Lessons learned from the Valencia blog trip

Bloggers waiting for breakfast

Bloggers waiting for breakfast

It’s nearly two weeks since I returned from my first bloggers’ press trip. Along with around 20 others I enjoyed five days of pampering and gluttony courtesy of the Valencia Region Tourist Board.  It was a very enjoyable experience, but that was not a surprise given the time and money that had been invested in preparing our itinerary.

I wrote before the trip began on my own reasons for choosing to go on a blog trip. While it’s easy to be seduced by the lure of free food, nice hotels and F1 tickets, there has to be a positive personal gain to justify giving up five days of my time with my wife and being away from my own work. So was it worth it for me? I would answer with a resounding Yes. While I wouldn’t choose to take a trip like this every month they do have a value, and as a newbie I took home many positives.

Here are just a few things I learned on my first blog trip:

1. There are many skills represented in the social media world. I had a preconceived notion of a group of bloggers, but we had others including top class photographers, an audio journalist and video producer among our ranks. Each was devoted to applying their own expertise and passion to capture and share the sights and sounds of our trip for their audience.

Jeep tour of the wilder side of Benidorm

Jeep tour of the wilder side of Benidorm

2. Many people lead to many unique angles. There can be a danger that with 20 people staying in the same places, doing the same things, the output is going to be very similar. It was refreshing to see the number of unique approaches taken in reporting the events of our time in Valencia.

3. I got to know a new part of the world. I didn’t know much about Alicante, Benidorm and Valencia. Not surprisingly we got to see the best of these places and now I have a positive impression; but my interest is as much for the parts I didn’t see and want to visit as for the places we did see.

4. There is never enough time on such a trip. It was a frustration that we didn’t have a chance to blog on what was called a blog trip. Each day had such a packed itinerary with free time in waking hours often restricted to a shower and change of clothes. It’s understandable that the organisers wanted to show us everything, and the main method of social media output during the trip became Twitter and photo-sharing as a result.

5. I have never ate so much in five days, nor have I spent so long at the table. It was fair to say that on most days we spent around 8 hours a day having meals, and only 5-6 hours sleeping. Clearly our hosts wanted us to try the best of the local cuisine, but even the finest food does lose its excitement after so much excess. (The red prawns in Restaurant Mena in Denia were quite special though!)

Sharing our war stories

Sharing our war stories

6. The chance to spend time with other bloggers and social media enthusiasts was invaluable. Many of those on the trip had already become friends via our online world and it was great to put a face and a personality to the Twitter presence. Others I met for the first time have now become friends. We were able to share tips, experiences and war stories from our time as bloggers, and learn from each others’ successes and mistakes.

7. Attending the Formula 1 race in Valencia was without question the main event, and much of the talk was of our chance to experience the race. It certainly lived up to my expectations. Having that high point at the end of the trip provided a focus for our being there, cemented a high profile association for the blog trip itself and no doubt increased the overall online impact made by our social media efforts using the #blogtripf1 hashtag.

The main event

The main event

8. If there’s one thing I would change about the trip, I would allow the participants to do activities that are specific to their interests (and that of their readers). For example, I would have loved to go hiking or mountain biking in the hills above Valencia; others would go sailing, cooking, wine tasting or would visit the many museums and galleries on offer. This would require much more planning but would generate a richer mix of content that would repay this investment many times over. I understand that blogtripf1 2011 will take this on board.

9. On a fast-paced trip such as this, it was clear that to communicate in real time (or near real time) a blog is not an ideal tool. Twitter is far more convenient, as are photo-upload sites like Flickr, Facebook and Twitpic. These updates can be done while in transit, or live from the race/restaurant/other activity. In the future how would a blog trip look? As bandwidth increases further we might be streaming live video from wherever we are, with search tags generated by visual or auditory recognition software. So if you search for Valencia, you’ll be able to tune in to a live feed of a group of people enjoying different aspects of the city. It’s an exciting prospect (and a whole new headache for blog trip organisers!)

