How to Plan a Culinary Tourism Press Trip

I am writing this post as a follow up to How To Run a Blog: From Dusk Till Dawn, a beginners guide to #BlogLife.

I decided to write this post for those of you who already have a blog and focus your time and energy showcasing a passion for food, drink and travel. Many of you have asked me about the process of how I plan, coordinate, prepare for and execute my press trips. Here is my colourful response.

Defining a Niche and Creating Credibility

Coordinating Culinary Tourism Press Trips requires an authority on the subject. As we all know there are several ways to skin a cat, I will share my own story here as its all I know!

Get Yourself An Education

In order to work with Tourism Boards as a culinary tourism expert you have to quantify and qualify your expertise. I have a four year Bachelor of Commerce Degree from the University of Guelph’s School of Hospitality and Tourism Management where I focussed my final year of study on Global Culinary Tourism Best Practices. An emphasis on a practical education is helpful in creating credibility in this field. I have taken university courses in cultural aspects of food, economies of food usage (the farm to fork model), restaurant management, beverage management, sensory evaluation of food, hotel management and electives in art history and anthropology. This broad level of course work creates a fundamental understanding of the principles of culinary tourism which include farming, food processing, restaurant management and the impacts of society and religion on how a culture handles and relates to its food.

Your education should never stop at graduation. There are a wild and wonderful variety of courses available at community colleges (Wine and Beer Appreciation at George Brown) and professional associations (Cheese Appreciation from the Cheese Education Guild) for example. If your bookshelf is filled with titles such as Gina Mallet’s Last Chance To Eat, Michael Pollin’s The Omnivores Dilemma and Nichola Fletcher’s Charlemagne’s Tablecloth: A Piquant History of Feasting, then you are on the right track.

Travel The World

I realized my ability to write about how people interact and appreciate food was going to be limited to how much of the world I had seen. I wanted to expand my repertoire for words and enhance my history through international travel. After finishing university I left the country and traveled around the world for three years visiting Europe, Central America, South America, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, The Polynesian Islands and America. I have now visited almost 60 countries and believe tourism boards are most keen to work with me as they see my dedication and expertise through the stamps in my passport.

Your breadth of travel limits or enhances your ability to critic your experiences. If you were born in Toronto and write about food and travel in Canada but have only ever been on vacations to All Inclusive resorts in the Caribbean your ability to story-tell about the cities newest Thai restaurant is not as vivid as someone who has backpacked through Thailand for two months, eaten a handful of regional curries and spent time at a local cooking school to learn the craft first hand.

Another example I often give to people is the current local luxury boom in Toronto. If you are a local food blogger in Toronto writing about the surge in fine dining concepts you may find yourself feeling like an expert in what properties are hot, innovative, delicious and showcase the best service. I can guarantee these particular bloggers opinions on the state of Toronto’s food scene would be forever changed if they were to go on a four week press trip of Europe reviewing thirty or so Michelin Restaurants.

Be The Expert

Make sure your resume reads like you are an authority on everything travel and food! My current shortlist:

• nominated for the 2012 Canadian Weblog Awards in the Lifestyle, Travel and Food Categories.
• acted as a judge with Chef Massimo Capra at the Oakville Culinary Mashup.
• regularly update my Toronto’s Top Restaurant List.
• acted as judge for the Ontario Culinary Tourism Awards which were presented at the Ontario Tourism Summit this past October.
• have had the opportunity to work as an Ambassador for several food brands including Canada Beef, and Iogo Yogurt.

So How Does One Coordinate a Press Trip?

Once you have created a brand identity, have a slew of travel experiences in your back pocket and have defined a niche in the food and travel space things start to change. Tourism Boards start emailing you and inviting you to media events in hopes you will feature their destination to your audience. This often starts locally as the investment for a tourism board is minor when you can take a quick drive to visit. My first press trip was to Prince Edward County and since then have organized several throughout the province. Ontario based Tourism Boards love the local coverage and it’s easier  for me to commit to two to five days outside of the city than say flying to Africa for four weeks.

