The Best Practices in Travel Blogging - World Travel Market

BEST PRACTICES IN TRAVEL BLOGGING - WHITE PAPER
The Best Practices in
Travel Blogging
M. Boecher
O. Gradwell
K. Jenkins
J. Waugh
&
Four bgb
in association with

CONTENTS
Table of Contents
This white paper delivers the best practices in travel blogging.
A number of international experts deliver key messages and a
selection of important case studies to help you gain a
competitive advantage when working with travel bloggers.
Meet The Authors! ! ! ! ! ! 2-3
An Introduction To Travel Bloggers:!! 4-5
! What Is A Travel Blogger?! ! ! 4
! What Is A Blog Trip?! ! ! ! 5
Planning A Blog Trip, An Agency Approach:! 6-8
! Defining The Objectives! ! ! 6
! Planning The Itinerary! ! ! 7
! Choosing The Bloggers! ! ! 8
! Managing Expectations! ! ! 8
! Think Outside The Box! ! ! 8
Beyond The Blog Trip!! ! ! ! 9-11
! Travel Bloggers as Entrepreneurs! 10
! Customer Engagement Specialists! 11
! Travel Bloggers as Consultants! 11
Case Study - #LoveCapeTown! ! ! 12-13
! Introduction! ! ! ! ! 12! ! !
! The Results! ! ! ! ! 13
Case Study - BlogVille in Emilia Romagna 14-15
Case Study - Hosting A Travel Bloggers !! !
! ! Unite Conference! ! ! 16-18
! What Is A TBU Conference?! ! 16! ! !
! Why Do People Attend?! ! ! 17
! The TBU Conference Concept! ! 17
! How Do Hosts Benefit?! ! ! 18-18
!
Case Study - Hosting A Combined Blogger !
! ! ! and Traditional Media Trip 19-21
Calculating Online Media ROI! ! ! 22-23
1

THE AUTHORS
Meet The Authors
Melvin Boecher www.traveldudes.org
melvin@traveldudes.org
Traveldudes love to travel, to discover the
world, to travel free & untroubled & still likes to
be informed like an insider! These were the
reasons why Melvin started Traveldudes.org. A
homepage where travellers can exchange their
passion and experiences. For Travellers, By Travellers!
Follow Traveldudes on Twitter
@Traveldudes.
Oliver Gradwell www.travelbloggersunite.com
oliver@travelbloggersunite.com
Oliver is the founder and director of Travel
Bloggers Unite (TBU), an online community of
1600+ travel bloggers which hold international
travel blogger conferences in a variety of
destinations. Oliver founded the company after
a career in the travel industry.
2

Keith Jenkins www.velvetescape.com
keith@velvetescape.com
Ruth Haffenden www.fourbgb.com
info@fourcommunications.com
Keith Jenkins is the Founder and Publisher of
the Velvet Escape luxury travel blog. Based in
Amsterdam, Keith left his ten-year investment
banking career to carve out a new career as a
travel blogger and social media advocate. Keith
often speaks at travel and social media conferences,
and offers social media consultancy and
marketing services via his Velvet Connect and
iambassador.net brands.
Janice Waugh www.solotravelerblog.com
Four bgb is a specialist travel PR, representation and social media
agency with over twenty years experience delivering game-changing
campaigns for clients across the world. Part of Four Communications,
Four bgb works alongside in–house creative, digital, design, web and
publishing teams as well as events, marketing, sponsorship and media
buying services to deliver award winning integrated campaigns
info@solotravelerblog.com
Janice is author of The Solo Traveler’s Handbook,
now in its 2nd edition, publisher of Solo
Traveler, the blog for those who travel alone,
and moderator of the Solo Travel Society on
Facebook with over 8000 members. She has
been a go-to person on solo travel for CNN, the
Oprah Blog, the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune,
LA Times and USA Today.
Jaillan Yehia www.savoirthere.com
hello@savoirthere.com
Our thanks goes to Jaillan for her advice and help in
compiling the white Paper, including editing the
whole document for us.
3

