Apart from news and views on media covering tourism, travel, and hospitality, writers, editors, photogs, and bloggers share tips, leads, ideas, news, gripes. PR reps/journos ISO press releases/trips, see also "PR/Marketing." Opinions stated are not necessarily those of Tripatini.
A tribute to my friend, the late travel media icon Arthur Frommer
The legendary U.S. travel journalist and entrepreneur Arthur Frommer passed away November 18 at the age of 95. Born in Virginia and with an early boyhood in a small town in Missouri, Arthur was a lawyer who became a pioneering and great travel journalist, and who will be remembered as having helped open the joys of travel to the masses. While serving in the U.S. Army in Europe in the 1950s, he got the travel bug, came out with a travel guide for servicemen, and followed up in 1957 with…
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Comments
Perhaps if advertisers were able to advertise with a different arrangement.
Over the years, in various business endeavours, I have paid 'lots of dosh' to advertise in national and regional newspapers and magazines plus bill-boards, radio and TV... at no time did I feel I was getting a good or even fair deal to increase my biz....but it was the only way to go....or so it seemed...
I am constantly being approached to buy advertising, PR, click fees etc....by print media and online SEO and SEM agencies.
I reject the offers but counter with a more logical and IMO, more reasonable suggestion....
I will advertise or use your PR and SEO and pay you a fee on each successful sale....not click throughs or visits....ON SALES!
Often the response is..."we do not do business that way"...maybe that is why many are going out of biz.
Advertising and SEO professionals either do not have confidence in the quality of their services or targeted consumers or they do not have confidence in my product being able to produce 'sales'.....but they would have taken my dosh for 'old-style' advertising...
Any media business using a 'Pay for Performance' method of a fee or commission per sale may just stay in business and prosper.
Ed, I'd add that in the context of some of that time period, some of those acquisitions might have seemed the logical business development. But so many people both in personal and professional decisions had their eyes still sealed to the bigger picture even well into 2006 when many of the signs of the recession were in place. It is easier to launch and acquire than it is to either salvage or divest in the print publishing realm, I'd guess. Never had to do it myself, just had to suffer as a writer the consequences and fallout of "big dreamers" who went on thinking that all you needed to launch a print mag was two Macs and two interns and two credit cards.
Rosary beads? While I'm sad at the passing of some magazines, I reserve the rosary beads strictly for flights on....oh well, certain carriers on my beat whose inflight magazines I still have to write for. So I'll only tell on that when they're history too:)
The irony of the internet is that while it may deliver larger numbers of eyeballs, advertisers won't pay print rates for equal or greater exposure. And most cyber pubs pay less than print. I wonder if advertisers are making a statement with their chequebooks: cyber costs less, you pay less for content (if anything), so we're only paying a fraction of the cost per thousand of print?
Hal, you're exactly right on both those issues -- the overly aggressive acquisitions and (of course) the internet. Too bad.
I wonder if anyone else here, like Hal, was getting the rosary beads ready.
Ed, just learned of that in twitter yesterday. Yes I saw it coming, because Bonnier acquired too many independent titles in the years just before the recession and the move into online, now they are reaping the fallout. Empires crumble. But they still have many other viable titles.
I just learned that Caribbean Travel & Life will fold next year, merging into Islands Magazine. I didn't see this coming; did you?
I prepared a Seven Tips For New Thailand Travelers blog post on my website that would be useful to review. http://wp.me/p2A7tC-bP I have traveled to Thailand many times and know the ins and outs especially because I have a Thai wife who has helped me as well. :-)
Requesting Referral for Hotel & Spa PR contacts for Seoul.
Will be there in Dec and would appreciate a helping hand with contacts and content for upcoming article on wellness travel in Korea.
Thank you!
If you're a media rep for any luxury boutique hotels in Asia and/or Oceania, take a look at this writer's post:
http://www.tripatini.com/forum/topics/looking-to-connect-with-pr-co...
Just posting an event I'll be attending that might be of interest to writers passing through..
Readings, Author signings and Topical Discussions
29th MIAMI BOOK FAIR INTERNATIONAL
Presented and produced by The Center @ MDC
Nov. 11 – 18, 2012/ MiamiBookFair.com
Media Contact
Lisa B. Palley
Palley Promotes
305 642.3132
lpalley@bellsouth.net
The 29th edition of the nation’s finest and largest literary gathering, Miami Book Fair International, presented by The Center for Literature and Theatre @ Miami Dade College (MDC), will take place November 11 – 18, 2012, at Miami Dade MDC’s Wolfson Campus, 300 NE Second Ave., in downtown Miami. The always-popular Street Fair runs Friday through Sunday, November 16 – 18, with more than 200 exhibitors from around the country selling books in a festive atmosphere.
The Fair, MDC’s flagship cultural event, will treat book lovers to eight days of cultural and educational activities, including the beloved Evenings With… series, the IberoAmerican Authors program, myriad learning activities for children, and programs for food enthusiasts in partnership with the college’s Miami Culinary Institute.
TOP CONFIRMED AUTHORS
The Fair continues to raise the bar of excellence by offering a fine roster of writers from the U.S. and abroad, and this year will be no exception. Confirmed authors include talk show host Bill O’Reilly, actress Molly Ringwald, political commentator Andrew Solomon, historians Robert Caro and Deborah Dash Moore, David Maraniss, Michael Grunwald; Pulitzer Prize winning Junot Diaz; essayists and commentators Adam Gropnik and Camille Paglia; novelists Sandra Cisneros, Emma Donoghue, Jess Walters, Ann Lamott Lauren Groff, Robert Goolrick, Thane Rosenbaum, personality Lemony Snickett; fashion designers Isabel and Ruben Toledo; best selling authors James Patterson, Jo Nesbo, RL Stine, Justin Torres, and opening the Fair on Nov. 11 is novelist and journalist Tom Wolfe, to name just a few of the 300 plus authors coming to Miami from all over the world to read from their newest works, to meet their readers and sign books. [SEE WEBSITE FOR MORE of this schedule]