves the same thing.

[00:06:13] PC: Yes. Yeah. The same job that I do for the destination, you can do it for yourself. Every piece that I do when I organize an itinerary that I contact the hotel, the restaurants, the attractions, you can do it individually, yourself. 

I’m not talking about return on investment or whatever it may be. It comes easily then after doing it more than one time. It takes a lot of work, but especially if you’re starting, that’s a good way around. Know your audience. We talked about the KPIs. If you’re talking to the PR department. We want AVs, we want – if you’re talking to a hotel, which has talked with social media posts work, yes. Know who you’re talking to. If you’re talking to the marketing PR person from the hotel, know that they will be interested in hosting you in exchange of posts of your Instagram followers, the outreach of the publication. Those are the KPIs.

[00:07:19] YD: What I find interesting here, I don’t know if you guys are seeing this, but there are so many parallels with what you do with editors and what you do with tourism boards. Know the audience, know the audience applies to both, right? Know the audience of the publication. Know the audience of the tourism board. 

[00:07:32] PC: Yeah, there are two lines.

[00:07:33] YD: Know their KPIs. What do the editors want? What is their strategy as a publication? What is the tourism or strategy as a publication? Same thing.

[00:07:41] PC: It’s the same thing. Okay. So work indirectly with individuals. I showed you and I mentioned how Susan organized this press trip or talking one on one. Again, you can do the same one-on-one instead – because there is this idea that the tourism board had everything figured out, but this is the way we do it. 

You can do it directly yourself as well, and jump in the agency, the PR agency, and maybe having the PR agency or the comms person aiding you, supporting you and giving you a hand. But you are already organizing it yourself. You have more flexibility, even, you can obtain a better ROI from that. We talked about the KPIs, know that the marketing PR person that it’s going to be probably one, also salesperson from a hotel. They are specifically interested in you posting them, and you link in them to direct bookings and sales. That’s something we’ll talk about in content creation as well.

[00:08:45] GUEST 1: When you call the hotels, who are you wanting to talk to? Their marketing?

[00:08:49] PC: The marketing. Somebody asked me one question that maybe you’re not aware on the trolley yesterday. When you talk to Marriot, you’re not talking to Marriot Corporation. I work for Wyndham Hotel Group on the corporate level, I told you. You have the comms person on the broad point of view, on the brand point of view. But then, I’m talking here about a specific property, right? You talked with the marketing person from Hilton Waco, you don’t talk to Hilton PR down the base. I don’t know where are they. 

[00:09:24] GUEST 1: [Inaudible 00:09:24]

[00:09:25] PC: Yeah. I know. It’s going to be hard for you to get to that person, then they are not going to know who is available in each property. Normally, maybe there is one owner that have seven properties, like their franchise sometimes, right? Like the McDonald’s. There’s one owner that has more than one property or just one owner for one property. There’s probably one if you go to the top hotels. There’s probably one marketing or salesperson there. I don’t know. As you go to lower level of hotels if there’s a marketing person. Normally, they don’t even have PR there. That’s why they relied a lot on content creation, and influencers to generate awareness. That’s a great way for you to start. 

If you’re talking to the tourism board, sell at least one story ahead of time. Offer to mention the hotel [inaudible 00:10:20] for an exclusive article for the flight airlines, your KPIs, tracked opportunities from your article. And we talked very briefly about SEO. But sometimes, it’s something that we are seeing more and more right now. It’s for the holy grail of PR, is to show eventually a link from awareness to conversion, which is something that we are so far away. But, more and more, we see digital opportunities to do that. We are working with a company called Adara. That is tracking every time in your article, they’re clicking and we are driving traffic to our site. We can tell that you generated that. 

What we are given to prospective influencers or travel writers is the link for them to hopefully put in their own articles so that I can track if someone links there and came in I generated that as a PR person. We never know, right, from awareness who read an article about Abu Dhabi and two years later decided to come to the destination. That will be ideal to measure. But yeah, we are not there. That’s why again, it’s the AB and the impressions.

Networking, there are two lines, very important lines for you to work in terms of networking. On one end, the DMO and the PR agencies, ourselves, the tourism board, you work with that. On the other end, the publications, right? So yesterday, we talked about these opportunities that universe mentioned around IMM. Some media was meeting ahead of time with travel editors, right? So you want to know the editors ahead of time. Don’t be shy as well, as I mentioned yesterday to ask the PR agency. If once you have a press trip, I mean, they can say no. They can hook you up with any travel editor that will be interested in your story. They have great contacts, and they work all the time with media and travel editors. 

[00:12:34] YD: And that won’t be seen as –

[00:12:36] PC: No.