AN INTRODUCTION TO TRAVEL BLOGGING
An Introduction To
Travel Bloggers
by Oliver Gradwell
What Is A Travel Blogger?
Travel bloggers are writers first. But they are also editors and
publishers. Further, they are often marketing managers, sales
representatives, publicists, spokespeople, bookkeepers, website
developers and chief executive officers.
Through the personal nature of their experiences and of social
media, travel bloggers create a sense of trust amongst their
readers, in part due to the personal nature of their.
Travel bloggers are able to offer an extraordinary blend of
promotional exposure when they travel. They can promote a
trip prior to departure, through a series of “teaser posts” and
content items across their social media channels. This will
sow the seed of interest amongst their readership for the
upcoming trip.
© Porto and North CVB
4

During the trip travel bloggers can leverage their following
on social media by producing valuable and influential
content, based on their experiences, and importantly this is all
in real time.
Upon ‘returning’ home, the communication of their experiences
continues with follow-up posts on their own blogs and
those of others. Travel bloggers are enthusiastic photographers
and videographers, who often utilise these abilities to
create engaging and meaningful content.
The content a blogger creates also has a long shelf life, remaining
online until it is removed. The value this provides should
not be underestimated, as Google continues to move towards
a search experience that is more social than ever before.
What Is A Blog Trip?
Bloggers need access to Wi-Fi, not just at hotels in the evening
or at attractions, but also when they are travelling around.
Mobile Wi-Fi, or MiFi devices are often employed for this
purpose and they are a very valuable component to a blog
trip.
It should also be worth noting that travel bloggers are
unlikely to be travelling on a paid commission from an editor,
so their basic costs may be slightly higher as a result. It should
also be considered that travel bloggers are providing a greater
level of exposure that is really very valuable and has the
potential to create a greater return on investment. Therefore
the use of travel bloggers should not just be within the remit
of PR staff in-house or at agencies, but also the marketing
department of an organisation. To get the best out of travel
bloggers, a form of financial recompense from the trip should
be considered.
Press trips are tools that have been used to promote destinations
for many years now. A writer will head out to the
destination and then write about their experiences when they
return.
A blog trip differs for a variety of reasons, with the
triumvirate approach to promotion (as mentioned above),
being the most notable and valuable difference.
Whilst most people could tweet, take a photo or video and
upload it using their smart phones, many travel bloggers are
highly social media savvy individuals and are able to take
this usage to the next level, to really make the real-time
engagement they can offer effective.
5

