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TRANSCRIPT:
DOUG: Since I’ve known her. Florence Quinn has been the gold standard in travel PR, so we’re going to take a deep dive into some of the trends that you’re seeing there. Thanks so much for being with us.
FLORENCE: Thank you, Doug. Well, I have to pay the compliment back to you. You are the gold standard in video media production.
DOUG: Gosh, there’s so much gold on this call. We could be designing the Oval Office, but we’ll hold that for a separate.
FLORENCE: Maybe we’ll go to Fort. Knox with President Trump. Check it out.
DOUG: Sounds like a good idea. First, do you have a favorite travel destination? I mean, you’ve represented so many different travel partners. Do you have a favorite destination?
FLORENCE: Yes, I actually have two right now. My favorite travel destination is London. Perhaps because I’ve been going there so frequently for business since we opened an office in London. I’ve gotten to know the city. I feel very comfortable there. My partner goes with me. He goes to all the museums while I work, and we have a little mews house in Marylebone where we stay, and we’ve even had friends over for dinner.
DOUG: That sounds awesome. You mentioned a second one.
FLORENCE: Yeah. My other favorite place is Martha’s Vineyard, where I’m going in a couple of weeks. Um, I’ve been going there since I was in college and worked there over the summer.
DOUG: That’s cool. And you talk about travel. One of the things that’s a new trend that you’ve frequently spoken about is that people are able to relocate for work, and that’s actually affecting the travel industry because people can work from everywhere. What’s one takeaway travel communicators should understand about that trend?
FLORENCE: Yeah, that is a big time trend. And the trend is that hotels are building residences as well as hotel rooms. Huge trends probably were all aware of that. The branded residences phenomenon that is really sweeping the world. You know, everybody’s in it, Ritz-Carlton, Saint Regis for seasons, the mid-level tier is now getting into it because that’s what people want. They want to have branded residences because they can travel and live and work from anywhere. And once they’ve gotten comfortable being in a residence when they’re traveling, even for vacation, they also realize it’s nice to have a lot of space.
DOUG: Interesting. Now that also, I would think Airbnb might be playing a role in that, because that sort of set up more as what you think of as a home residence when people go there. Is that a big part of that trend that you’re seeing? Or maybe were they the early part and now the big name brands are jumping in?
FLORENCE: Exactly. They were the first to open everybody’s eyes to the opportunity of living in a home when they’re traveling, whether it’s for work or vacation, and it’s just grown from there and it’s been layered on with Covid. During Covid, people went and lived and worked from anywhere. They stayed in homes. Some people moved there permanently. Some people fell in love and bought a second home there. And the other thing, the other, the third reason, I believe, is the massive amount of wealth among, wealthy people, like they call it the, you know, the great transfer of wealth is going on to the next generation from their parents. And when you have that much money, you’re just happy to have a bigger space to stay in. When you go on vacation, you might still want all the hotel amenities, but you might choose the villa, the three bedroom villa on the water with a private pool instead of a hotel room.
DOUG: That’s clearly a boost to the higher end. But are there also travelers that are more in the mid space, maybe more of a traditional traveler? Are you seeing different tactics to try and reach them? And maybe we can differentiate before you get to that. If you want to talk about people who are looking, say for more hotel stays and those that might be looking for more independent essays, how are you reaching people differently.
FLORENCE: In terms of more affordable residence type places to stay in when you travel? I think we’re seeing a resurgence and a rise in fractional ownership of properties. That could be hotel branded, even timeshares. Um, it seems like people are enjoying to go to the same, you know, the same places. And I think that there’s a and maybe this is because of Covid, but I’d love to hear your take on it. I think more and more people are traveling with friends and family, which indicates a need for more space, to answer your question about hotel, how hotels and hotel rooms accommodating these people as well. We’re seeing hotels build, build more, grab and go into their offering so you can, you know, take, grab and go up to your room and have your breakfast in your room or stay in your room and eat dinner that night just a little bit easier.
DOUG: I do see a lot of families traveling together. I mean, we’re somewhat fortunate that our kids live both by all of them are in Brooklyn, so we actually get to see them enough that they probably don’t want to travel with us. And we’re fine not traveling with them because we see that so frequently, but especially with trend of kids like moving away from parents, that’s an opportunity to be together for an extended period of time. You’ve done a great job sort of laying out the landscape of some of the different trends, but the media landscape is also changing. And is that changing for travel? And do you have to sort of plan differently depending on the audiences you’re reaching?
