Blogging for Love and Press Trips

Blogging for Love –
And Press Trips!
7 Tips to Build Your
Reputation in the Travel
Industry –
and 5 Ways to Wreck It!

ENMN Conference
Anaheim, CA
February 15, 2014
Presented by
Peggy Bendel
Bendel Communications
International

Peggy Bendel, President of Bendel Communications
International, headed the Tourism Division of Development
Counsellors International (DCI) from 1985 to 2008, working with
more than 50 clients around the globe, including Australia,
California, Denver, Dubai, South Africa, U.S. Virgin Islands,
Scotland and Tasmania.
A principal in the seminal I Love New York campaign, Peggy
began her career as a travel writer for the State of New York,
and worked in economic development and international trade
as well as tourism.
She is the author of “It’s a crisis! NOW what?” The first step-bystep handbook for the global tourism and hospitality industry,
published in 2012. Peggy blogs on the topic at
itsacrisisnowwhat.com.

Peggy received the Lifetime Achievement in Public Relations
award from the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association
International (HSMAI). She sits on the Boards of the
Association of Travel Marketing Executives (ATME.org),
Destination and Travel Foundation (DestinationMarketing.org),
Ecology Project International (EcologyProject.org) and the
Society of American Travel Writers (SATW). She is a past Chair
of the Public Relations Society of America’s (PRSA.org) Travel
& Tourism section.
She and her husband live in Tucson, AZ and New York.

www.BendelCommunications.com

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Our Client Experience


Thank You to SATW Members:
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Tom Adkinson
Susan Farlow
Jackie Sheckler Finch
Elizabeth Hanson
Candy Harrington
Durant Imboden
Susan McKee
Maribeth Mellin
Diane Lambdin Meyer
Toby Saltzman

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1. Find your voice.
• Don't just regurgitate press releases -- put your own personal
spin on them.

• Let your personality show through in your writing.
• Having a specific niche helps, too.

Image courtesy of imagerymajestic/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Follow that blog (or e-newsletter)…
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Ricksteves.com
Johnnyjet.com
Everything-Everywhere.com
PeterGreenberg.com
Souvenirist.com
SmarterTravel.com
BlyontheFly.com
Unchainedtravel.com
Placeswegopeoplewesee.com
Shermanstravel.com
Thetravelmavens.com
Susanfarlow.tumbler.com
Yourlifeisatrip.com
Takeoffwithterry.blogspot.com
Sfgate.com/badlatitude
Frommers.com
Ontravel.com
Intelligenttravel.nationalgeographic.com
Greatestgetaways.com
Usatoday.com/travel

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Theprivilegedpooch.com
EuropeforVisitors.com
Glutenfreeguidebook.com
Greatescapesnorcal.com
Allthingscruise.com
Cruisecurrents.com
Cruisecritic.com
Floridahikes.com
GutsyTraveler.com
Skisnowboard.com
Globetrottingmama.com
Barrierfreetravels.com
Escapehatchdallas.com
Ecoexplorer.com
Argentinaexpert.net
Larrygolfstheworld.com
Canadaluxury.travel
Georgiafishing.com
Foodafar.com
Thespagals.com
OutdoorFamilyTravel.com


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2. Be professional from the start.
Learn how to present yourself as a writer:
• Know the data about your readership and reach, Google
analytics, Klout score, and more.
• Understand how your readers/followers mesh with the
destination, attraction, hotel, activity, tour operator, etc.
• Make sure your post is letter perfect; original; 100%
factually correct; honest.
• Do not think of travel writing as an avenue to get "free
trips" but rather as an avenue of creative selfexpression.


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3. Don’t work for free, unless…

Courtesy Oliver Emberton: www.oliveremberton.com


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4. ‘Coverage' is not 'promotion'
• PR contacts or hosts are not 'clients' unless you're being paid
to write for their blogs and not for your own."
• Don't offer to "review" businesses in return for admission, a
meal or lodging. Your offer to "review" is an offer to trade
services, and that's not what you're supposed to be doing.
• Know the difference between a journalist and a copywriter,
and decide which you want to be. (If you're freelancing and
hope to get editorial assignments, think twice about using
your byline on 'advertorial.")


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5. Know what a trip is all about
before signing up.
• Don't accept an invitation for a culinary press trip if what you
really want is soft adventure. Not a golfer? Don’t say “yes” to
a golf trip, diving trip if you fear the water, or a horseback trip
if you don’t know how to ride.
• You'll be miserable…and so will your hosts (they’ll be angry,
too!).

Images courtesy of Grant Cochrane, vectorolie/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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6. Remember, You’re Not on Vacation!
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This is a job: approach it as a professional.
It's not all fun.
It's a job, one that many others would love, so…No whining!
Review your notes before you go to sleep and
jot down all those things you're sure you'll
remember…but you won’t!

Images courtesy of digitalart, Arvind Balaraman, imagerymajestic/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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7. Bring all of your tools: and backup!
No itinerary includes time to hunt for extra pens or
notebooks, or stop to buy digital camera memory cards,
power cords or a voice recorder for someone who forgot
the tools of their trade.

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Now you’ve built it…
don’t ruin it!

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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1. Don’t produce results.
• Never accept a trip if you aren't sure you can sell a story on
the topic. Journos aren't invited just because they are such
great company!
• Publications – online and off – go out of business, change
editors, kill stories: but as a blogger, you control your content.
• Multiple stories are the norm, for a multi-day trip.
• Tweeting and blogging during the trip are appreciated; if you
can add content to Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook or other
outlets in addition to your blog, so much the better.


