Are Travel Influencer Media Trips Responsible?

There are some people who do this because it's just a great way to get a free trip, and there are other people who just truly care about learning about different destinations and talking about them.

No, it's not the same across the board as the way that Erin and I approach these kinds of things, but I would say that there are a lot of people who share the same value, and a lot of industry people can kind of tell the difference between those two.

If you're on social media and you love to travel, you probably follow a few travel content creators and every once in a while you'll likely notice that they share content from a trip that is a collaboration with a tourism board.

These trips, which are typically called media trips or press trips, are a common way for travel creators to make an income, but beyond that, they're an important tool for storytelling.

These collaborations give creators and tourism boards a chance to share insights about a region and to shape the way that people visit them.

I have found that there are misconceptions around what these trips are for and how they work.

Because these collaborations have the power to shape the future of tourism, I think it's really important to demystify them.

So here to help me do that is Bree Mitchell.

She covers everything from active travel to culinary, wellness and sustainable tourism stories based on her personal travels and partnerships.

This is Curious Tourism, the podcast focused on making travel better for people and for the planet.

I'm Erin Hines, travel writer and content creator and I'm joined by my producer Katie Lohr.

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All our contact info is in the show Notes.

Hi Bri, welcome back to Curious Tourism.

Hi Erin, thanks so much for having me.

So newer listeners might not know this, but Bree was on the show years ago, I think.

Like in our first season.

Was it season one, maybe season two?

I feel like it was pre pandemic.

At the least it was pre pandemic because we were just saying before we hopped on that we recorded in person, which we don't really do anymore.

Like, it's been so long since Katie and I recorded in person with a guest.

So it's always fun bringing guests back.

This is something we're trying to do more of because I think it's nice for people to hear familiar voices.

So welcome back.

Thanks so much for having me back.

I remember that apartment recording.

It was nice and cozy and very much pre pandemic.

I think it was right before the pandemic, actually, now that I think about it.

We'll have to go back into the vault and check.

Okay, so we like to start by sharing two news stories that are attractive travel and tourism related so I can kick it off.

I have exciting news to share, which honestly, it's not like super new news anymore.

I've just been waiting to share this on the show because it's something we talk about a lot on the show.

So the news is that a high speed rail line with 300 kilometer per hour trains is going to run between Toronto and Quebec City.

The Trudeau government, which is now no longer in existence, announced this.

It was one of the last things that he announced before he resigned.

And yeah, it's really exciting news because this is something we talk about on the show all the time about how we should have better rail systems in Canada.

And high speed rail is just like so much of the world has it and Canada should have it.

The bummer is that construction won't start probably for four to five years while they go through a $3.9 billion design phase.

So I don't know if this is going to be soon.

Hopefully in 10 years we'll have this train.

Let's hope so.

It would get us between Toronto and Quebec City with stops at Peterborough, Ottawa, Montreal, Laval, Trois Riviere and Quebec City, which would just.

It'd be such a game changer.

What do you think, Bri?

Are you excited for this?

Honestly, as a fellow Canadian, I was really excited to hear about this too.

I think that there is just so much that Canada can do a little bit better when it comes to public transportation.

But as you mentioned, I mean, if the Eglinton Crosstown in Toronto is any indic, I am cautiously optimistic.

I think it's a great idea.

I hope that my children's children see it, but I think it's amazing.

I think that any sort of initiative like this is great to hear about.

Yeah, like, I'm happy about it because it's more real now than it was a couple months ago, which is nice to see.

Let's hope there's follow through with this and that it's done in time for maybe us to experience in our lifetime.

Yeah.

Just think about how fast the last five years have flown by.

Hopefully they fly by just as fast.

I don't know, as fast as that train will get us to Montreal.

Hopefully faster.

Faster.

It's truly like one of my greatest gripes with Canada is like the lack of well functioning infrastructure for getting around this country.

I mean, everyone knows I was traveling in Asia a lot last year and just taking the trains there is such a different experience.

The bullet trains, they're incredible.

Yeah.

And the thing is this technology, technology has existed for so long, there's really no reason that we haven't invested in it sooner.

But I guess better now than never.

So.

So how long then do we think it's going to take to get from Toronto to Quebec City then?

Ooh, like an hour, two hours.

Right now for context, it's about a nine hour drive.

The new high speed rail network will take passengers from Montreal to Toronto in three hours, which is about half the time that it takes on a VIA Rail train or half the time driving.

And Quebec City then would be, I imagine like four or five hours max, which is incredible because right now Quebec City is What, like a 12 hour drive from here?

It's pretty far.

And I think like that would make.

It would deter people from flying these routes, which is like really important, I think.

And I also think that it'll make just travel to those regions, like, more accessible for people, depending on the price point.

Right.

Because this is the argument I've seen in Japan in talking with our friend Tommy, who lives in Japan.

Sometimes flights are cheaper than the high speed trains, which then motivates people to fly instead.

But pricing will be another question.

We'll see what happens there.

Because taking the train in Canada is already pretty exorbitantly expensive.

If they can keep that more accessible, that would be great.

All right, Brie, we'll hand it over to you.

What story did you bring?

So I wanted to talk about La Loma Hour, which is something I talked about in my most recent edition of the Weekly Traveler, my weekly newsletter.

So La Loma Hour is something that tourism Fiji is initiating in efforts to get rid of a lot of the plastic waste that they found that tourists are contributing to.

