Press trips give us the perfect opportunity to showcase what our clients have to offer. Working with clients like DFDS Seaways, the Dover–Dunkirk ferry operator, press trips enable us to let journalists have a first-hand experience of travelling which helps us to promote the benefits of ferry travel. Organising press trips to different locations demonstrates how close and convenient various European destinations are to the Port of Dunkirk, and also helps us to target a variety of media sectors, such as parenting titles for family trips, and lifestyle titles for beer trips etc.
I recently had the privilege to organise a beer themed press trip to Belgium to celebrate World Beer Week. There is a great deal of organising involved in any press trip, let alone a press trip abroad.
I think of it in three stages, the first task is to come up with the itinerary and the date and tailoring the trip to the journalists you want to target. After inviting all of your target journalists, and securing a great selection of attendees, the second task is confirming every detail of the trip including who’s attending, the final itinerary, contact details and addresses of every location you will be visiting. It is better to be over prepared for any situation, for example, ensuring that you have printed directions as well as a Sat Nav as you do not want to end up lost in a country you’ve never been in with a group of unimpressed journalists!
The last aspect is of course the actual press trip, when you need to make sure everything runs smoothly as you are responsible for looking after the journalists attending. No matter how much you have prepared for a press trip, there is always a need to think on your feet, as you can never predict what might happen, especially if it is the first time you have visited the location yourself. It is important you are able to adapt the itinerary on the spot as and when you need to, as well as being able to make a judgement on how the journalists are feeling. For example, during our trip to Belgium we felt it was important to make time in Bruges to let the group explore the chocolate shops before visiting the brewery on our second day. This gave us a great opportunity to show off Bruges for the chocolate attractions as well as for the beer.
We also find that liaising with the local tourist boards is an invaluable way to get good insights about the area. The most rewarding part of organising a press trip is the great feedback we receive from journalists. For example, after our trip to Bruges, the journalists said they would love to do the trip again and would tell their friends and family but also that they would think of other great ideas for trips to Bruges that they could then write about.
With independent reviews playing such an important part in everyday purchasing decisions, a feature that has been written from a journalist’s own experience is far more credible and extremely valuable, and although it is a lot of organising, the benefits are clear to see.
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