Tourism Boards regularly create FAMiliarization press trips for travel writers to showcase their destinations. These itineraries typically include 5-15 writers who travel as a group together. Disclaimer: I have never been on a group trip.

I prefer to take the extra time to work one-on-one with local tourism board PR pros to ensure the flow and content of my itinerary is to my liking. Niche Culinary Tourism press trips are rare so creating these personalized solo adventures allows me to showcase specific farm to fork experiences. I am not opposed to going on a press trip with a group but have yet to be invited on a trip that sparked my interest. When I get invited on a group trip to The Maldives, Madagascar or French Polynesia I’ll let you know.

Get to Work

Coordinating a press trip can take months to organize as one locates the correct email address for the PR staffer at the proper Tourism Board office, clarifying the goals and coverage of the trip, agreeing upon travel dates and specifically coordinating each days activities down to the hour.

Writing personalized press trip pitches to each tourism board is time consuming and requires a special skill which one perfects over time. Tourism Boards such as Paris, New York and Tokyo get hundreds of press trip requests a week. Make sure you stand out! It is your responsibility to be clear on your motives, showcase how your trip will add value to the destination and outline your niche interests for coverage. I for example always outline my interests as “showcasing the creme de la creme in fine dining and luxury accommodation.” You will be able to sell yourself best if you can find a story angle that the destination rarely encounters. This past summer I went on a press trip with Mont Tremblant Tourism a famous outdoor adventure village in Quebec. The Tourism Board is constantly creating itineraries for sports and adventure travel writers so when I pitched them on a story highlighting the local restaurant scene they immediately said yes!

Finalizing Your Culinary Tourism Centric Itinerary

• focus on highlighting the destinations top restaurants as well as local cheap eats. You will not find Montreal’s perfect poutine at the Ritz Carlton.
• ensure your tour includes a visit to the local farmers market as well as any on site farm visits when available. Connecting your visit to a local winery with the glass you are enjoying at a top restaurant down the road showcases “a sense of place,” perfectly.
• remember the breadth of your plate could include a variety of visits: brewery, distillery, winery, farm, processing plant, bakery and even a fishing boat!

Your Trip is Not a Vacation

People always joke with me that they are jealous about all of the “vacations” I go on. Press Trips are by no means a holiday. Tourism Boards are spending big bucks to send you to their destinations and they will tend to work you to the bone to show you as much as possible. Many journalists I have met who regularly go on press trips comment that they beg for an hour or so a day so they can just relax in their hotel room before the next jaunt.

On my recent press trip to Europe I would wake up at 5am and get to bed every night sometime after midnight. I endured this rather exhausting routine for 5 weeks straight! Please note I write all of my destination guides and restaurant reviews when I get home which sometimes take up to a month of daily writing when I’m back in Toronto.

A Typical Daily Culinary Tourism Press Trip Schedule

5:00 am wake up call

6:00 am quick hotel breakfast

7:00 am photo editing / writing / posting daily blog / emails

9:00 am guided city tour

11:00 am art gallery or museum tour

1:00 pm lunch restaurant review

3:00 pm farmers market

4:00 pm brewery tour

5:30 pm quick shower

6:00 pm dinner restaurant review

8:00 pm theatre review

11:00 pm nightlife tour bar hopping

12 midnight crash into bed

Following Up…

Once I return home I keep busy writing about my recent trip. I contact each Tourism Board thanking them for their help in coordinating and letting them know when I will be showcasing my coverage online. I am sure to provide my facebook and twitter profile so their marketing team can share my work with proper attribution.

By creating a fantastic relationship with local and international tourism boards post trip you never know the next time you will be invited back. Remember once your content goes online you might just catch the eye of another tourism board who loved your unique sense of storytelling. Keep that ball rolling!