So Laloma translates to Fijian for love, which I think is so lovely.

And so it's about like a love for the land and an appreciation for the land.

When I did my research, it was really hard to find tangible information for how this is going to happen.

I think right now it feels like more of an idea, but it sounds like a nice idea either way.

And so La Loma Hour is designed to encourage tourists to participate in some form of volunteering or local effort to reduce plastic waste and just contribute to the environment for one hour while they're in Fiji, which I just think is nice.

When I did a bit of a deeper dive in this, it found that there was a really interesting connection between gender identity and plastic waste.

And basically, a report that was done that studied a couple islands in and around Fiji, island nations, I should say, found that when there's a disproportionate amount of waste that oftentimes women and members of the LGBTQ community are often the people who are picking up the trash.

And so this is just, you know, there are a lot of layers to this.

It also found that the average tourist in Fiji produces seven times more waste than the average household in Fiji on a daily basis.

So I think it's just something for us as travelers to constantly be thinking of and thinking about ways that we can reduce waste as we travel.

So as much as this sounds like it's a little bit more a nice idea than actually something that's in practice right now, I think it's nice to see a tourism organization thinking about an initiative like this.

Yeah, I agree, because I think sometimes, unfortunately, I think a lot of people, it's just not top of mind for them.

And so presenting it all packaged up nicely like this for tourists, I think sometimes can lead to, like, maybe a bit more introspection about your impact as a tourist, which is a good thing.

I could be wrong about this, but I've always had the impression that, like, the people traveling to Fiji are a specific type of tourist, they may have more money behind them because from what I understand, it's not a super affordable place to travel to.

So it could be a different range of tourists we're seeing in Fiji.

Have you been to Fiji?

I haven't, actually.

And that's also another piece of it, too.

Like, I think for the same reasons you're talking about, it looks like a beautiful destination to visit, but just in terms of.

Yeah.

The cost associated with visiting islands like that, and also the type of accommodation I feel like some people look for when they go to Fiji.

Yeah.

And so that's just something also with luxury tourism to consider when we think about our impact as travelers.

This reminds me, years ago, I was backpacking through Cambodia with two friends of mine, and I'VE talked about this on the show before.

We ended up on a very remote island, like staying at this jungle hostel where we were attacked by rats.

It's a whole thing.

There's a whole episode about this.

I think it's episode one, actually.

Episode one, yeah.

Where we talk about sleeping with the rats in the jungle in Cambodia.

The whole thing was a wild experience.

But something I remember about that hostel is that this was like a budget backpacker hostel.

And a lot of people were there long term, let's say.

And one of the initiatives going on at the hostel was that if you collected a bag of trash on the beach and brought it to them, they would give you a beer.

And so every day there was nothing to do here.

All you could do was just like, wander around the jungle, swim.

Yeah.

So every single day, my girlfriends and I would just, like, go down to the beach and spend all day collecting trash in exchange for beers.

It was kind of sad because, like, it really opened our eyes to how much trash was, like, flowing down.

It comes from, like, the north and washes up on these beaches in Cambodia.

But I always thought that was, like, a cool initiative that more hostels and hotels should do because you can always motivate people to do good things with beer.

It's true.

Nothing like incentivizing some broke backpackers with free beer.

Yeah, I love that.

I mean.

Yeah.

And that's the thing about visiting places like this is it's tragic when you really think about the scale of waste.

I remember when we were spending some time, you know, even in Korea, like when we lived in Korea, I just noticed that there were so few garbage cans on the street.

And so people would just leave their waste, like, you know, on windowsills and things like that.

But it's.

It's hard when you see it.

But then when you start to think as a traveler, like, okay, I can pick up a little bit of trash when I'm somewhere.

Like, if I'm walking down any beach and if I see a wrapper, I can just grab that and bring it back when I get back to my hotel or my accommodation or whatever.

So it's just nice to kind of keep that in the back of your mind, I think, as travelers.

This is interesting too, because just in doing research around my trip to Japan for next year, something I've heard a lot about is that there aren't too many trash cans, I guess, around, so you should always carry a little bag with you that you can put your trash in.

And maybe this is something we can normalize regardless of where we are in the world.

Do you know why?

I heard it was because there were some garbage can bombings at one point.

So some people think that.

But I've actually read about this a lot because I was really curious.

And I feel Bri will have insight too, because Bri lived in Korea for a couple years.

What I read is, like, that it may be connected to the terrorism that was happening with trash cans.

But actually, a lot people say it's because the mindset around trash in Japan and Korea is very different.

Because it's the same in Korea.

It's very hard to find somewhere to dump something.

It's that you have personal responsibility.

Everyone is personally responsible for their trash, and you are personally responsible to dispose of it in a responsible way.

And when you walk around, you notice they're really like, people do not toss things on the ground there.

I think, like, this is something that I really love about Asia and probably why I love traveling there.

I really love that people have such a strong sense of personal responsibility, and there's really a collectivist mindset to society and to how you treat public spaces.

Bri, do you have any insight, like, from the Korean perspective?

Yeah, that's absolutely accurate.

And I would say, because the few times where I felt that I.

Because I live just outside of Seoul.

Chris and I live there.

My partner Chris and I lived there for a year.

And I feel like the places where I had such a hard time with waste were, like, downtown Seoul, very touristy areas.

