How to Book Travel Collaborations: Part 1

Happy Monday, everyone! Like last Friday’s post, this is another big topic you all have been requesting. After executing my first travel collaboration last weekend, a lot of you are curious how I brought this to fruition and how you can do the same. Today’s post is part one of my travel collaboration series sharing how to successfully book travel collabs as a blogger.

Before I get into this, I want to let you guys know that I’ve never pitched a travel collaboration (or not really any type of collaboration for that matter), so if you’re looking for how to draft and send a pitch email, this isn’t the post for you. This post will share what you can do on your end to uphold an online presence that will help you get noticed by travel companies looking to book bloggers. Obviously I’m not a professional and I’m new to the travel industry, but I thought it would be helpful to share any information I do have that could help you guys along the way.

Now that I’ve given that disclaimer, let’s get into it!

You and your blog must be viewed as an appealing online resource.
Hotels/destinations (and all brands) want to work with bloggers who can provide successful online marketing for them. In my eyes, an appealing online resource is one that is equally good visually as it is substance wise. I find it helpful to take a step back and look at your blog and social media from an outside perspective. Consider these things:

Would YOU want to hire someone like yourself to promote your hotel/destination? Why or why not?
Is your content of professional quality that companies would want to repost and share with their audience?
Would companies want someone like you to market and represent them?
Are you likable and someone that people would take advice and recommendations from?
Do you uphold a professional, yet real online presence?
Are you consistent with posting?
Are you recognizably business-minded?

If some of these don’t apply to you, this gives you some areas to work on moving forward. I always try to keep each of these in mind when creating content and deciding what I want to post, and I find it really helpful for staying on track and focused from a business perspective.

You must have something valuable to provide.
Influence, high quality content, high engagement rates, consistency, blog posts of great substance… you get the idea. To pick you, there must be something that YOU can provide in a particular way that no one else can — whether it be the way you edit your pictures, how you format your blog posts or your personality shining through in your writing. Also, I truly believe that posting on your blog once or twice a month won’t cut it and a higher standard must be met for booking travel work. There isn’t a specific marker that needs to be met (like a certain number of followers) and these other qualities seem to be far more important than numbers, which I’m so happy about.

I suggest focusing on improving in these areas:

Blog posts — be sure they have substance, are interesting to read and provide some sort of benefit
Page views — have a good amount of traffic people reading your blog posts
Photography and editing — strive to be different and consistent (I recommend sticking to an editing theme)
Website design — make your site fun to be on, professional and ooze personality
Social media presence — post frequently and build a relationship with your followers
Communication — be responsive, professional and totally yourself when replying to messages on social media and emails

There must be something that stands out about you more than someone else.
What this was exactly for me when getting chosen I don’t know, but if I were on the other side of things, I would pick someone who’s unique. To me, that means individuality and creativity are so important. Not following the crowd or regurgitating what other people do, and instead blazing your on trail with unique ideas and styles will help you stand out among everyone else.

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I hope this was helpful! My goal was to help you all look at yourself and your content from an outside business perspective to assess what you can do on your end to capture the attention of hotels/destinations. I’d be happy to try to answer any questions you have. Part 2 on how to create content for travel collaborations is coming next! Have an amazing day & check back for a new post on Wednesday!

P.S. You can check out my blog post sharing my first travel experience for my blog here and browse my social media posts through #AbbySaylorTravel.