FLORENCE: Yeah, that’s a great question. I think we all know the media landscape is shrinking a little bit. There are a lot more freelancers. Some of the magazines, some of the newspapers, some of the outlets have shrunk their staff. Which is probably why they’re doing more trend pieces. More what we might call listicles, uh, which makes them still extremely important, just harder to get. So, your story has to be really strong. So, the storytelling aspect of any travel entity, any hotel property, has to be strong. So, we layer in to these properties with partnerships that will produce, you know, the coverage, number one that will produce the coverage. Number two is every PR firm today is not just doing earned media relations. We’re doing these partnerships so you can cross promote the product between the partners with or without the media.
DOUG: Yeah. And the partners can often benefit financially from links that generate business, etc. So, there’s that piece of the industry’s growing. It’s interesting you talked a lot about print outlets there online. But one of the things that we’re seeing that has a different trend. We’re actually opportunities are expanding is local TV news. We’ve seen in the last ten years Spanish language broadcasts have doubled. English language broadcasts have increased 30 to 40%. Of course, the big coverage is that the staffs are shrinking, not growing. And we found in our recent surveys they’re more open than they’ve ever been to PR content, because they have more shows to fill with fewer people doing the work. Are you seeing that broadcast also plays a role, especially with so many travel stories being so visual.
FLORENCE: That’s a really good point. Broadcast for us in particular is very important with our ultra luxury clients Vista Jet and Frasier Yachts. To get the CEOs onto the business broadcasts, to reach the high net worth individuals and CEOs. And that’s very competitive landscape, but that is why we have a broadcast division. We have a broadcast specialist who actually just got our New Zealand client onto three different broadcast segments, plus a feature in The Financial Times.
DOUG: Right. And those are going for the high net worth. So it seems like you’re focusing a lot on the high end. What about sort of the family that travels. Maybe they take their week or two weeks vacation at different times of year. What are some of the ways to reach them?
FLORENCE: It’s still definitely the media. So, an immediate placement it is content. It lives in the media. It lives. It gets repurposed in social media. It gets repurposed on the website. It gets repurposed in the emailer. So that’s still super important. People are scrolling their Instagram to see where to go. And also, partnerships still work with them.
DOUG: Yeah. Now, one of the things maybe some of the younger generation might describe it as a client, having said a meh kind of story. So, what do you have a process or suggestions when a client comes to you? They want to work. They want to get their message out there, but the story’s not really there. And obviously the partnership would be one angle, right? But you know, can they still do that with an earned voice? How do you approach it to try and make it more compelling, more interesting, especially sometimes when the client might have, I would say, swam in their own pool drinking the Kool-Aid.
FLORENCE: Okay, let’s break down the media a little bit. So, listicles, you know, we’ll still pitch listicles because the media will write about listicles. And even if a client says to us, I don’t want to be an elliptical, I want my own feature. We have to tell them that listicles are sometimes better than features, because if you are in there with ten other hotels, every single hotel is publicizing this listicle you are on, so you are getting amplified tenfold with this coverage. And when people go to search for a hotel, that’s what they’re doing. What are the best hotels in Rome? What are the most family friendly? You know, hotels in Palm Beach. That’s what they’re searching for. So, listicles are actually really good, but the other thing is we try to attach the client to current events, like what’s the media writing about now? What’s of interest to the media that we can attach it to.
DOUG: Yeah. And I guess hopefully there won’t be tariffs on travel on that. Any final thoughts as we wrap up this segment?
FLORENCE: Yeah I mean that’s interesting. We have not seen tariff discussion so much yet in the travel industry. Certainly in um, on the property side of our business, the real estate side, we’ve gotten a lot of stories on the tariffs affecting the tariff and the sort of world order today affecting people buying multiple homes across borders so they have bolt holes or safe havens, even yachts in different parts of the world.
DOUG: Interesting. Well, maybe I’ll go to my rowboat on that one, because I don’t quite have the yacht yet. But thank you for giving us the, you know, top of the line luxury version for the segment of the show. Thanks for being with us. Always. Great to see you.
FLORENCE: Thanks, Doug. Wonderful to see you too.