And so that's when you have a whole collection of people that are traveling around who maybe don't understand those ways of living.

Because I would say that it's very clean in many other parts of the country.

No country's perfect.

But yeah, there's definitely a collective responsibility, even just when it comes to safety and personal items.

I remember I had a late night out drinking.

I was 21 when I lived in Korea, so it was a good time.

Korea has a wild nightlife scene.

It does.

And nothing closes.

So you can literally stay out all night and go to breakfast and then go home or just stay out if you want.

And so I didn't stay out all night, but I had a fun night, let's just say, in Korea.

And I lost my brand new camera and my wallet with cash.

I think I.

I think I fell or something, and I think my purse fell down.

I'm really exposing myself here.

But we've all been 21.

It was a fun night when I was 21.

Okay.

But anyways, I woke up devastated because I'd spent quite a bit of money on this camera and.

And somewhat found my wallet, found the business card for the bank that I was associated with, contacted my bank, got my mailing address, mailed everything back to me, brand new camera, memory card, $100 cash, my wallet and all of my IDs and everything.

Just mailed it back to me.

I never got to thank them.

But theft and just responsibility for community is absolutely a tenant in a lot of East Asian cultures.

And I think it's really beautiful and I think in a very individualistic society like we can have in parts of North America, I think that these are important practices to carry with us.

It is such an interesting cultural difference where I can only imagine in North America where if there wasn't a trash available, people would just dump stuff, they would just litter.

Absolutely.

I will never forget sitting in.

I'm trying to remember what city we were in.

I think we were in Busan and we were sitting in, don't judge me a McDonald's because I needed to have a peanut free ice cream.

And.

And this man came in, a Korean man, and sat next to us and he left his laptop and his phone on the McDonald's table and walked away to order.

And Luke and I were literally like, how can you do that?

Like, in Toronto, it would be gone.

People fall asleep.

People fall asleep on the Seoul metro and they put their laptop on the storage rack on top and they're asleep for an hour and no one touches their laptop.

It's incredible.

No touches.

It's really admirable.

All right, well, let's get into what we have gathered here today to discuss, which is media trips.

I wanted to chat about this because I think there's a lot of mystery around what influencers and bloggers do when they work with DMOS and tourism boards.

It's an area that I have delved into a little bit myself over the last two years.

So I have my own thoughts about how the system works.

I will say off the bat, the industry is pretty unregulated, I guess.

Like, there's a lot of different ways that people do these kinds of partnerships.

So the perspectives we're sharing are just our own, from our own experience.

Bri, you have had tons of experience doing media trips or press trips.

I don't know.

People call them different things.

Maybe we should say partnerships with DMOS and tourism boards.

So if you could share a bit of background about the work that you do and how you ended up in this line of Work, Yeah, sure.

So my partner Chris and I, we work separately and we work together.

It's a really great symbiosis.

But yeah.

So the both of us have had our travel website for many years.

We.

We started off as just, you know, people who were living abroad and traveling pretty frequently.

And then when we came back to Canada, it kind of turned into a business.

So we started to focus a little bit more on the website year after year, writing about places we'd been to.

And then as we were back in Canada, we realized that there was a lot.

Social media has just evolved so much over the past couple years, and I just felt like people didn't really know a lot about where to go and how to do that.

So we just started traveling around and talking about our experiences, mostly in Ontario, which is where we live.

And then over the years, as we were taking the business a little more seriously, we started to go to travel conferences and we started to meet with DMOs and other travel writers and travel journalists.

And we realized that there was a lot of opportunity here to get to know other places in Canada and across North America and internationally.

So now, up to the current day, we both do this full time.

We do a lot of travel on our own still, but we work a lot, going to different travel conferences, connecting with local, provincial, statewide country DMOs, and just talk about ways that we can work to help promote the destinations to Canadian and North American travelers.

And also just as responsibly as we can.

Could you walk us through?

Because I think a lot of people listening probably have no idea.

Could you walk us through the typical process for booking a media trip from pitching to the actual trip itself?

Yeah, for sure.

So I'll start by saying that I find that most of the partnerships that I have don't actually come from a cold pitch.

I think that a lot of DMOs, especially in today's world, they receive countless cold pitches, and so it's really hard for them to assess who's sending what or even just trust.

There's also, I mean, I think for all of us, maybe with a travel website, there are all sorts of AI cold pitches for, you know, I want to write this for your site.

And it's like, okay, Kathy Wayward.

I don't know, just like a random name that they come up with that sounds like it might be a real person.

No offense to any Kathy Waywards in the world, if there are any.

But I understand from an industry perspective how the cold pitch can be a little intimidating or just not worth doing so.

Most of the partnerships that I have come from connections I made with DMOS at conferences.

So there are different types of travel conferences and travel associations, I guess I would say so.

I'm personally a part of the Travel Media association of Canada.

Erin, I know that you've recently joined as well.

So it's short for tmac.

It's a way to connect travel industry members with media members from across Canada.

I also attend some conferences in the United States.

So there's the international media marketplace are called IMM in New York every January, which attracts destinations from across the United States and international destinations as well.

And there are a few others too that I go to.

Chris is one of the co directors of tbecs, the travel blog Exchange.

And so there are opportunities to connect with different regions there really, once you start to open the can of worms, there are really so many ways to connect face to face with destinations.

And I find that that's the most essential way to starting a partnership relationship.