[00:12:36] YD: As you were talking about yesterday, some people are afraid to do that, because they think that will – well, you should already have that.

[00:12:41] PC: You should already have that. Yeah. But I mean, I will be welcome to that.

[00:12:44] YD: Because you want us to succeed. 

[00:12:45] PC: Yes. I want you to sell as many stories as possible. So yeah. How do you connect with the travel editors same as the PR team, LinkedIn, [inaudible 00:12:56]. We find, and that’s open for anyone. We get a lot of profiles from [inaudible 00:13:02]. If you’re a freelancer, well, that’s for content creators, you may want to know the companies that work as brokers. I’m talking about Travel Mindset and all that companies.

[00:13:13] GUEST 2: Is it easy to find, like say, I want to reach out to the PR that deals with Morocco? Is it easy to find who does that or –?

[00:13:21] PC: Yes, go for a press release. When you go to the press release, you will find who’s the media person with that. There is a contact person. So if you are searching about I don’t know any destination, Morocco, see what was written. If it’s on the website, normally, you will have the contact information of the PR agency in that press release. It also goes to hotels, that’s how you can find the contact of the – either the PR agency or the main PR point of contact. 

[00:13:52] YD: Do you have any strategies to actually – related to what she just asked. Some destinations are notoriously hard to get in contact with. For example, I’m trying to get in contact with Oman right now, and their website is so clunky it looks like it’s from 1998.

[00:14:07] PC: Yes.

[00:14:08] GUEST 2: Never a good sign.

[00:14:10] YD: How do you – is there anything that you recommend? Because in that case, it doesn’t sound like they have a US PR agency representing them?

[00:14:17] PC: Maybe they don’t and let them know to contact me because I’m looking for more clients. You know how I’ll do it? The same way I – I’ll pitch my own clients. Go to LinkedIn, put Oman communications and see what jumps in there. That’s how I’ll do it. I rely a lot on LinkedIn. That’s a good way for you to search the agencies, and the corporate communications people. Not so much the travel editors. Maybe yes as well, but yeah, that’s why [inaudible 00:14:47]. The PR agencies, you will find also as we just discussed that there is a very limited number of – not very limited, but a limit number of our travel agencies that have a lot of accounts at the same time. O’Dwyer is a publication that focus, and you can search O’Dwyer and put Travel and Tourism PR agencies. 

Since we have struggled a lot during the pandemic, there have been a lot of acquisitions, but you can definitely contact them, ask them to include you in their press list. [inaudible 00:15:18]. They have their own travel section within those big ones, like Adamant, Royal, Hawkins was one, the Brandman Agency, DCI. 

If you are an influencer, I get a lot of wishy-washy requests from influencers, specifically, because they are very shy to ask money and they don’t know how much the – it’s not influencers. It’s all in the advertising industry overall. Right? But the request is like, “Okay. I’m a content creator, I would like to partner with you.” What the heck do you mean by partner? You want money? How much? I’m like, “Yeah, let’s be partners on that. Okay. How much do you want to be my partner?” 

I don’t know. I have no idea. Because maybe I do have some time some budget that I can work around the last time. I never know how much money they’re asking me on the influencer side.

[00:16:19] YD: I think I need to put you in contact with some people I know. Because –

[00:16:23] PC: The psychology?

[00:16:24] YD: Because this is something, I mean, that I am aware of because the influencers that I know, When they pitch, they have a kit and they say, “Here’s my –”

[00:16:33] PC: I know. I hate it. 

[00:16:35] GUEST 3: It varies.

[00:16:35] YD: What do you mean you hate it. You just said you wanted to know how much –

[00:16:38] PC: The kit doesn’t send the money.

[00:16:40] YD: No, no, no. That’s what I mean. Like you have a raise. So if I’m in town for three days, and I do three posts and three PR stories, X, Y, Z, let’s partner. That’s what I mean. Like, that’s the professional way to do this, right? You come in with a pitch and – 

[00:16:56] PC: But normally, nobody wants to take the risk of saying how much they are asking, because either they think I may have more, or because they think it’s low, I don’t know. To be honest, I don’t know how much they’re asking. Okay. After your trip, of course follow up with your articles, especially if you’re working directly with the PR agency. The PR agency would need to show this to their client. Know the AV and outreach, the value of your article, what you are producing, and offer to continue receiving your press release and being an ambassador, right? 

An ambassador of the destination of the hotel, because now you’re going to start receiving a lot of information regarding this destination. Since you’ve been there, you have the authority to continue writing about that, continue pitching. You can hook whatever you had there and maybe even put in this for article to additional information, update it with the releases that have been provided to yourself. 