PLANNING A BLOG TRIP
Planning A Blog
Trip: An Agency Approach
by Four bgb
As the increasingly travel blogger-centric agenda at this
year’s World Travel Market will attest, having the expertise to
run a successful blog trip is now essential to deliver an
effective, integrated PR campaign.
Each trip will of course have individual objectives, and bring
with it unique challenges, however there are a number of key
tenets which, if considered carefully, can provide a useful
model of best practice when planning blog trips. Here we
explore the pivotal points to be considered before detailing a
recent blogger outreach campaign for Visit Sweden (stand
EM140b) as a case study example (See page 19).
Defining objectives
Being aware of your objectives from the outset will not only
allow you to target the most appropriate travel bloggers but
will also mean you can effectively spell out what you would
like from them during and after the trip.
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Is it increased traffic to your website? More Facebook fans?
Increased brand awareness online? To work to change the
perceptions of your brand/ destination?
Planning the itinerary:
Don’t invite the guests and then plan the party. Ideally a full
itinerary should be confirmed before any approach is made to
potential attendees. In the same way as traditional media,
bloggers are likely to accept an invitation based on certain
hooks and angles that make the story right for their
readership; if the itinerary changes dramatically before the
trip leaves – expect some drop- outs. Having an itinerary
planned in advance not only means you can guarantee to
secure bloggers you know will be right for the trip, but you
are far less likely to have to fill last minute places when
would-be attendees are forced to turn down the new plan.
Be transparent. If something changes, let them know and plan
around it. Ultimately, itinerary changes can be unavoidable,
don’t cross your fingers and hope they won’t notice, this can
lead to the lose-lose situation of a blogger being part of an
activity they then can’t write about. For example, an itinerary
change in a recent trip to Sweden meant that the group was
set to stay a night and dine at the beautiful Ystad Saltsjobad
coastal spa, a wonderful opportunity, though one that posed
difficulty for budget blogger Kash Bhattacharya to credibly
engage his readers. After an open and honest discussion it
was decided that Kash would work on promoting the special
mid-week offers available at the spa to try ‘luxury for less’ as
well as being provided with a number of alternative
accommodation and dining options to try out in the area to
ensure readers had an option for every budget.
My new BFF. Keep up regular contact before you leave and be
flexible: Many bloggers are location independent so may be
planning travel before and after your trip based on your
timings, so frequent reassurance that all is well and plans are
moving forward is likely to be conducive to a trusting relationship
on both sides. As a number of bloggers attending the
featured Sweden trip were arriving in London on connecting
flights, overnight accommodation was arranged to bridge the
gap between trips and ensure they arrived in Sweden
refreshed and excited about the destination.
Plan to plan nothing.With all that hard work securing influential
bloggers able to engage their readers across the world, it’s
important to give them time to actually do this! A packed
schedule may be necessary to show them the best of your
destination but make sure there’s time for the group to absorb
the atmosphere, talk to locals, take pictures, tweet, check-in,
Instagram, write live blog posts. The more time they have to
themselves, the more digital collateral they’re likely to create;
run them ragged and they’ll all be asleep before you can say
#wastedopportunity.
Wi-Fi – to do or die by. Without Wi-Fi access, your group isn’t
communicating their actions with their readers live. A blog
trip without Wi-Fi is like a gig at the O2 without a mic – you
can buy the album afterwards but it’s not really the same. It
is understandable that certain areas of far-flung countries will
not have Wi-Fi access, but plan the itinerary to include regular
stops at Wi-Fi hot spots for tweets to be sent and photos to be
uploaded. Alternatively a mi-fi can be worth its weight in
gold. A mi-fi device is a portable Wi-Fi hotspot which
bloggers can tether their mobile devices to, which ensures
they can have Wi-Fi access on the go. This not only means the
group can promote your itinerary every step of the way, but
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it also means they won’t be hit with a large data roaming bill
on their return, likely to keep you popular – and it will cost
you less than £50 to purchase.
The power of planning. Don’t think that social media amplification
for your destination is confined to your trip; send out
the itinerary to the group before you travel and the likelihood
is they’ll look to the travel community to discuss the itinerary
and get hints and tips from other influencers, promoting your
content before they’ve even left. Involve the group in decisions;
give them options of activities, perhaps ask their readers
to decide certain elements of the itinerary, discuss it on
Twitter or Facebook. So much of the travel experience is
dreaming and planning, online buzz is not confirmed to the
here and now reporting.
Choosing and approaching bloggers – The horror of the
#prfail
We’ve all seen it on Twitter, the hashtag #prfail seems to be
bounced around all too often as travel companies and PRs get
it oh- so-wrong. Avoid it with one word – research. Researching
the bloggers you wish to approach not only means you
know they’re talking to your market, but you also know their
likes and dislikes and can tailor an invitation accordingly.
Two minutes reading a foodie travellers blog will tell you
they’re vegetarian and so your ‘Offal exploration’ isn’t going
to impress. Similarly inviting a couple on a romantic escape
when their last post details the horrors of their recent heartwrenching
break up, is not going to score you any points. Do
your research, personalise your approach and it’s win-win –
you secure a great blogger that you know is perfect for your
brand and they are far more likely to come back to you with
an answer as they’ve cut down on their spam emails by at
least 50%.
Just one post? Blog off! – negotiating outcomes
Traditionally it was easy, travel company invites journalist on
trip, journalist writes article, travel company happy. Bloggers
have a lot more to offer, be it pre-promotion, tweets, Facebook
posts, Instagram, Pinterest, videos, podcasts and more. This is
not to say they can/ should deliver something on every
channel, but it does mean it’s important to clarify exactly
what you expect them to produce, and in turn, what they are
comfortable promoting. Before places on trips are confirmed,
outline what you expect in terms of coverage, make it an open
discussion to ensure campaign objectives are met but the
blogger feels happy they can deliver good results. A written
agreement ahead of time means both parties can avoid disappointment
in the long run.
Get outside that box.
Hosting a successful blog trip can be a great addition to any
integrated PR campaign or as a standalone social media project.
What’s more, with new social media channels and digital
innovations springing up almost daily, the opportunities to
bring your brand into the digital sphere are endless. There is
no longer a template approach to working with bloggers; the
possibilities for collaboration are endless. So consider your objectives,
do your research, and think outside of the box –and
of course, come and talk to us over at Four bgb @fourbgb
8