From there, it's usually you have a conversation.

It can take anywhere from a few years to only a couple months or even a couple weeks, depending on the type of plan that someone has.

But there are all sorts of ways to develop a relationship.

So it's usually just a lot of emails back and forth, planning what we want to do, what time of year we want to visit, talking about some of the things that we might be interested in doing that we feel would be a great fit for our audiences.

And then you're on the road and you go to do all the things that you planned about and then you write about them and you create content about them.

So it's a pretty exhaustive process.

It takes a long time to do something that goes by so quickly, but it's definitely worth it.

And I would say it's 100% a long game and not a short game.

So if there's anyone here who's interested in working with DMOs, it's really a relationship industry first and then you develop that relationship and you work with people afterwards.

It's.

There needs to be a lot of trust developed and it's worth it once you have developed that trust.

But yeah, I think that that's kind of an overview.

I know we're going to talk a little bit more about what the partnerships look like.

That's a great overview and definitely reflects my experience as well.

I think a lot of people have their assumptions about what a media trip is like.

I have had people DM me comments about this.

If you're not a creator, it's.

It's hard.

It's.

I think it's really easy to look at these trips and think, oh, like they're just on a free or paid trip having fun.

Last summer I did a media trip to Prince Edward island and I brought along a friend of mine and the entire time her mind was blown at how much work it was.

She truly couldn't believe it.

So she was like, okay, I understand why you're being paid for this now.

Yeah, they're a lot of work.

First thing in the morning to last moment at night, you are working and you are busy.

And there's a lot of work before and afterwards as well, because often there's a whole bunch of deliverables that you are sending over, including, I'm sending a metric support months after the trip to share what resulted from the campaign.

With all that, if you could explain in your experience what media trips are like and the things that you think are unseen, that the average person, like when they're scrolling on Instagram, might not know about what goes into these trips.

Yeah.

So I would first of all preface by saying that every destination is so different for a variety of reasons.

First of all, the destinations themselves are different.

Their internal structure and organization for how they put these trips together is very different as well.

And same with the stakeholders who are involved in the planning process.

So for a lot of these DMOs, they can be government organizations, they can be monitored by a board.

There can be a lot of different, different stakeholders involved.

And so just the way that these trips are planned, there is a lot behind the scenes that goes into them that I think people sometimes think that you just slap a bunch of things on an itinerary and go for it.

There's so much more intention and thought behind it than that.

The industry is definitely constantly changing and there's more awareness about hosting content creators on trips compared to traditional journalists.

I find that media trips often look like, as you said, a full day.

You're working kind of, of morning till night, even if you're not technically doing an activity and there are a lot of different activities to do.

You're constantly thinking about capturing content.

You know, if you're kind of a multifaceted creator like me, and I know you are too, Erin, then you're thinking about video, you're thinking about photos, you're thinking about, you know, articles that you're gonna write, you're gonna think about other platforms that you can post things to.

You're thinking about weather, you're thinking about clothing.

You're thinking about what the next day's gonna look like.

You're thinking about driving, you're thinking about parking.

Like, there's just so much to think about in these trips, which I love.

I mean, it's funny because I remember when I used to do these trips and I was working as a teacher full time, and I'd come back to school on Monday, and some of my colleagues would be like, bri, I don't know how you do it.

And by the end of me teaching as well, I also didn't know how I did it.

I was absolutely facing burnout.

These trips can be very exhausting, but they are also so worth it.

And we do it because we love it, and we do it because we really care about.

About pushing the envelope about what people expect from different destinations.

We can talk about this more a little bit later, too, but I think a huge part of content creator relationships is also about just promoting a destination that people may already have a negative, preconceived idea of for whatever reason.

Chris and I were just working in Winnipeg, and we were working with our friends Scott and Megan of Bobo and Chichi, and.

And our stuff got picked up by the news because everyone was like, why are all of these, specifically, Scott and Megan are American.

And so they were like, why are these Americans coming to Winnipeg in winter?

Even the Winnipeggers are like, why are you here?

And the Mayor of Winnipeg started following me on Instagram.

Just everyone was like, we're so pumped that you guys loved your winter trip to Winnipeg.

And we're like, we did.

We had a blast.

Like, it was so much fun.

And even before that trip, I remember people being like, you're going to Winnipeg in February.

Why are you doing that?

So I think a great part of it, too, is that you're also challenged some of these ideas that we might think we have about a place having never visited it before.

Yeah, definitely.

I feel like that's a general overview of a media trip.

We can get into more details about it.

But, yeah, so you're going on an itinerary.

It's packed.

You're covering a lot of different things, restaurants, hotels, experiences, and you're really trying to interact with the local community and the people who are taking you on these trips as much as possible to get a deep understanding of a place.

Place.

And I do think it's true.

Your.

Your point about Winnipeg.

It's often the case that there is a specific angle similar to, like, how a journalist would work.

There's a specific angle that you are trying to quote, unquote, sell to your audience about this place that you're visiting.

So I think as creators, we definitely know the value of media trips.

They are basically marketing campaigns, but they also lead to education and they can create really valuable discourse.

I've found between creators and dm, this is something that I have found in doing media trips I've really enjoyed is having this.

This connection with the DMO directly to learn sort of from their perspective what the focus is on for them and to get behind the scenes of what is going on, like from a tourism perspective in their region.