I was a guest of Land of Valencia, the Valencia Region Tourist Board, as part of their #blogtripf1 event, with flights organised by the Spanish Tourist Office in London.

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16 Responses to “Lessons learned from the Valencia blog trip”

  1. It was a great trip and we learn a lot from this first experience! lets now work for the next one in 2011, will introduce your helpful advices ;-) Thanks to all the bloggers who now become friends and help us to improve how to use Social Media in Tourism :-)

    July 8, 2010 at 10:33 am Reply
  2. Sounds like you had a great time in Valencia. I have a couple of issues with blog trips. both of which you’re mentioned.

    The opportunity cost of time spend on blog trip plus the write ups often comes to a week. I have to think what else I could do with that time eg write paid content for the other 2 blogs to which I contribute, sells ads. Being a blog editor is my full time job so a free trip isn’t really free if I put a hourly value on my time.

    The lack of free time and flexibility on a blog trip. I’m usually exhausted after the packed timetable, where often a disproportionate amount of time is spent eating. Now I love my food but I don’t need to take 2 – 3 hours per meal, when there are so many other things to do and see. I need a bit of personal time to relax and keep on top of my editorial duties. I’d also like more flexibility in my itinerary which avoids the duplicate content dilemma and means I can write about things that are a better fit for the Europe a la Carte blog.

    July 8, 2010 at 10:37 am Reply
  3. Nice article Andy!
    It was a pleasure to meet you and all the other great bloggers!

    July 8, 2010 at 10:57 am Reply
  4. Andy, I agree 100%! This first should build an important background step for next ones. More personalized options or just more free time to walk/wander/hike/swim/lay/photo/live your own experience. I think knowing other colleges (now friends) and thinking together about SM in travel promotion were some of the most constructive points of this blog trip. :D

    July 8, 2010 at 11:02 am Reply
  5. What a great review Andy, and you’ve raised some great points. The thought of doing a trip like this a month sounds wonderful, but when you put it in the context of taking away from your paying job (so to speak), time away from your wife/family and so forth – these trips can clearly be stressful in their own way.

    That said, it must be wonderful to see so many places (which you can then highlight to return to at a later stage and spend more time on) and dine on such fine fare – again, giving you an idea of restaurants to return to and dishes to re-sample.

    For instant updates, Twitter and Facebook are absolutely the way to share real-time information, pictures and events – but the blog reviews are great for meatier information and more pictures!

    Thank you for sharing Andy!

    July 8, 2010 at 11:14 am Reply
  6. Thanks for all the comments.

    Karen, they are two important points as you say. To be fair to the organisers of this trip, they were honest from the start that this was a first step for them and very much a mutual learning process. They got so many things right and were very eager to take on our feedback regarding flexibility. I’m sure the next trip will be even better.

    As for the opportunity cost of a blog trip, it’s always a real consideration. I guess where my calculation is different to yours is that I’m not running my blog as a direct revenue earner, and as a result spend little time on site maintenance (it probably shows!) But my paid writing can be scheduled to fit my own plans, and I was able to write my blog posts for paying clients and complete my commissioned articles before I left, leaving a clear few days. I also took calls while travelling and was able to respond to clients as normal during the trip. Ok once in a while, but not something to do every month.

    So was there an opportunity cost for me? In spending less time at home with my wife, yes. But there were positives for the development of my own business in terms of networking and raising my profile that I would say were worthwhile – and I’m away from home far less than I used to be when I had a ‘real’ job!

    Clare, I think you have it exactly right. Blog posts have their place to provide the richer descriptive content and storytelling. There’s a place for each form of media. As for all the fine dining, I put on over 3kg in the five days in Valencia; that tells its own story.

    Jimmy, Melvin and Victoria, thanks for your kind words. Meeting you guys and the rest of the group and sharing best practices was, as you say Victoria, perhaps the no.1 highlight and benefit from the trip.

    Thanks to all for your comments.