BEYOND THE BLOG TRIP
Beyond The Blog
Trip
by Janice Waugh
Professional travel bloggers are publishing entrepreneurs.
They take responsibility for all aspects of their business.
In the publishing business, the first priority is to serve the
readership. Without readers, there is no business. With a blog
and readership in place, it is necessary to build a business
model that supports the blogger so that they can continue to
operate at a professional level.
“I wanted to be an editor or a journalist, I wasn't really interested
in being an entrepreneur, but I soon found I had to become an
entrepreneur in order to keep my magazine going.”
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Sir Richard Branson
Every travel blogger who takes their venture seriously
quickly learns that they must become entrepreneurs.
© Porto and North CVB
9

Travel Bloggers as Entrepreneurs
As with all entrepreneurs, travel bloggers develop creative
solutions to market challenges. Many innovative projects
have come to light thanks to their outside-the-box approaches
to the market.
4xfour
4xfour is a multimedia project that encompasses a six-part
television travel series and editorial and video content on
LiveShareTravel.com and Traveldudes.org. It also brings into
the equation the power of their social media platforms and
traditional public relations. Produced by Sarah and Terry Lee
of LiveShareTravel and TV presenter Cheryl Gibbs, it will
showcase destinations and brands to 12 million people as the
team travels to four continents in four months.
Luxury Hostels in Europe
Luxury Hostels in Europe is a real-time blogging project by
Kash Bhattacharya of BudgetTraveller.org. The project is
designed to inspire people to discover a new generation of
hostels that combine the comfort of a hotel with the passion
and social element of a hostel. Hostels are pre-selected and
pay a fee for a personal review, social media coverage and
inclusion in an e-book that will be distributed free through
the project’s sponsors and other channels.
Career Break Travel Show
The Career Break Travel Show is produced by Jeff Jung of
CareerBreakSecrets.com and will be distributed globally by
ConvergTV. The show focuses on various career break
experiences from around the world and is supported by the
Career Break Secrets blog and social media platforms.
The Traveler’s Handbooks
The Traveler’s Handbooks (thetravelershandbooks.com) is a
new series of travel books that focuses on how people choose
to experience the world. Launched in October of 2012 by six
bloggers, the first five books in the series are The Career Break
Traveler’s Handbook, The Food Traveler’s Handbook, The
Luxury Traveler’s Handbook, The Solo Traveler’s Handbook
2 nd edition and The Volunteer Traveler’s Handbook. More
handbooks on other travel styles are planned for 2013.
Meet Plan Go
Meet Plan Go (meetplango.com) is an annual event and online
programme for those planning long-term travel.
Launched in 2009, it is now in its third year. The event takes
place each October and in 2012 included ten cities - nine in the
United States and one in Canada. The online Career Break
Basic Training programme inspires and guides people
through the career break planning process.
10

Travel Bloggers as Customer Engagement
Specialists
In addition to entrepreneurial projects, travel bloggers work
with travel organizations to increase customer engagement in
a variety of innovative ways. Travel bloggers can:
• Support clients with expert content for client newsletters
and blogs.
• Act as travel niche experts in online webinars, hangouts or
on Facebook pages.
• Host Twitter chats sponsored by clients.
• Share posts from their clients’ Facebook fan pages on their
own Facebook fan pages.
Travel Bloggers as Consultants
Travel bloggers know their niche, their readers and travellers.
They also understand the social media channels they use to
reach their audience. As entrepreneurs, they often approach
travel companies with innovative promotional projects but
travel companies should also be encouraged to approach
travel bloggers with a challenge they are facing. Identify the
challenge with the right travel blogger/entrepreneur and you
will be on your way to an innovative programme/solution.
11