Just all of that is like, I get very nerdy about it.

I love.

I love hearing about that and hearing about how I can support their goals through what I do.

So in your view, what is something about media trips that might surprise people who aren't in the industry?

I think the biggest surprise is that, well, kind of in tandem to thinking about our preconceived ideas about a place, a media trip isn't necessarily going to be what you think it might be.

So some of the things when you reach out to a destination that you think might be the focus, it might turn out that that's the only thing their destination is known for.

And so they're actually not interested in bringing you on board to promote that because they don't need extra help.

It happens a lot across Canada.

So Canada is known for its beautiful natural spaces, its hiking trails, its lakes.

But you'll find that even if you're going to a specific destination, they don't need help promoting those natural resources because so many people already come in and then leave right after they see it.

So a lot of times DMOs are working to really prop up local businesses.

They're talking about ways that you can stack.

If you're going to visit, let's pretend, Algonquin Park.

So if you're on your way to Algonquin park, and if you're trying to think about a great town to spend the night in on your way up to a camping trip, then here's an amazing main street with a bunch of great cafes and restaurants and some fun activities that you can do as well, or if you're going to go on a short hike to a nearby waterfall, here are some bakeries and cafes where you can pick up a sandwich for a picnic.

It's about opening yourself up to the possibilities of what that trip can look like and not being so narrowly focused on what you think your audience wants, because we all know what our audience resonates the most with.

But in the end, the most important thing about a successful partnership with a DMO is meeting them halfway and understanding their needs too.

Because as soon as you're able to meld together what your audience and what you are looking for and what they need, that's really where these successful partnerships can do great things.

There's a few that I've thought about as well that I'm curious your take on.

I have seen criticisms of media trips like people in comments on other people's media trip content, saying that they don't trust this content because you're being paid to promote a place.

And so for the record, I think it's important to say you don't have to be dishonest when you work with a DMO or tourism board.

Whenever I work with them, I tell them up front, if I have a bad experience, I'll either not talk about it or I'll talk about it in a delicate way.

Because I have to be honest with my audience, basically, like my integrity, my loyalty.

Yeah, my loyalty lies with my audience and I have to maintain that integrity.

And I think a lot of people don't realize this, but like, it's.

It's similar to journalism in the sense that, like, we're not being paid just to praise a place, we're being paid to give an honest review of our experience there.

Would you say that that's also your experience?

Absolutely.

I would say that I do happen to be a glass half full kind of person.

I think that so many travelers, so many good travelers are.

Because if you're just looking to travel to criticize another place, then why are you leaving in the first place?

But yeah, with that in mind, your integrity.

Chris has a phrase he loves to use all the time, which is so true, you can't buy it back.

So if you, you are posting something that you don't agree with, then why are you doing it in the first place?

So absolutely.

I always maintain that whatever I post is truly my own opinion.

Sure, sometimes content creator partnership budgets can come out of a marketing budget, but it's not a commercial.

I refuse to say that this is a sponsored.

Well, it's not sponsored.

I'll say if it's in collaboration with someone, but it's truly in collaboration because there's no script.

I'm not delivering a message.

It actually hasn't happened too often, but every now and again, there's a very regimented kind of PR company overseeing the content and they're like, oh, can you tweak this?

And if it's like a, you know, if it's just a very small case of wording, then that's fine.

But if it's a whole experience, it's like, no, this was my experience and I'm going to be honest about it.

And as you mentioned, you know, I'm also not looking to put someone out of business, but if I have a negative experience, then I'm just going to avoid talking about it.

I'm not going to promote it, or I'll just, you know, mention it as an option, but it's certainly not going to be a focus of the content.

Fortunately, though, with so many of the partnerships that I've had because of so many detailed conversations ahead of time, that's rarely been the case where there's been something that's just totally missed the mark.

The one thing I'll also mention is I think it's only one time that I've had an experience that I was meant to talk about but opted not to because my experience wasn't positive.

And it actually was a good thing, I think, because I went back to the DMO and was able to give them this feedback and then they have the opportunity to make it right for future visitors.

So in a sense, it is nice to have that relationship because creators can kind of test drive these experiences and share feedback when it's needed for certain things.

Yeah.

And sorry, just to add on to that, I'll often say that when I come back from a trip, that's something that's usually the first question, like, how was this?

It's new.

How did it go?

And they want that honest feedback.

And at the end of the day, we are professionals.

Like, you know, we're engaging in this professionally and so we should be able to have these professional conversations and say, hey, this part was great.

Maybe consider, you know, you know, like, you don't need to give them all the feedback in the world, but it is very helpful to have that relationship.

Can I ask if you both think this is the case across the board right now, though?

Because I think you both feel a sense of loyalty to your.

To the people who read and consume your content.

But I feel like the influencer sphere is so vast now that maybe there are influencers who might be offered press trips who aren't mainly just focused on travel content.

Maybe travel is part of their lifestyle content, wellness content, whatever it might be.

So do you think this is like the case across the board with creators and like, what is the landscape of the press trip content out there right now?

I mean, we were going to get into this like later in the discussion, but I do think it's worth talking of it because it is, I will admit, like a gripe of mine is that some tourism boards and DMOs, from what I've observed, are more.

They more carefully select who they work with than others.

And I do think it's important that they do that kind of vetting.

Like, I personally think that they should be vetting the content.

