Here are some tips our reviewers have passed on:
I send a very similar email to all the hotel I pitch but the main things I include are:
– Get the name of the person you want to read it! Don’t ever send an email to a general address like booking@ or reservations@ I always call the hotel and get the email address of the marketing manager/PR manager etc. Sometimes the person answering the phone will try to palm you off with a general email address but polite persistence normal pays off. This is a time consuming approach and costs money for calls but I believe it’s the best approach.
– Personalise each and every email. Read something about the hotel/resort and try to mention (briefly) in the first paragraph why you want to stay there and why it would be a good fit for L&B and us for them. Mention who L&B has worked with before and change that according to the hotel you’re approaching. For instance, I mention working with the Jumeirah chain when I’m pitching in the Gulf because they are big there, I change that reference for other regions where they are unknown, same with Anantara who are big in Asia but unknown in other regions.
– Spell out clearly what’s in it for them. At the end of the day you are not getting the hotel stay because you wrote a nice email and you sound like a great person, you are getting it because of what you can do for them. Think cost/benefit. What promotional opportunities can you offer? If you have a blog with lots of traffic (a big hotel PR person told me he doesn’t even look at anything under 30k/month, smaller hotels might) say you’ll do a prominent article on your blog (if you are willing to do that); tell then L&B’s site traffic; tell them L&B’s social media numbers – and your own if they are big enough.
– Sell yourself – in terms of what you can do for them. For examples, I’m a destination expert on Tripadvisor with over 7000 posts and a lot of reviews. I mention that in the pitch.
– If you don’t hear back from them do a follow up a couple of weeks later, forward your original email in case they missed it – they probably didn’t miss it but just in case.
– Send a thank you after staying and send links to anything you post. We want to build a good reputation for L&B and ourselves as being professional, reliable people to work with.
– Be enthusiastic about their ‘product’. I only pitch hotels that I really want to stay at and hopefully my enthusiasm comes through.
‘As far as pitch emails, I have a couple strategies. First I reach out to the tourism board of wherever I’m headed to and let them know that I’m a travel writer. I give them my press card number for the International Travel Writer’s Alliance, explain that I’m looking for accommodations, and tell them I write for Luxury and Boutique Hotels and wherever else I’m writing about the location. I also share circulation numbers for my combined expected story outlets. Depending on what they come back with, I will either book hotels through them or contact hotels on my own. I almost never use the drafted pitch email in Google Drive – I find that it’s too long and people don’t really read it because it looks too sales-pitchy. So instead I email the sales manager or hotel owner with basically the same email I sent the tourism people, except I add that I’m looking for two nights in exchange for a review and/or a blog post. I have a pretty good positive response rate. ‘