#LOVECAPETOWN
Case Study -
#LoveCapeTown
by Keith Jenkins
Cape Town Tourism launched a new marketing campaign in
November 2011 that aimed to promote an in-depth look at the
many natural, historical and cultural facets of the city.
iambassador.net proposed a campaign whereby four
bloggers, in collaboration with Cape Town Tourism, would
mobilise Capetonians to talk about their city via social media.
The main objectives of the campaign were to uncover hidden
dimensions to the city by crowdsourcing tips from locals, and
creating global exposure for Cape Town’s diverse attractions.
A week-long blog trip to Cape Town was planned, followed
by speaking engagements at the Getaway Travel Bloggers
Conference. The social media campaign was launched a week
prior to the trip whereby the bloggers invited Capetonians to
suggest things to do and see. The bloggers also invited their
readers to follow the bloggers around Cape Town via the
Twitter hashtag #LoveCapeTown.
12

Cape Town Tourism utilised their media channels to
announce the blog trip and the #LoveCapeTown campaign,
encouraging locals to participate and generating interest
throughout South Africa.
On the first day of the blog trip, a ‘Meet The Bloggers’ Twitter
chat was organised by Cape Town Tourism. Capetonians
reacted with great enthusiasm, submitting hundreds of tips.
During their week-long stay in Cape Town, the bloggers
followed up on some of the tips and tweeted about their
experiences, often including photos and short videos.
In addition, the bloggers attended various media events such
as a meeting with the local press. Radio/newspaper interviews
were also arranged. At the end of their week-long stay
in Cape Town, the bloggers each spoke about their area of
expertise at the Getaway Travel Bloggers Conference. Topics
covered included how to work with bloggers, travel writing
and leveraging social media. The bloggers presence at the
conference drew a record-breaking number of attendees, with
bloggers and tourism industry representatives from around
South Africa.
3. Hundreds of images were produced both by the locals and
the bloggers, and these were fed through to Twitter, Facebook,
Instagram and Pinterest.
4. The social media campaign reached 1.2 million people
around the world via 37 million tweet impressions. Thousands
of ‘Likes’ and ‘Shares’ were generated. Press coverage
of the campaign extended beyond South Africa to Europe,
USA and Asia.
5. The huge success of the #LoveCapeTown hashtag resulted
in various spin-off campaigns such as a photography contest.
6. Cape Town Tourism billed #LoveCapeTown as their “most
successful social media campaign to date”.
The Results of #LoveCapeTown
1. The campaign generated hundreds of excellent tips from locals.
These were collected by Cape Town Tourism and published
as a guide. For a sample, see: http://ow.ly/ebjIB
2. A highlight of the campaign was the impressive level of
interaction between the bloggers and locals. 33% of regular
tweets generated a response. 88% of the tweets were
re-tweeted.
13

BLOGVILLE IN EMILIA ROMAGNA
Case Study -
BlogVille in
Emilia Romagna
by Melvin Boecher
BlogVille was developed by co-founders Melvin Böcher
(Traveldudes.org) and Kash Bhattacharya
(Budgettraveller.org) together with the Tourist Board of the
Italian Emilia Romagna Region.
The motto was:
“BlogVille Emilia Romagna: eat, feel and live like a local in Italy”
To support BlogVille an official Facebook page and Twitter
account were created in order to promote the project and
interact with the bloggers.
In addition videos presenting the project have been
published across various websites.
14