Before we get into the travel writers versus content creators that you love, I wanted to show you an example of a press coverage report that we provide to the client once the press trip is being finalized.

[00:18:17] YD: And you wait to get all the articles published too before this, right?

[00:18:20] PC: I wait, and if they’re taking longer, you will see one of them, I am saying, “Well, this person is still working on that.” Then I have to send an updated version of that. This is a fun trip that I did to Abu Dhabi. All right. This trip I did almost before the pandemic, yeah. We present a summary. This is the AV that we provided. This is an important number. Up to this moment, this is the AV for these articles that we generated. AV is definitely an important part. These are the journalists that were brought, and we offer them a recap of the journalists, which are the publications that they normally work for. Actually, [inaudible 00:19:02] Living, it’s not tier one. Architectural Digest, it’s not there anymore. Forbes – this the Forbes columnist.

[00:19:09] YD: Most of these are not tier one.

[00:19:11] PC: You know what happens also when we are – since we have a very long conversation on this side, by the time we have the tickets and everything available, there is such a short time for the journalist to say, “Yes, that I ended up going for tier two.” Yeah.

[00:19:29] YD: You’re sort of locked in.

[00:19:31] PC: Okay. These are the attractions that they visit. Remember that the stakeholders or the clients of the tourism board. So those are the clients of my clients are the attractions and the hotels. They are going to use this same report to show to their own clients. A little bit Abu Dhabi. Yas Marina, these are all attractions that are pressuring my client to her press coverage. So it’s the client of the client. These are the attractions, then we visited them. These are the accommodation. Even Abu Dhabi, they don’t want to host, that they can’t afford to host more than two days. I have to go to [inaudible 00:20:09] transportation, business class guys.

[00:20:12] YD: This is actually, it reminds me, this is a great – what you were talking about earlier. I wasn’t in Abu Dhabi, right? I did a desk research story. I wrote about Qasr Al Sarab. And then I should have emailed Paula and said, “Hey, Paula. Check this out.” Which I think I did actually. I did or not, but you know, I honestly, I didn’t even think about doing that. Like I had a desk research – it was around that, It was profiling like bachelorette destinations around the world for Condé Nast Traveler that has nice properties that I listed there. And I reached out to the properties, I did all the research. Then definitely send these articles to the properties, but I never thought to then contact each PR agency for each destination and say, “Hey! Stop.”

[00:20:56] PC: Right. 

[00:20:56] YD: Which I told you they should have.

[00:20:58] PC: Yeah. But you’re right, this – 

[00:21:00] YD: But it doesn’t work –

[00:21:01] PC: Yeah. But this have a very strong PR to marketing persons. The Qasr Al Sarab, Jumeriah at Abu Dhabi. So definitely contact them directly, partnership. These are some of the images of when we did the activities. Then we asked them, and this is something that we’re going to replicate here as well. For each attraction, what was the experience, and if they have any comments. Again, this was something that is going to be shared as well to each of the stakeholders. Each of them gave their response as well. Here we have some social media, which is added value. We didn’t bring them for their social media outreach, but it’s an added value.

[00:21:40] YD: And you cannot hear that her follower count is not that big. But this still is counting. We are putting in there like – and I point this out for many of you, and others who’ve asked me like I don’t have that big of a follower count. I say in today’s world, it all counts. You know.

[00:21:56] GUEST 3: If you have one fabulous photo, you have a photo account, a useful –

[00:22:00] YD: Honestly also, and maybe we’ll talk about it more in the next session. Fifty engaged people who love your work, I think counts more than 50,000 that are just scrolling through. That’s just my own opinion. She’s like, “Okay. I don’t have mine, yeah.” 

[00:22:14] PC: No, I am not into the social...

[00:22:17] YD: Look, none of them have the [inaudible 00:22:19].

[00:22:19] PC: The publication – you see, estimated. This is the main thing that Abu Dhabi would ask me about. How much money? The first thing they would ask me if I send any release, “Oh, look up this is article.” “Yeah, how much?” Forbes, I guess Forbes, this guy had a lot of flexibility to write for Forbes, and they love it and I’m like, “They love it in Abu Dhabi.” “Oh! This guy is great. He keeps on writing for Forbes.” I’m like, “Yeah, he’s awesome.” So yeah. And then here, for architecture, all that jazz. So normally, what happens is, as you mentioned, I don’t have all tier one media architecture. All I had was the first one. So I can bring a combination in the group. I mean, if I have one that it’s a tier one media, I have a trade publication, I have a tier two publication. You know, that works. 

[00:23:04] GUEST 3: I was just going to say, Paula, do you find that the tier one – this is kind of my experience here, that they reach out to you more one on one than going on press trips.