    July 8, 2010 at 1:45 pm Reply
  7. 3 kilos in 5 days Andy? Wow, that’s quite impressive in its own right :-)

    July 8, 2010 at 2:36 pm Reply
  8. Great overview. I’ve never been invited on a press trip but I can imagine it could be challenging at times.

    July 8, 2010 at 3:03 pm Reply
  9. GREAT…SEEYOU IN 2011… BLOGTRIPF1…DIEGO

    July 8, 2010 at 5:34 pm Reply
  10. Diego, hope to see you again, and be sure to tell me if you come to London!
    Clare, as we spent so long eating it was no surprise – almost back to normal now :-)
    Ayngelina, you’re absolutely right. There are many good things about such a trip, but it’s not a holiday

    July 8, 2010 at 10:08 pm Reply
  11. Sounds like an excellent time. Maybe someday I’ll have the chance to meet you on one of these.

    July 8, 2010 at 10:10 pm Reply
  12. Great piece Andy, providing a good overview of the trip. I’m going on the second Valencia blogtrip next week so it will be interesting to see how this one develops based on Land of Valencia’s recent experiences with #blogtripf1 (although a couple of weeks to learn everything, make sense of it and act on such learnings is probably a little too much too soon).
    I take you’re point about time on this trip, but having been on numerous press trips I have to say this is par for the course. You very rarely have more than an afternoon to yourself (if you’re lucky) and have to fit in checking emails and other activities around the itinerary – usually very late at night when you’re supposed to be sleeping! Looking at some of the comments here I think this is where travel journalists used to working in this way take a different perspective to bloggers. A journalist is rarely able to spend time on press trips writing up their story, invariably leaving it instead until they get home again and they can also be stymied by packed itineraries leaving them little scope to go it alone.
    However, as you have highlighted, this is where you get creative and find a different angle to the same story. I know unlike most bloggers, journalists get paid for their final story, but just because you have to wait a week or even a month to write it doesn’t make it any less creative or interesting.
    What is telling however is the immediacy and the scale of the buzz which #blogtripf1 created, which from what I can tell isn’t going to die down soon, thus creating a wealth of great content and information on the destination that will last much longer than a story in a magazine or paper. Great news for the hosts but also good news for bloggers associated with such an event.

    July 8, 2010 at 10:40 pm Reply
  13. Fantastic write-up once again Andy (you’re going to get sick of me saying that soon). I’ve just finished up a very similar piece myself discussing what I learned from the trip, which I’ll be publishing on Monday :)

    Have a great weekend mate!

    (Hope I can count on your support for Holland on Sunday too!)

    July 9, 2010 at 10:25 pm Reply
  14. Keith, it would be great to meet up with you sometime. We should make sure we are on the same trip. Maybe Scotland??

    Sarah, thanks for your insights. I’m looking forward to following some of the next trip from a distance – I’m sure you guys will have a fantastic (if hectic!) time. Good to see that you’ll be there to keep Terry in order as well ;-) One of the biggest surprises for me (and like you have pointed out great news for the organisers) is that the #blogtripf1 noise is still continuing, 2 weeks after the event. That is a powerful message to those tourist boards who are considering similar initiatives.

    John, you know what us bloggers are like; we live for flattery! Appreciate the comments, and I look forward to your write up too. Will I support the Dutch? I’m pretty neutral about it; happy that two of the best teams have made it to the final (unlike the usual negative Italian advance). Hoping for a good game.

    July 10, 2010 at 9:54 am Reply
  15. I’ve enjoyed reading back over this old post of yours Andy. I wonder, has Valencia run another blog trip since the one your were involved in? Have you found that lessons have been learned on other blog trips that you have been on since then (except perhaps the N Korea blog trip ;)

    September 28, 2011 at 12:20 pm Reply
    • Hi Tom, Valencia did indeed run another blog trip in 2011. I didn’t attend this time but I hear that many of the lessons of 2010 were followed up and that it was a big success. North Korea sadly are unavailable for comment :-)

      September 29, 2011 at 12:57 pm Reply

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