A few hours after the first presentation of the project, the
Emilia Romagna Tourist Board has received more then 90
bloggers requests from all over the world.
For the first time ever a DMO hosted 50 bloggers from all
over the world for 3 months to enable them to discover the
destination and live like locals with total freedom. The participants
were hosted in two apartments in Bologna and Rimini,
provided free of charge bythe Emilia Romagna Tourist Board
between April 23 rd and July 14 th 2012.
The average stay of a blogger was between 4 and 7 days and
the and the apartments came complete with information
about the Emilia Romagna region, including a survival pack
with typical products from the Emilia Romagna area. The
bloggers were able to discover both cities and live like
natives, with free access to events, museums, sightseeing, and
other tourist highlights. The Tourist Board helped each
blogger to build a personalised programme but in order to
give more structure to the project and ensure they covered
the whole region, once a week an organised trip was held by
the Tourist Board .
The hashtags helped the Tourist Board to estimate the total
numbers and stats of the project, and enabled the Media Partner
Traveldudes.org to retweet and share all the content
online and via social media.
The aim of BlogVille was to promote the Emilia Romagna region
using web 2.0 and to initiate a long-term blogger-DMO
partnership, as well as to make the bloggers’ followers and
readers (and future tourists) aware of what the Emilia
Romagna region has to offer.
BlogVille succeeded in gaining great press and media
coverage, both in national and international newspapers and
magazines and on TV, being featured on Corriere della Sera,
La Repubblica, ANSA, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Lead Digital,
RAI, and Tele San Marino.
During the 83 day-long project the bloggers took part in live
blogging coverage -the Tourist Board helped them by providing
portable Wi-Fi devices - and presented the Emilia
Romagna region to all of their online followers and readers.
The results of BlogVille, including exposure through Media
Partner Traveldudes.org, was over 250 published blog posts,
in nexcess of 75M (page?)impressions, over 8M people
reached on Twitter, and more than 2,500 photos and videos
shared by the bloggers taking part. For the live blogging, the
production of blog posts, photos and videos the bloggers
used the #BlogVille and the #EmiliaRomagna hashtags.
15

BLOGVILLE IN EMILIA ROMAGNA
Case Study - Hosting a
Travel Bloggers Unite
Conference
by Oliver Gradwell
A Travel Bloggers Unite (TBU) conference is an innovative
and unique way for a destination to leverage the influence
and reach of travel bloggers. We leverage the strength of our
brand amongst our 1600+ members and our connections
within the travel industry, and combine these with our
knowledge of ‘selling’ travel for the past 12 years.
What Is A TBU Conference?
A TBU conference is a four day event conference experience
that combines unparalleled learning and networking opportunities,
in an interesting destination. We bring together
between 120 and 150 travel bloggers, the majority of whom
are the world’s most influential bloggers within this
market.Travel industry delegates are also present and they
typically come from various PR & digital agencies, travel
brands and tourist boards.
© Kirsten Alana
16

Why Do People Attend?
Travel bloggers attend the conference for a variety of reasons.
They love to travel and so we take our time choosing a
destination which will excite them. They love to catch up with
their fellow ‘digital nomads’, who they often only see at
events like ours. Travel bloggers have an insatiable desire to
learn new skills and improve upon their existing skill set.
They also value the opportunity to network with industry
delegates too.
It is only recently that travel bloggers have become an important
and effective part of a firm’s marketing and communication
strategy. Therefore it is vital for PR firms, travel brands
and tourist boards to attend a TBU conference so that they can
stay current and up-to-date with the travel blogging community.
The TBU Conference Concept
We are proud to be the influencers in our industry and our
ability to innovate is at the core of this influence. Over the
past two years we have introduced many new innovations to
travel blogger conferences.
We like to say that ‘everybody knows your name’ at a TBU
conference. We strive to keep numbers low, to ensure a more
personal experience for all delegates. This allows for a more
relaxed conference environment, of which all delegates are a
part of as soon as they arrive.
From the moment a delegate arrives until they leave a host
city, we plan every aspect of our conference program to ensure
we create as many valuable networking opportunities as
possible,from pre-conference meetups and official evening
events to our popular ‘Bespoke Networking’ concept.
We are also proud of our reputation for providing an
unrivaled learning experience. We spend a lot of time
planning our popular series of “How To” Talks for bloggers,
which cover a wide variety of important topics, from
beginner to advanced level.
At TBU conferences, we also hold a full series of talks for our
travel industry delegates, enabling them to make the best use
of the contacts they develop at the conference. Previously
these have covered such topics as “How To Find The Right
Travel Blogger For Your Brand”, “How To Create Added
Value To Your Blog Trips” and “How To Measure Travel
Blogger ROI”.
How Do Conference Hosts Benefit?
The hosts of a TBU conference are typically tourist boards
from a local, regional and national level. The concept that we
have developed provides multiple opportunities through
which our host partners and their destinations can benefit.
Our second conference in Innsbruck generated an ROI factor
of 37.5 to 1, based on an approximate hosting costs of just
£25,000.
17