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2. Be late – for everything!
If a writer or photographer is not on time, PR pros should –
and often will - leave that person behind. It is very
inconsiderate and unprofessional to make others wait and get
behind schedule.
• If you’re asked to complete paperwork in advance (for a visa,
hotel registration, food allergies and other background
details), DO IT ON TIME!

Image courtesy of photostock/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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3. Bring your dog, 3 kids and the
neighbors along – without asking!
• Every piece of writing, it seems to me, rests on four pillars of
engagement: with your subject, with yourself, with your audience,
and with your writing. Each of these is essential to the success of a
piece.
• You have to engage with your subject, to understand its history,
character, and heart.
• You have to engage with yourself, to understand and mine the
deeper connection between you and your chosen subject.
• You have to engage with your audience, keeping some sense of
their background, knowledge, and interests in mind as you develop
your piece and choose what to include and what to leave out.
• And you have to engage with your writing, to make it as precise,
melodic, and meaningful as possible.


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4. Be a diva, or a bully!
• You may get your way this time when it comes to changes in
itineraries, preferred accommodations or dropped charges for
personal items at a hotel, but your hosts and fellow travel
writers will remember, share their experience and you'll soon
find yourself persona non grata.

Images courtesy of David Castillo Dominici, patrisyu and Clare Bloomfield/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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5. Get drunk, break your leg, then
refuse to travel home for the next
month!
Yes, this really happened when one of my staff was escorting a
press group to an island destination!

Image courtesy of Grant Cochrane/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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SATW Code of Ethics
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Code of Ethics
Principle I: SATW members shall maintain the highest
professional standards.
Principle II: SATW members shall conduct business in a
professional manner.
Principle III: SATW members shall maintain the highest
standards of professionalism on press trips and sponsored
activities.
Principle IV: SATW members shall avoid all real or perceived
conflicts of interest.


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Code of Conduct
1. Program Participation
2. Itinerary or Program Changes
3. Respecting Local Customs

4. Online Conduct
5. Alcoholic Beverages
6. Claims and/or Complaints

7. Penalties for Violations of the Code


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Don George
Lonely Planet’s
Guide to Travel Writing

Than Fiction
@don_george

Better

Reproduced with permission from National
Geographic's Intelligent Travel blog
www.BendelCommunications.com 21

Where do you want to go and why do you
want to go there?
• The why is an essential part of this equation; it becomes the
vehicle that moves the story along. So I look for things–
festivals, spiritual sites, historic sites, beliefs, rituals,
wildernesses, legacies, characters–that excite me in a place,
things that stand out as potential passion points and
connections.
• Finally, if I can, I try to frame my journey in the context of a
quest: I’m going to X in search of Y… Why? This approach
lends the story a built-in nice narrative arc, a shape, that can
make the experience on the ground and in the writing
ultimately much more cohesive and compelling–and a lot less
painful.


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What’s the story?
• I vacuum up all the information I can. Why? Even with the Internet,
there’s a wealth of things–brochures, postcards, plaques, bulletin
board flyers–that ooze important information about this place that
you won’t be able to access once you’re back home.
• I know from unfortunate experience early in my career that the last
thing you want is to be on the other side of the world three months
later, frantically turning your backpack inside out in fruitless search
for a piece of essential data that you didn’t realize was going to be
essential at the time, and thus left behind.
• The other thing I’m always trying to do is to hone my focus. I can’t
repeat this enough: Focus; focus; focus. Look for the telling little
details that capture a taste, a person, an experience–the small truths
that illuminate the larger truths. And, almost more importantly, write
them down!

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What am I learning?
• This is another version of the question I asked at the
beginning of this column–What’s the story?–but with a more
personal twist.
• What is this place and my experience here revealing to me?
What gifts are they bestowing upon me? How are they
changing and challenging and expanding me? What, really,
am I learning here?
• This question will become crucial in the third phase of your
journey–when you’re trying to figure out what to write once
you’re back home.


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How did you learn that lesson? What were
the steps that led you to understand it?
• I identify and write down these steps, tracing my journey to the
lesson. Then I pick out a few essential stepping stones and try to
recall as vividly as possible the experiences, details, and characters
involved in each.
• Those stepping stones become the map of my journey, the path I’ll
follow to write the story.
• One thing I always try to remember is that the story is not ultimately
about me, it’s about the place. That’s what the reader wants to know
about.
• My experience is the vehicle that illuminates the place.
• My job as a travel writer is to present my experiences in that place in
such a vivid and coherent way that the lesson I learned–my own
quintessential takeaway–is shared on a profound level with the
people who are reading about it.


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How did you learn that lesson? What were the
steps that led you to understand it?, con’t.
• When you return from three weeks or three months on the road, you
often you have a book’s worth of experiences and stories. But if
you’re writing just one story, you need to focus.
• The beauty of the stepping-stone approach to storytelling is that it
lends direction to the writing process. Figuring out the lesson you
want to tell, and the steps that led to that lesson, helps you discard
all the encounters and events–however wonderful and memorable
they may have been–that don’t play a role in that particular lesson.
• You need to ruthlessly edit your experience, cutting away everything
that doesn’t contribute to the reader reaching the same place, the
same illumination, that you have reached.
• But the prize is priceless! When you can successfully bring the
reader to that same illumination with you, when you can share a
place’s quintessential lesson, you create one more connection in the
beautiful chain that links writer and reader, traveler and traveler,
visitor and resident.


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Image courtesy of supakitmod/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Image courtesy of basketman/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Q&A


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Thank you!
Peggy@BendelCommunications.com
@PeggyBendel


Blogging for Love and Press Trips

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