My approach to ‘free’ media trips, flights and stays
This is something that doesn’t really get discussed much and is often frowned upon, but I felt it the right time to tackle. Next month, I’ll be travelling on the inaugural flight to Bangkok with Scoot - the tickets of which have been paid for by the airline. This will be my first partnership agreement with an organisation of any kind.
What are the approaches of other bloggers?
This varies but generally many bloggers will do a mix of partner-funded trips or self-funded via cash or airline/hotel miles. Some are extremely against any form of sponsorship or partner trips because it will ‘compromise’ their content whilst others seem to do all their videos/blogs sponsored, which can come across as false and uninformative. There is the potential that due to the involvement of PR or marketing teams that an experience may be skewed for sponsored trips since the staff will be aware that you are there to review it - which is why some are so averse to this type of content.
A balance can be found between the two extremes of viewpoint where I sometimes accept partner opportunities and other times self-fund.
Outside of travel blogs, there is more willingness to accept goods for free or on loan for the reviewer to post. Examples here are tech bloggers, would you expect that for every review they would post that they would buy that new device?
What is my approach?
All my content so far on this blog has been self-funded and on trips I was already planning. This will continue and, where possible, I will self-fund via cash or miles. If there are experiences available, like an inaugural flight or new route, where the airline or hotel are willing to host me and if it can provide unique, differentiated content - I will generally accept that opportunity.
In the example of Scoot, my content will be amplified across their social channels allowing me to increase the reach of this blog to millions of their followers across Facebook, Instagram and more. This reach is invaluable to a blog that is at the beginning of its growth trajectory like mine. Working with Scoot also gives the opportunity to provide insight into travel to Thailand during Covid from Western Europe on a trip that I would never have planned to take myself.
My promise to you
A red line of accepting sponsored trips, travel or stays will be having complete independent oversight of the editing and writing process. No partner or sponsor will be given copy approval in the process of writing article reviews. If a sponsor or partner insists on this then I will not accept the opportunity because of the compromise it places on the content. All partner/sponsored trip reports or reviews will clearly display at the top of articles or social posts that these were produced thanks to the funding by the airline, hotel or other organisation.
I hope this clears up on my approach to these opportunities and ensures confidence that what you are reading are my genuine thoughts on a topic.
Callum