Pre-destination:
• Our brand, Travel Bloggers Unite was chosen due to the
popularity of abbreviation names online. Therefore we are
more commonly known as TBU. A conference will become
known as TBU Innsbruck, TBU Umbria or TBU Porto for
example.
• Conferences are branded accordingly with a hashtag eg
#TBUIBK (Innsbruck), #TBUMBR (Umbria), #TBUPOR
(Porto). This is tagged to all content related to the
conference on twitter and a destination benefits directly
through name association.
• We build a conference website to communicate the details of
the conference. This also provides us with an opportunity to
strategically promote a destination through blog posts,
photos and videos.
• Conference hashtags can be tracked and aid in measuring
the ROI factor from the conference.
• Travel bloggers are very keen to share what they are
discovering. Be it a snippet of information from a seminar or
the history behind a city. So the use of the branded hashtag
persists throughout the conference
Post-conference:
• Once the conference is over, travel bloggers will then begin
to edit photos, videos and write their blog posts. This
content is then shared online, over a period of time and
promoted via the conference hashtag.
• The content is valuable to a host destination because all the
travel bloggers have a community of enthusiastic travellers
who follow them. These people are potential visitors and
the personal nature of the content a blogger shares is more
likely to appeal to a reader.
• The content also remains searchable for as long as it is
online.
During The Conference:
• Pre-conference city tours give delegates the opportunity to
discover a city, to take photos and to learn about it’s history.
• Pre-conference photo & video workshops are taught by
experts from industry and allow bloggers to brush up on
their photography & videography skills. These are
following by a ‘walk’ around the city, where the bloggers
put their new skills into practice and create content they are
more likely to share, given the learning curve involved.
18

BLOGGER AND MEDIA PRESS TRIPS
Case Study - Hosting
a Combined Blogger and
Traditional Media Trip
by Four bgb
In December 2011, Four bgb worked with the region of Skåne
in southern Sweden to host a three day trip alongside
Visit Sweden and the regional tourist office of Skåne. Its
purpose was to bring this largely unknown region, which had
just been made more accessible by a new flight service from
London Stansted to Malmö, to the attention of the UK market.
With travellers no longer needing to fly to Copenhagen and
take the train across the Oresund Bridge to Malmö, the region
was now just 90 minutes away and keen to be promoted as an
alternative weekend city break. In addition to this, VisitSweden
had also just launched a five year campaign to promote
the country’s extensive culinary offerings and position the
region among the world’s leading culinary nations, whilst a
brand new ‘supper club’ concept - A slice of Swedish hospitality
was also launching in Malmö in the coming spring.
Consequently a number of messages needed to be conveyed
to a variety of audiences at differing times throughout the
campaign, and so the decision was made to capitalise on the
advantages of both traditional and social media channels in
an integrated approach to meet all campaign objectives.
19