Like, looking back, like, look back at what this creator has created in the past, look at the angles they share, look at the way that they film, look at how responsible they are in their tourism practices.

And I think it just boils down to, like, different teams at different DMOs with different goals.

I think there's a lot of like, mystery around, like, what actually has impact.

And sometimes it just turns into, we're going to go with the creator that has the biggest audience because it'll reach the most people theoretically.

Instead of looking at those really important engagement metrics, which are things that Bri and I, I know can share, we can show the impact of our work through engagement metrics.

Bri, I'll let you share because I'm sure you have thoughts as well.

Yeah, I think it just always comes back to your authenticity.

The people who follow you, trust you, and if you're leading them astray for a paycheck, then that's a more moral discussion you need to have with yourself.

I think there are a lot of people who have a lot of integrity.

I do think there are some people who need to commit to things for various reasons.

But I think it's the same reason that not every tourism board replies to every cold email is because they know that not everyone is as passionate or authentically engaged with what they do.

Like, some people just want a free trip.

And I speak to industry members all the time.

I've become really good friends with a lot of people in the travel industry side of things, and they know the difference.

They all talk, talk.

They've all brought on someone with the highest follower count or whatever it is, but they see the difference between that person coming somewhere, taking a picture there and leaving, as opposed to the people who really care about this work and care about travel, because I think that's another piece.

There are some people who do this because it's just a great way to get a free trip.

And there are Other people who just truly care about learning about different destinations and talking about them.

So I would say that no, it's not the same across the board as the way that Erin and I approach these kinds of things.

But I would say that there are a lot of people who share the same value and a lot of industry people can kind of tell the difference between those two, if that makes sense.

I have an interesting example to share, actually.

Last summer I was on Cape Breton, working with Cape Breton island, and I had talked to them about the Skyline Trail, which is one of the most popular trails trails on the island.

It's one of those places that we've mentioned.

It does not need any more marketing, but in talking with them, they told me most creators that come here, they want to do the Skyline Trail because that's it's aesthetic.

You're going to get beautiful photos, it's great footage, it's great for social media.

And so when I chatted with them, they first said to me, we actually prefer that you don't cover this at all, so don't like show any content from the Skyline Trail.

But over time, through discussion, I suggested to them, maybe there's a way to talk about it that would be impactful, like in a positive way.

And we ended up doing like a great collaboration along with Parks Canada to create a video that was about how to hike the Skyline Trail responsibly that called out all of the issues that they've faced in controlling tourism on the Skyline Trail.

And it was a really educational video.

It's probably like one of the pieces of content I've made that I'm the most proud of because it really tapped into a problem that they were having and found a way to address it in a really gentle calling people in format.

And I think that is really the beauty of content creation and what creators can do when they have the intention to.

That was just a campaign that I thought really illustrated what you can do when you work really closely with a DMO to address their pain points.

Yeah, so many of the really impactful content creators that I know who truly care about this work that also comes with the work on your end, because you had to sit there and go, okay, we're not going to talk about this, but what about this?

And you were suggesting it because you had an understanding of who you were.

You had an understanding of what your messaging was and how it could meld with the issues that they're facing.

And that's really what the true harmony of these partnerships look like.

And I Don't want to color.

Like, I have so many incredible content creator friends who are really doing, like, I don't want to suggest that, you know, there aren't very many people who care about this work.

There are so many people who really do.

There are, yeah.

But the people who are really just being so successful with it are the people who listen and they're learning and they're thinking about ways to make travel better.

Absolutely.

I think I remember that content that you put together.

It was awesome.

Okay, so going back to sort of the experience of being on a media trip, what in your mind makes a media trip a great experience for you as a creator, but also for your audience?

I think it'll bring in some of the comments we've already made.

But yeah, if you have anything more to share about that.

Yeah, I think really the main thing that sometimes doesn't always come across is that when you have these trips that are really crammed with things to do because people want to make the most of you being there, I completely understand it.

But sometimes I feel like, and I've spoken about this at conferences about how destinations can work better with creators, I think it really takes away the opportunity for creators to be creative, which is ironically, the thing that we're supposed to be the best at.

So, like when you're rushing from A to B and when you're trying to find parking and you're dealing with, I don't know, all sorts of different factors.

Factors, it can be really hard to think about how you're going to creatively put this together in your content.

So that's one of the things that I would say makes a media trip great, is for the people who really value this and they recognize the process and it takes a little bit more than just get out of a car, snap a picture and go.

So any trip that builds in opportunities to get creative, I would also say that any trips that have truly one of a kind or unique experiences to highlight have been just.

They're always so impactful.

I love to highlight those things.

Like recently on the winter trip to Manitoba, I did a whole reel about seven new things I tried in Manitoba this winter.

And as someone who was born and raised in Canada and I've spent close to 35 winters here, maybe not quite because I've lived abroad, but either way, in theory, a lot of winters here, I'm still trying new things because there are so many new things to try.

So, yeah, I think any place that really offers you an opportunity to try something really unique that you can actually tell a really good, good story about is really special, I would say.

I hear basically that gripe is probably the most common.

Just that itineraries sometimes can be too busy for the creator to have enough time to create like really high quality content.

I have had that experience myself as well.

Another one I heard through threads that I thought was funny but also true.

Sunset time, being at dinner during sunset time.

I thought this was so funny because I asked people on threads what their, what the mistakes they'd encountered with media trip itineraries were.

