Every January as the new business year begins travel PR firms are hard at work planning and organizing press trips for the calendar year. Our portfolio of hotel and travel clients trust our proven, systematic approach to press trip planning, which year after year has garnered outstanding, powerful feature coverage.
As we get to work confirming attendees and planning itineraries for our clients’ trips this Spring, here are a few tips to help you ensure that you execute a successful press trip that will bring your hotel, destination or travel company the results you seek.
- Target Your Geographic Target Markets – Track where your guests are traveling from and work with your PR agency to target not just national publications that reach your target demographic, but also the high-impact glossy regionals that directly reach your geographic markets. For instance, if 45% of your guests are from the New York metro area, it makes sense to target such publications as Downtown, Manhattan Magazine, Westchester Magazine, etc that are guaranteed to reach travelers that are interested in your destination.
- Guidebooks Influence Traveler Choices – Not only do such guidebook powerhouses as Fodor’s Travel and Frommer’s still heavily influence international travelers, but they also offer tremendous value in their online and social media components. Hosting editors from guidebooks on press trips not only leads to up-to-date and accurate reviews in the books themselves, but also powerful blog posts that often take social media by storm.
- Put Thought into Choosing Your Dates – Don’t let anyone fool you, the dates you choose for your press trip are incredibly important. Take into account the time of year, optimal length to thoroughly experience the property and destination and ideal days of the week both for the hotel and the journalists attending. In general, three to five nights is usually a good amount of time to get full feel for a resort. Avoid holiday periods and months that tend to be event heavy (think May and June with graduation ceremonies, etc).
- Provide the Ideal Experience – Hotels strive to provide guests with the ideal experience every time and when journalists are visiting a hotel it is essential that you ensure their experience reflects everything you strive towards in the presentation of your brand. Offer a well-rounded itinerary that both allows them to fully experience and understand the hotel (think site inspection, spa treatment, excursions, tasting menus, etc) and also enjoy sufficient downtime, as a traveler visiting the resort would.
Sound off in the comments and let us know if you have any questions related to press trip planning and execution.