The new flight route launch was imminent – an ideal hook for
bloggers able to disseminate information immediately and
engage with real time stories, be it blog posts, photos, videos,
podcasts, Twitter, Facebook. Meanwhile the repositioning of
the region’s culinary attributes was a long term strategy, and
so ideal for a traditional, longer-lead glossy magazine
journalist.
Another key driver of the trip was to communicate the
diverse appeal of the region, from adventure, food luxury and
shopping to design and architecture, city breaks, romance and
family holidays - to mention but a few. Planning a varied
itinerary for a diverse range of travel bloggers enabled the
destination to convey key messages to a number of markets in
just one trip.
Consequently travel bloggers were approached who spoke
influentially to a range of markets.
Kash Bhattacharya (@budgettraveller) Europe Budget Guide
– Highlighting that weekends in Sweden can be achieved on a
budget.
Abigail King (@insidetravellab) Inside The Travel Lab – In
hope of a characteristically thoughtful insight into what
makes Sweden unique, quirky and inspirational alongside
some stunning photography
Chris Richardson (@theaussienomad) The Aussie Nomad –
To promote short breaks in Europe to the ex-pat market, with
a fun, light-hearted approach
Monica Stott (@TheTravelHack) Commissioned by syndicated
travel advice blog Travmonkey, - To raise awareness of
Sweden within the travel blogging community with a young
dynamic writer, likely to be keen on promoting messages of
style and ease of travel.
To guarantee we were able to maximise live coverage to best
effect, a mi-fi device was purchased to accompany the group,
ensuring that Wi-Fi was available every step of the way,
whilst significant ‘me-time’ was planned in for bloggers to
explore alone, reflect and produce additional collateral.
The trip was pre-promoted in Twitter and Facebook discussions
with the group whilst bloggers were also encouraged to
write pre-travel posts, building anticipation for the trip with
their readers.
This progressive, integrated approach to campaign planning
resulted in significant interest from the travel blogging
community, with a full article write-up in key industry outlet
Travelllll.com, whilst the trip hashtag was seen by nearly
400,000 consumers in the first seven days alone, with wouldbe
travellers discussing the destination across four continents.
The campaign did not stop when the bloggers touched down
back in London, with each blogger producing a number of
posts on topics spanning food, spas and Christmas markets to
shopping, design and architecture over the coming months as
they sought to draw new content from the varied itinerary.
One year on, continued integration and a consistent relationship
with involved bloggers teamed with a schedule of
traditional print publication features, means that the
destination remains front of mind with both the blogging
community, and the consumer.
20

CALCULATING ONLINE MEDIA ROI
Calculating Online
Media ROI
by Melvin Boecher &Keith Jenkins
www.onlineroicalculator.com
It’s a question we’ve heard countless times:
“Should we choose to work with you, what ROI can you deliver?”
We would reply by stating the number of blog posts we
would plan to write and the social media exposure we would
deliver across multiple platforms.
“Yes, but what is the value of that?”
We had no answer for that. It was a frustrating process for
both parties so we decided to do something about it. We
talked to bloggers in other sectors and social media experts,
but no one had quite figured out a way to calculate the ROI of
blogging and social media. There were various attempts to
measure someone’s ‘influence’ on social media but none were
conclusive. We then looked at how ROI is measured in traditional
media and studied the workings of AVE (Advertising
Value Equivalent), a widely-used model.
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AVE basically looks at the size of an editorial and compares
that with the price of an advertisement of a comparable size
in the same publication. We were skeptical in the first instance.
There were no values in that model that actually
showed how many people had read an editorial in a newspaper
or magazine or how much time they spent on that page.
The model was too vague for us to take into consideration.
We then looked at our blogs and our stats, and realised that
the values missing in AVE calculations for traditional media
were indeed present in online media. We could see how many
people had read a specific blog post, how much time they
spent reading it and where they came from. The powerful
Google Analytics tool provides this information.
We can also see how many times a specific post has been
tweeted (on Twitter), liked (Facebook), stumbled (Stumble-
Upon), +1 (Google+) and pinned (Pinterest). This prompted
us to take another, closer look at the AVE model. We applied
the model to a variety of blogs and included traffic stats of individual
posts.
ROI = Ad value of online content + ad value of tweet and
facebook posts
By applying the AVE model, we found a way to calculate the
perceived ROI of the two pillars of online media – hosted content
and social media reach. It can be used in a pre-campaign
partner selection process as well as during the post-campaign
phase (when detailed campaign-specific stats are available) to
calculate the ROI of a campaign.
This method is by no means conclusive, and it will continue
to grow, but it provides useful guidance to the perceived
value of online publishers/bloggers. To us, this method’s biggest
merit is that it puts a number on the value of online media.
By doing so, it offers a degree of clarity in our efforts to
understand the complex and rapidly evolving online world.
The Online ROI Calculator is now live and currently in BETA.
An important component of online media is the exposure that
can be generated via social media. Again, there are as yet no
conclusive models that calculate the ROI of social media, i.e.
the value of a tweet or a Facebook post. We decided to apply
the same AVE principles to social media by researching the
prices top social media influencers charge for a sponsored
tweet. We created a basket of top influencers (using four different
influence measuring tools) and gathered their prices. We
then compared our reach and influence scores with this basket
of top influencers and determined our prices on a pro rata
basis.
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