And that was highly quoted, which yeah, it's true and funny.

So then when it comes to media trips, what would you say are the biggest green flags when you're working with a dmo?

Like what makes you want to go back and work with them more?

So in terms of green flags, I feel like there are several things that highlight that it's going to be an excellent trip when I'm working with the dmo.

Usually those things revolve around independently and locally owned businesses, new initiatives.

So whether that's partnerships between different businesses or some sort of trail, like a chocolate trail or something like that, just some way to kind of connect the community sustainable tourism initiatives.

So Chris and I have done a lot of cycling tourism and just ways to try to promote traveling without driving all the time.

So that's a nice one.

There are also so many other different ways to promote sustainable tourism and a focus on indigenous tourism and historical tourism, accurate and honest historical tourism.

So I think that it's really powerful when destinations and businesses and local community members have really done the work to investigate, you know, what, what makes their place special, what problems or issues might this place have as well and what are we doing to set our sights moving forward and what can we do about it?

So I think that those are always my green flags that it's going to be a really impactful trip.

I totally agree with that and I think those are the things that should be highlighted, especially with indigenous tourism.

I think about this a lot because it's something that when I've worked in Canada, I haven't worked yet in the U.S.

but in the future I will do this as well.

I always advocate for that being part of the itinerary and it is really interesting insight to see who has thought about this and who hasn't.

I do think, think that lacking this in itineraries is a bit of a red flag when it comes to itineraries from DMOs and media trips or DMOs and tourism boards in a Perfect world.

I would love to see all of them weaving this into every creator's itinerary as like, you must do it, you have no choice.

But maybe I'm.

Maybe I'm dreaming too big here.

I'm not sure.

Are there any red flags that you've noticed with DMO itineraries or tourism board itineraries?

Yeah, I would.

I hesitate to mark anything as a red flag in tourism because I think it suggests such a binary approach to how the industry works.

There is so much working behind the scenes, like behind a trip, behind a dmo, behind a destination, behind the business owners, behind the obstacles that they face to start their business or to get it off the ground or get it to a place where they're comfortable bringing a creator in front of it.

So I don't like to refer to it as red flag flags, but there are always places that we can work on developing.

And just on your piece about Indigenous tourism, it has been so great when I've been able to visit places that have so many entrenched systems in their region connected to Indigenous tourism.

But for some other places, Indigenous education and awareness, it's really developed so much in the last decade.

I hadn't even learned that piece of information yet.

So we're about 10 years later now and I feel like we're making a lot of progress.

But for businesses and independent experiences, government programming and Parks Canada or Ontario parks or any sort of parks, initiatives, that's different because they have different teams who are able to deal with that.

But for example, I just did an indigenous and woman owned ice fishing experience in Manitoba.

And you know, she opened that business two years ago.

And I think it's a.

It was an incredible experience.

It's called Turtle Village in Riding Mountain National Park.

I wrote about it in one of my newsletters and I'm about to publish an article about it as well.

But that's recent.

It's a recent business that's just opened up and they're comfortable bringing people in to take photos and share it now because I think too, with a lot of new tourism initiatives, initiatives, they do need a little bit of time to kind of become fully baked or like to feel like we're ready to have a lot of eyes on it.

And so other things that I would say that and I mean that's my opinion with red flags, but that's kind of where what I would say so that being said, all of the different businesses and organizations and structures, structural ideas that go behind organizing itineraries, I try not to work, work with chain hotels if I can avoid it.

You know, thinking about Ontario, there are so many towns that historically and cities that have historically only had chain hotels and maybe they don't have a lot of independent accommodation options.

And if it's not an option, I'm not going to fault them for it.

There's always a much more powerful story when something's owned by, you know, a local independent person who has a reason for why they built their, you know, cabin in the woods or why they built, built at this glamping village or something like that.

So yeah, definitely, I always try to work with independent accommodations.

Sometimes you just have to stay at a big hotel because that's what they can offer.

Oh, and then another thing that I would say is so with an itinerary, when you're in the process of planning different pieces to incorporate into your itinerary and if you're having a bit of a lack of communication with someone on the other side and someone isn't getting back to you as quickly as you like, some people might see that as a red flag too, quote, unquote, red flag, a lack of communication.

But I would just like to remind people that the members on the industry side are working really hard to make sure that they do all of that, like content creation.

Hosting is just a super teeny tiny part of what they need to do.

They're often doing seasonal tourism things like, you know, it turns to spring and they're thinking of summer.

They're often coming up with new tourism initiatives every year.

They're dealing with their business to business components.

So there's just a lot going on.

But I would say that if there's anything to you, like I like to say, maybe a month out, maybe a couple weeks out, get a draft itinerary or at least talk about the experiences that you want to do ahead of time.

But don't be afraid to research it yourself if there are things that you absolutely know that you don't want to do.

Make that really clear early on in your conversation.

I don't do animal tourism.

That's fine.

So then that way the destination can put some planning in and make sure that you're not doing something you don't want to.

And so I guess that's really my take on red flags.

I think that the content creator has a lot more control over the issues than they think they do.

Like you just need to really advocate for yourself and what your audience wants.

Yeah, that's what I was gonna say.

And I think that's, like, kind of what's beautiful about these relationships as well, is that we can influence through those relationships as well.

