Foursquare for tourist boards

It’s the latest craze in social media: location based social networking. Foursquare is the frontrunner, and the tourism industry is starting to sit up and take note. Read more

Twitter tips for tourist boards

Following on from my post last week about how tourist boards should approach Facebook, it seems only right to move onto that other staple of social media, Twitter. Read more

Facebook for tourist boards – eight rules

It’s a standard requirement now, as a marketing organisation, any tourist board, DMO or CVB should have a Facebook page. We’ve created quite a few for clients now, to varying degrees of success (probably the most successful being New Mexico’s) and so I’ve had a look at the differentiators affecting this. Read more

Why we shouldn’t bother with blog trips

Firstly, I should probably admit that the headline to this post may be a little attention grabbing (hey, if journalists can do it, so can I) but, barring one or two exceptions it is what I think. Read more

Travel PR has changed #3: video news releases (VNRs)

It has long been important for travel PRs to secure TV coverage on behalf of its clients. I wrote way back in 2007 about how BBC Holiday and Wish You Were Here gave way to ‘Feelgood Factual’ programmes like Coast and Britain’s Favourite View. I also wrote about how celebrity-led travel programmes are really the only way you can get any decent-length coverage on the main TV channels. Read more

WTM London 2009: Video Report

At World Travel Market this year we spoke to some key people in the industry about their experiences of the show and their predictions for travel in 2010. Read more

Travel PR has changed #2: search engine optimisation (SEO)

Following our first ‘travel PR has changed‘ post, there was a small uproar about it’s fairly blatant motivation: SEO. The merits of the post have been discussed, but the way we see it is, it was an experiment, and though its credibility is debatable, there needs to be room for experimentation in blog posts otherwise nobody learns. For that reason, all criticism was welcomed, and we hope everyone involved at least found the subsequent debate interesting. Read more

WTM London 2009: what we’ve learned

So another World Travel Market comes to an end, and WTM 2009 has been a whirlwind show for McCluskey International. We’ve been filming with videographer Emma Brumpton, interviewing stand holders, tour operators and media on their experiences of the show and the industry in general this year – the edits will be up here soon, so watch this space. Read more

Travel PR has Changed #1: Comments & Forums

It used to be the case that we would write a press release, send it out and that would be it. We would hope it generated some coverage, which would be picked up by the press cuttings agency. But once we’d sent out the release, we would essentially move on to the next task or story for the client. Read more

Travel PR has changed

Travel PR has changed. When I started my career in travel PR at the tender age of 21, for each client we faxed (yes, remember fax?!) out one press release per month – no matter whether it was newsworthy or not, that was the quota. We arranged for journalists to visit hotels. We followed the features lists from the trade magazines. Read more

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