Travel + Leisure A-List争议是旅行媒体的滑坡
经过道格·戈兰(Doug Gollan)/
The recent news that Travel + Leisure will start charging $4,000 to travel agents who want to be included on its annual A-List of the best advisors may only directly impact the 139 advisors who were on the list last year and those who want to be on it in the future. But, it is causing a social media kerfuffle about the validity of the fee, and whether it devalues the list and makes it advertorial as opposed to legitimate editorial.
“So much for purism in journalism,” wrote one PR executive whom I know and respect. “Terrible,” wrote another on Facebook. Travel + Leisure says that the fee is only payable if an agent is selected, so it would only affect those who choose not to put themselves forward. As far as the application process, that hasn’t really changed, the publisher says. If it is true, Travel + Leisure is not going to charge the fee until after they notify you that you made the list, well, the payment wouldn’t impact inclusion. You can always say, “I was chosen, but decided not to pay.”
为什么添加费用
Travel + Leisure, for its part, noted there is a lot of expense in researching the list, which entails ferreting through applications and interviewing customers of the agents that apply as well as the agents themselves. Good reporters don’t grow on trees, nor are they a commodity that can be bought on the cheap.
Having spent most of my career involved in magazine publishing, it’s painful to see the state of the industry today, with thinner issues, lower-grade paper, and often editorial staffs that have been dramatically downsized since the glory days when these publications were thick with glossy ads. And that’s the point. It was those ads, costing $80,000 or more for a single page, that paid the freight.
这些杂志的读者从来没有真正付出很多钱。And, in fact, $12 or $20 per year, for what used to be a dozen issues (some major publications are now down to eight) doesn’t even cover a fraction of the expense involved, which now has to include populating websites multiple times a day, as well as creating interaction with readers via social media, plus investing in ever-changing technology — much of which doesn't even pan out.
The fact that readers of consumer travel publications have never really paid a significant amount of money to receive their favorite travel publications has meant that the endeavor was always underwritten by advertising. The transition from print to digital is trading dollars for nickels and pennies, increasing the pressure CFOs are putting on executive management, which trickles down. Plenty of magazines that haven’t been able to figure out a new model have closed down or scaled back to where they are a shadow of what they once were. It takes as much effort to do quality journalism on the web versus print, but more and more, it’s the much smaller digital ad programs that are being bought as print ads decline.
从历史上讲是为了支持代理商
Publications such as Travel + Leisure and Conde Nast Traveler, despite their flaws, have over the decades served the industry well, showcasing far-flung places before one could just Google it. The Travel + Leisure A-List of agents dates back to 2001 and was started during a time when much of the media had written agents off as dinosaurs. These best agent lists provided a strong message to both consumers and suppliers that agents were still an integral part of the distribution system at a time when agents had very few fans in the mainstream media.
无论如何,在许多情况下,消费者的travel media has never been about chronicling wrong orders from room service and run-of-the-mill attractions, but instead celebrating travel and putting a light on both interesting destinations and experiences one might not have thought or known about.
影响消费者的信誉
申请费或会员费,无论您想称呼什么,都是旅行 +休闲的湿滑坡度,也是任何其他希望与读者保持一定程度的信誉的媒体公司。有人可能会说下一步将是在线拍卖,旅游委员会可以在其中竞标将目的地列出。beplay银行卡
当然,我们看到有关旅行的信息较少以及在旅行杂志中的手表,珠宝和时尚的更多页面的原因是,这些广告商希望覆盖其产品类别,而不是简单地购买参与的受众,这是广告的内容。社论和商业之间应该从哪里开始?它需要在哪里停止,以便发布者可以与读者一起保护一定程度的诚信?
在这些列表中,有助于将许多代理商变成半学位。在清单上有助于为自己和他们的代理商创造额外的宣传,并且在向客户推销时肯定会给他们带来额外的声望。转到这些列表中这些代理商的网站,您会发现认可通常是高度喇叭。我也在名片上看到了它。
By most estimates, there are around 100,000 travel agents today in the U.S., and real person retail advisors have proven their value to consumers over booking directly or via OTAs. Today, there is a multitude of ways to get information about travel, including publisher sites, talk boards, blogs and the social media that many agents use effectively to communicate with their clients and prospects.
这将领导在哪里?
特工反抗和旅行 +休闲会发现它没有足够的质量应用要考虑吗?Conde Nast Traveler会加入西装并开始充电吗?对于可能不会花很多钱在营销上的代理商,4,000美元是很多钱。对于其他人来说,它将仅在电子表格上移动数字。
Much as agents reinvented themselves — becoming experts, charging fees, offering a customized level of service that suppliers and OTAs can’t match — many of the current media brands we know well are trying to figure out how to compete against Facebook and Google for digital dollars as they try to maintain what they can with legacy print products.
I’ll take a backseat for the outrage on this one. I’ll also take a moment to appreciate the contributions various print magazines and newspapers have made to the travel industry via the coverage they have brought to their readers over the years. I’ll wish them the best in trying to figure out a model that both works for their readers as well as their owners and investors. The Conde Nast and Travel + Leisure agent lists have served the agency community well in promoting the value of agents not only to consumers but other media who use the lists as resources when trying to find experts on some type of travel or far-flung destination.