Because for every creator that says to the same dmo, I don't want to do any wildlife or animal tourism that will have them.

Them thinking, like, why.

Why do we keep hearing this?

What does this say about our audience?

I think, in a way, creators are that kind of connection between, like, the regular traveler and the dmo, because we have so much access.

Our audience is the regular traveler.

We know what they want almost.

Almost better than DMOs do, I would argue, because we have so much interaction with our audiences.

And so, like, I assume, and I hope that DMOS take that kind of information from creators and do reflect on it and about what the future of their destination might be based on that kind of feedback.

Because, yeah, like you say, I think we can advocate in these partnerships for more responsible travel practices, and we can also reflect those in the content that we create, which, again, I think is one of the beautiful things about what creators are doing.

It's really interesting because when I first started creating content, I felt so cringy about it.

I think we all go through that phase where it's like, I just.

This is just a weird thing that I'm doing.

Like, I don't, you know, like.

And there's, like, a bad impression that a lot of people have about what influencing is.

But the further into the space I've gotten, the more I realize that influencers and creators actually, like, we're called influencers because that is what we do.

We influence, and we do have the power through storytelling to shape the way that people view tourism and that people engage with tourism.

And so it's like kind of a big responsibility.

And I think, like, being that connection between the DMO and, like, these regular audiences of travelers is really important and something that we all take really seriously in our work.

So, yeah, personally, that has been a big piece for me, is kind of being upfront about what I want out of a partnership, like, just based on my own audience.

And I often do say specifically the types of things that I would like to do when I'm talking with a dmo, because at the end of the day, I know my audience best and what will fit best with the kind of storytelling that I do.

So I think we all, most creators are doing that.

I would hope, at least I think they are.

And even if they might not be doing it in a way that we can all see it.

I think there's a lot going on behind the scenes that we aren't seeing that goes into the planning of these things as well.

Yeah.

There are so many hours that go into these.

These trips that people don't see.

It's really.

It's really wild.

Yeah.

Like I've had people say to me, they think that we just like get an email one day and we're invited to go somewhere.

So we say yes and then like two weeks later we're on this trip.

Nope.

Yeah, it's not that simple.

Yeah, no.

And the follow the following up too.

I mean, like, I have so many people, friends who just like, you know, they really struggle to get back to the emails.

And I get it because they're inboxes.

Some of my industry friends have like 600 emails, a thousand emails a day.

And it's like, yeah, of course you're not getting back to me.

I don't know how you're not completely burnt out right now.

And if you are, thank you for taking so much time to carefully plan an itinerary.

That's going to be amazing for me.

I think we need to have a bit of empathy too, for that side.

But yeah, it takes a long time to get a trip.

Chris and I are doing some trips this year that we've been planning for the past two, maybe three years, from planting the seed to actually having the trip move forward.

So it does take quite a bit of time.

When you look at the industry and these relationships between creators and DMO tourism boards, what is your hope for the future of the industry?

What would you like to see in the next five to 10 years?

I think what I would love to see five years from now is that all of the new local businesses, all of the new areas that people are really focused on traveling more and more in Canada because there is an increased amount of people who are interested in discovering new places in Canada.

It's beyond Canada too.

But I feel just with both of our experience, it makes sense to talk about Canada specifically.

Specifically, I would just love to see more and more business owners.

Canadian business owners feel empowered to start their own tourism initiative.

And more and more indigenous business owners feel empowered to create an indigenous experience that's authentic, that's led by them.

So I think I would just love to see more and more focus on the hyperlocal and casting away or putting on the back burner like the big box accommodations or travel experiences.

I would love to see more and more Canadians.

I talked about this on video I put out recently.

I'm so glad that so many Canadians are really proud to support Canadian right now and I hope that that continues moving forward.

But I think I would love to see Canadians just like embrace local travel and not focus on the negatives of places they think they know and really just think about the opportunities and the ways that they might be surprised by a place they've never visited or a place that's new to them.

And to build on that, I would say my wish is to see more focus on bringing creators to highlight regions that are lesser known that are off sort of the well traveled trail.

In Ontario especially, I think there are all these places that everyone knows, but let's go and highlight places that people don't know so well.

And I think it has a net positive impact because often increasing tourism to less visited regions leads to more investment in development and more investment in infrastructure.

It can have a really positive effect on communities that are in more rural areas and that have less forms of income available to them.

So yeah, I think seeing that grow in Ontario has been really beautiful because it definitely has grown especially throughout the pandemic and it continues to, which is really nice to see.

And yeah, I think that creators and DMOs and tourism boards like play a big part of that.

So I agree with you.

I would love to see that continue to grow in the coming years.

Well, Bree, thank you so much for joining us.

It's been really fun to unpack media trips with you.

I hope that this demystifies it for listeners who've been curious about what goes on behind the scenes with creators that they follow online.

And I should say this isn't just just like content creators like on social media.

It also includes bloggers and really all forms of media creators across them.

So yeah.

And Bree, where can people find you if they would like to read your work or watch your work?

You can find me on Instagram and TikTok at Bri MitchellTravels.

My website, www.travelingmitch.com with one L My weekly travel newsletter, the Weekly Traveler and my Ontario and Canadian travel websites, ultimate ontario.com and we explore canada.com it's a lot of places.

Like truly, if you're looking for Canadian Travel Inspo Bri and her partner Chris are the people to go to because you guys, you've covered it all.

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