The Do's and Don'ts of Press Trips

One of the first things that happened to me as a travel blogger that gave me feedback that I was heading in the right direction was when I was invited to my first press trip. This was in large part thanks to a referral from another travel blogger (again…the power of networking!) and I was excited as heck. Thing was, I didn’t really know what to expect or how to prepare. I ended up having to learn and improvise on the fly but you don’t have to.

My interview with Tripeasel

Some of you may know that I’m one of the ambassadors for the new travel startup Tripeasel. As part of the program, they’re doing an great job at building a community amongst travel bloggers. One of the things that we’ve been doing have been these webinars.

Watch the video recording of the webinar below. While this is more like a travel blogger’s toolkit post, I wanted to frame it around what I normally do for my podcast so below you’ll find the show notes and the appropriate links to things that I reference in the show.

Enjoy!

In this particular webinar, you will learn

WEBINAR NOTES

Press trip basics
- 2 types
  - Organized press trip – Fixed itineraries, for bloggers/journalists, mostly fully comped
  - Self-guided press trip – Work with a tourism board to support you on your trip, plan your own itinerary
Organized press trip
- Pros
  - Everything is planned, don’t need to spend too much time
  - Everything is taken care of (for the most part)
  - Get to meet a lot of journalists/bloggers along the way which is great for networking
- Cons
  - Herded around in a van/bus
  - Don’t have a choice for what you’re going to see, lack of flexibility
  - Have to deal with a lot of personalities on the trip – You’re stuck with them
  - Very rushed
Self guided press trip
- Pros
  - A lot of freedom to do what you want to do
  - Easier to do this with your own travel companion
- Cons
  - Not as many costs are covered
Do’s & don’ts
- Do’s
  - Pre-trip preparation
    - Packing – Read your itinerary
    - Social media
      - Schedule your messages
      - Knowing your handles and hashtags
      - Use a hashtag that’s trackable
      - Think beforehand what you’re going to write about
  - During the trip
    - Photography – You only have one chance
    - Focus on the things that matter to you
    - Bring and give business cards
    - Record audio
  - Post trip
    - Analytics – Start capturing data
    - Thank yous
    - Post trip follow up
    - Finish your work in a timely manner
- Don’t
  - Don’t be unprofessional
  - Post bad experiences without discussing it first
  - Don’t assume everything is paid for