Tourism Bureaus and Bloggers

Chris, you have brought up a very hot topic within the CVB world right now and I’m glad to see this topic is open for debate.

We at Experience Columbus took baby steps in entering the social media realm over the past few months and held a blogger only event just two months ago to begin dialogue and engage the local blogging community. We have been hosting travel bloggers for years, but until recently had been more reactive than proactive in inviting them to our city.

Through our presence on local blogs and Twitter, along with our other social media outlets we have formed a great new relationship with the blogosphere that has carried over into the travel blogging community specifically. Actually, I am hosting writer/blogger Mary Gallagher this weekend, http://www.gallagherstravels.com/travelnotebook/

Scott Peacock
Media Relations Manager
Experience Columbus

I have to add another point which I didn’t raise in an earlier comment.

What I would hate to see is tourist boards and the travel industry assume that bloggers are “easy picking” in that we aren’t linked to a media outlet so we’ll promote anything and everything for a few bucks.

You only have to look at the amount of press releases that bloggers now receive – companies are continously asking me to write a review about their company, even though I have never booked a holiday with them, or used their site to search.

I refuse to be bought, and I am sure they’re many other bloggers who feel the same. I would hate to see bloggers being bought into free trips in return for righting nice and fluffy reviews about the destination.

Wow, there’s so much great commentary here that I had to stop in twice.

I wanted to respond to Darren, obliquely. I think that he brings up something that the PR/CVB folks probably find really hard to navigate – if they want genuinely critical commentary on what they’re offering.

There ARE bloggers who will simply reprint or revise and then post press releases. That’s the easy pickings right there, eh? Then there are bloggers who are more conscientious and bother to ask questions, check things out, do their homework, and formulate an opinion before they post.

After some more thinking (and some input from other interested bloggers) I realize it must be very time consuming for PR/CVB folks to differentiate between those types of bloggers. (Before you flame, I realize there are many different kinds of bloggers, not just two.) From the PR/CVB side, it sure seems advantageous to reach the lazy ones, but a better investment in the long term to reach the more conscientious ones because it means building relationships, like some of the people on the PR/CVB side on this thread have bothered to do.

Good points Pam oh and Hi :)

There’s one word TRUST.

It is not going to be in the interest of a tourism bureau, if no one trusts what the blogger writes about if they have a track record of writing fluffy paid reviews, or copying press releases word for word.

I would want to read a review or report that looks at the positive and negative sides of the destination. Blogs need to add value, not clutter the internet up even more.

From a social media perspective I love being able to communicate with companies and tourism boards on Facebook and Twitter, and as a consumer, I like that the internet has opened up communication channels.

I wrote about this earlier in the week, click on my name to read the post (disgraceful plug I know!)

I am thrilled that we have huge participation of our tourism officials and vendors at next weekend’s Podcamp + Wordcamp Hawaii. I can say easily we would not be doing such a first class event on such a grand scale without their support. I think it will be a powerful experience for all of us.

And to agree with TravelingMamas, the folks like Nate Kam and Michael Ni at MWC-Anthology get it.

We are always scoping places and sites for our travel site, and I am completely surprised by the lack of response from 90% of tourist offices I query. The exceptions have been Hawaii, Scotland, and any jazz or music festivals. You’d think promoters would be glad for any story angle, when a writer asks for more info. ?! Great topic!

Coming late to this, but I just wanted to say, excellent post and conversation!

As some of you here already know, I am a freelance writer specializing in family travel. We are going on our third year of an open ended tour around the world and blog about it at http://soultravelers3.com/ and we take disadvantaged kids with us through the award winning non-profit Reach The World.

I’m am glad to see the tide is turning, but have to agree that most are missing the tremendous value of travel bloggers.

The public does not seem to be missing it, our first Youtube video zoomed to almost a million view almost instantly.

There are some fantastic travel bloggers out there and it is time for more tourism bureaus and pr firms find them!

As someone with one foot in the blogging world and one in the print world, I see both sides.

I blog on my own site (http://wanderlustandlipstick.com/about-beth/blog/) and write a series of guide books for women travelers (the Wanderlust and Lipstick guides).

I know the value of blogging and the fact that the more mentions a location/book/product receives online, the more potential for sales/visits. However, their is a higher perceived value placed on print reviews and recommendations than for those online.

It’s no different with “selling” a destination for the CVB’s/PR firms. They have limited resources (as mentioned earlier) and, for now, need to focus their resources on newspapers and magazines (both, sadly, dying industries).

But, they are slowly but surely coming around and will eventually figure out a way to reach high value bloggers (and by that I mean the ones for their potential customers). They SHOULD be careful about who they extend offers to – I’ve heard too many stories about so-called print writers taking fam trips with absolutely no intention of writing about their experiences. (Shame on the CVBs/PR companies for not choosing more wisely.)

With that said, travel (and write) on!

What an interesting article and thread!

How do the CVB people deal with the tendency of the internet to be hyper critical? A newspaper or magazine article is unlikely to say that a particular restaurant is completely awful, but bloggers are often snarky and snide. The CVB can’t be using their members dues to host a bash fest.

@ Julie.

“bloggers are often snarky and snide”

Do you not mean that bloggers do not hide the truth whereas the media write fluffy reviews. Why is it so wrong to be critical about a destination, a trip, or vacation?

The internet has given consumers the voice, and thank god for that as they’re too many people writing rubbish to get them a few bucks.

Hi Darren

It’s not wrong to be critical – it’s just crazy to think that a PR person would pay you to do so. The purpose of the CVB is to attract customers for their members. The members pay them dues to do their PR.

There is often gold in them thar hills of criticism and as more people understand how to value this free market research I think they will be willing to pay for it. Many of us can think of situations where a business falls off because of poor WOM yet no one had the courage to inform the owner of the negative word on the street. Most businesses want to do their best – and having an accurate report (as compared to only looking at the positives) is incredibly important IMO.

Tourists feel taken advantage of on a regular basis (just like home buyers) because only the positive features are mentioned, not the negative ones.

In my experience, people can actually handle the so-called negative features just fine, if they know about them and can plan for them. It’s when they feel hijacked that “the beautiful view” also comes with unmentioned “construction noise next door” that can backfire. If a blogger mentions both, and the buyer chooses to come anyway, then the blogger has just handled a customer service problem in advance, for free, for the hotel owner.

This is the magic and the value of transparency in communication. PR has traditionally been all about spin, and putting the best foot forward, not putting the truth forward. They don’t need to be mutually exclusive.

Great post. I welcome this new approach and have been wondering why it wasn’t already here a long time ago. Been waiting for it.

I’ve never understood why companies are so afraid of negative reviews. It’s a great way to grow, to get better in what they’re doing. If they wanna be good, who is better to judge it than the customer/guests?

They would win lots of kudos from travelers if they did meet the criticism with a professional approach – meaning: admitting that something isn’t as good as they wish, but that they’re working hard on it and changing it. That’s real good PR in my opinion!

Thanks Chris for publishing this post.

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