It's getting harder to fill press trips. Here's how one destination convinced me

Even though I said I didn't want to travel!

Hi friends,

First of all. No, that’s not my family. That’s one of countless Indonesian families that asked to take a photo with me last week. What did they love more than getting a pic of/with me on their phone? Me asking to take the same photo on my phone then. Many of my taxi drivers and vendors at markets I visited also asked for photos.

It’s not every day they see a white person, and my guide told me they like to take photos with them, sometimes posting on social media that they “Just saw Taylor Swift.” My, how Taylor has let herself go these days! :) I haven’t had my picture taken like this since I studied abroad in China 20 years ago. I felt a bit like a celebrity, though I wouldn’t be surprised if my photo is trending on Indonesian social media with the hashtag #sweatyforeigner given the permanent layer of moisture blanketing my body during two weeks of 95-degree humidity.

I complained last week about how wrong my trip to Indonesia went (rain every day, getting sick, cancelled flights) and how exhausted I am from travel. Aside from flying to visit my mom this week, I don’t want to travel at all and I joked that I’m only considering press trips that will fly me in business class to spend the entire trip sleeping. Well, then I accepted a press trip.

Read on to learn more!

Cassandra

P.S. There’s been a lot of interest in Yahoo, which has a new Creators program that gives writers full authority over their content. I’ll talk more about this in a future newsletter, but for now, here are two recent articles I wrote for them. The Bhutan article received 30,000 views the first week, and the Bali article (which I just wrote yesterday) racked up 5,000 views the first afternoon - not bad!

Yahoo: The Four Best Hotels in Bali - Where to Stay in Bali in 2025

Yahoo: Bhutan was Just Added to the Travel Ban List - Here’s What it’s Like to Visit

---

It’s Getting Harder to Fill Press Trips

I’ve heard from so many travel writers that they are not accepting press trips because it’s become so difficult to land coverage, and they don’t want to deal with that “press trip guilt.” Similarly, I’ve heard from publicists how frustrating it’s been to convince top-tier journalists to even consider the trips they’ve worked so hard to organize. This puts us all in a difficult situation, which is why I’m sharing today the nine things this destination did right.

I receive hundreds of press trip invites every year but accept only a handful. This was one of the best press trip invites I’ve ever received, and after spending about 2 minutes reading the email (and well-crafted attachments), I accepted the trip. For those of you struggling to fill your press trips, this email is for you.

---

The Perfect Spring Press Trip Pitch

Top-tier travel writers receive numerous press trip invites each week, and I’m hearing from colleagues that many delete the invites without reading them because they don’t expect the hassle of traveling (remember, press trips are work trips, not vacations), paired with the growing difficulty of landing coverage, to be worth their time.

But one destination broke through the clutter, and I accepted an international press trip invite for mid-May. I received my flight details this morning, and I’m chatting with a couple of domestic destinations about potential summer trips.

• Want to learn what this destination did right?

• Want to know what top-tier travel writers are looking for from press trips?

• Want to know what will help your own press trip invites stand out?

Read on…

Here are 9 reasons why I accepted the press trip: