Travel PR is out of date: Travel PR is dead: Travel PRs are way behind the curve: Travel PRs can’t tell their Asos community from their Twellow, yada, yada, yada…

Frankly, I’m a bit fed up with hearing about how out of date Travel PR is.  In the blogosphere, PR agencies seems to be easy targets.  Why is that?

I suggest it could be down to a couple of things.  For a start, a lot of travel bloggers are, let’s face it, freelance journalists who are finding it really hard to get commissions this year and need material to write about.  Don’t get me wrong, I have absolute sympathy for this predicament - it’s tough out there - but surely turning that frustration into a generalised rant about Travel PR agencies strikes of ‘biting the hand that feeds you’. As does dissing the print media they are so keen to get back into. 

We all know print and broadcast coverage is traditional, doesn’t mean it’s evil.

Secondly, bloggers tend to be, by nature of their work, more literate in social media marketing techniques than the average Joe.  That’s fine too.  But it doesn’t necessarily follow that the travel PR world is just sitting around waiting for the social media revolution to wipe us out.  We’re all doing what any sensible company does when faced with a changing landscape; we’re training ourselves and our staff, we’re testing new techniques, we’re learning new skills, we’re looking around for talent, and we’re building our own internally.  Of course we are.  What else would be doing?  And many of us have already delivered many projects which absolutely embrace the opportunities presented through social media marketing.  Or are quietly monitoring the networks and interacting on behalf of our clients.  Or are managing Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, corporate blogs and video content, and considering SEO in everything we do.  You don’t win awards for that stuff.  And we don’t send releases to PR Week about it.  But it doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.

We’re also continuing with some of the traditional stuff.  Yes, we are still maintaining strong relationships with journalists, on and off line.  And we’re still hosting the odd event (as far as I know, hospitality is still allowed in the 2010s?), responding to information requests, answering the phone and even hosting the odd press trip to far away lands.  And why are we bothering with all this stuff?  Well, because our job is to raise brand profile, deliver brand messages, manage reputations, and gain publicity.  And these methods are tried, tested, possible to evaluate, and they deliver ROI.  And if you become so arrogant that you start to think that just being in the social media space is enough, you’ll end up with no clients at all.  And so far behind the curve, it’ll probably whack you in the back of the head.