TABLE OF CONTENTS Several special travel and tourism audiences that hotel PR managers must target because of their direct impact on business are travel writers, convention and visitor bureaus (known as CVBs), meeting planners, and stockholders (if applicable to your corporate structure). (NOTE: While maintaining close relations with travel agents is an absolute necessity for hotels, this normally is not a direct responsibility of the PR manager it's usually a task assigned to the sales and marketing staff.)
Travel writers many of whom are freelancers are the local hotel PR manager's premier audience. These are the journalists whose first-person accounts have a powerful impact on business. They may visit individually, or be part of press tours or "familiarization (fam) trips." Fam trips are frequently conducted in connection with new openings. While many reporters can no longer participate on these trips because of the complimentary nature of the accommodations and arrangements, some journalists can still attend if a press discount rate is offered. Aside from fam trips, newspapers and magazines, of course, often assign staff members to visit hotels for stories.
In the early days of travel and tourism promotion, PR managers could rely mostly on positive coverage from visiting journalists whose trips were "comped" by hotels. Today, however, many media especially consumer and general circulation publications adhere to stricter ethical rules that prohibit the acceptance of complimentary services. The result is that the PR manager now has to work a lot more creatively in attracting and accommodating visiting reporters. Determining which...