[00:23:13] PC: They do.

[00:23:15] GUEST 3: Like New York Times, Washington Post, that kind of, Travel Leisure, Conde Nast, they reach out to us directly when they’re going to do something, when they’re interested in doing something here.

[00:23:25] YD: I think it depends on the story, to be honest.

[00:23:27] GUEST 3: I’m sure.

[00:23:28] YD: Like if I have a story that’s really, like needs a very specialized itinerary, it makes more sense for me to reach out and do an individual press trip versus going on a group. I think it depends on the kind of story you’re after.

[00:23:41] PC: That they’re like – a lot of times, they’ll hire someone to come and do –

[00:23:45] YD: Oh, you’re talking about if the magazine is sending somebody? 

[00:23:47] PC: Yeah, the magazine, rather than going on the press trips, send a designated person which could be you once they’re familiar with you to the destination.

[00:23:57] YD: Yes, for sure. I think the other point that you and I actually chatted about this before, which I think maybe it’s important to voice now. You were telling me how surprised you were that when a writer comes to you, and he or she is secured for a press trip, they never bring along their friends or pitch their friends. Remember we talked about this?

[00:24:17] PC: In the plus one, yes.

[00:24:18] YD: No, not the plus one.

[00:24:20] PC: Oh, yes. Especially when I’m pitching with influencers or the travel writers, I have to do the effort to pitch a group.

[00:24:32] YD: Gather a group together.

[00:24:33] PC: To gather a group and sometimes, it’s like, as I told you, I’m struggling to finish in the itinerary, the flights, whatever. But I never get any suggestion from the influencer or the travel writer to bring someone that they feel comfortable with another colleague I’m talking to. I have to go and pitch another one, and I would love for the group to know themselves and to produce all of them together. Yeah, that’s something that hasn’t happened.

[00:25:03] YD: Which is two points here I want to add. One of them is, for me, it’s proof of how this industry is, where it’s, every man woman for himself or herself, which I’m actually trying to change that in a small way at least. And also, I was surprised when she told me that because I somehow thought also that they don’t want us to pitch our friends or colleagues. But actually, for them, it makes their job easier, actually. If we bring them three more people, or two more people or whatever, you already have a group form.

[00:25:29] PC: Yes. Right. Right.

[00:25:32] GUEST 3: And on our side, we work constantly with our peers in other cities and things. We just assume that that’s how all travel and tourism stuff, because we share with each other, the resources for each other.

[00:25:46] YD: I think freelancers are notorious for not doing that, because it’s such a competitive –

[00:25:49] GUEST 3: Which is understandable. 

[00:25:51] YD: Well, I actually, I think it shouldn’t be like that.

[00:25:53] GUEST 4: It sounds like a good opportunity in there somewhere if you got a really strong –

[00:25:58] PC: Well, you know what happens if you don’t do it, but there’s somebody there that it’s doing it for you, and taking money, which is the people that are gathering all the influencers together. The broker that I say, that’s what they’re doing. They are putting groups for you together. 

[00:26:13] GUEST 4: I mean, if I pass that – 

[00:26:14] PC: You can organize it yourself or bring people yourself and talk directly to the tourism board. We’re a bunch of – [inaudible 00:26:23] Yeah, for something like that.

[00:26:26] GUEST 4: From the Dallas Fort Worth area that puts together, and these are all bloggers, and podcasters and social media influencers. They’re not print, but they now make an annual trip to Waco and do kind of similar to this. But we’d love that they come here.

[00:26:45] PC: No, that’s great.

[00:26:47] GUEST 4: That’s an example of one that they don’t talk to us. I don’t know when they’re coming. I hear from like, they stay at one of the vacation rentals so that they’re all in one place. That’s who I hear it from, and then I have to hand up the information which you don’t want us to have to do.

[00:27:04] PC: Share, share, share. 

[END OF DISCUSSION]

[00:27:06] YD: Thank you so much for listening today. I hope you enjoyed hearing a bit about how our Travel Media Bootcamp in Texas went. If so, please consider leaving us a review so that more listeners could find our show. I can’t stress how important it is for us to get reviews of our podcast. It really helps us to get in front of more people who might enjoy our show. If you’ve been inspired by something you heard today, or in any other episodes of our show, please consider leaving us your review. That’s one of the best ways you can support our podcast. Don’t forget, if you’d like to know when the next Travel Media Bootcamp opens, and which destination we’ll go to, be sure to visit travelmedialab.com/trip. That’s T-R-I-P to be notified when we do. Thank you again and I’ll see you next week when I’ll be sharing with you a very special episode from inside our membership, The Circle.

[END]