<< back
January 6, 2010
:: Get Right On Q With PR :
Catapult PR's managing director, Jane Hunt, is encouraging tourism businesses, tourist attractions and leisure providers to concentrate on their two Qs this year - Quality and Quirkyness.

This advice comes from years of experience of dealing with journalists within these sectors, where the competition for media coverage is intense. It also results from Jane's close involvement with start-up tourism enterprises who need marketing consultancy, as well as PR support.

Quality matters to today's visitor or diner and putting in the effort to attain an official quality grading is time and money well spent. Moving a business up the quality ladder opens up more marketing opportunities and also provides a criteria by which a guest or visitor can assess the business. Whether it is a Visit Britain grading, VAQAS or a regional food-focused accreditation such as Taste Lancashire Highest Quality Assured, it sends a message.

One example of a business that has benefited tremendously from the latter is The Ship at Elswick - a fine dining pub that combines high quality food, based on locally sourced produce, and a contemporary and relaxed dining atmosphere. Taste Lancashire has helped the business communicate its food sourcing practices to local diners and has also opened up different avenues through which to communicate with the target customer.

Top quality, five star hotels and other accommodation can make journalists sit up and take notice, but it also needs to have an edge. Again, a huge amount of competition exists in the travel PR world and many four and five star accommodation providers want a share of the PR cake - the free editorial that can result from supplying journalists with the right material, at the right time.

The right material is nowadays becoming the crucial thing. Travel and tourism businesses need to find their wow factor and use it to full advantage by maximising its PR potential The wow factor might be a feature that has cost thousands to install, or it could be something much less expensive, but very quirky.

Whilst handling the PR for the North West Farm Tourism Initiative, Catapult PR promoted five star self-catering accommodation Ann's Hill, near Cockermouth. Whilst beautifully decorated and furnished, the wow factor was a Victorian free-standing white bath , in a rich red coloured room with a plasma TV screen on the wall. With champagne on ice right next to the bath, this was a wow factor press could not resist. But quirky can be many things, from offering a badger watch at night, to having guests collect the eggs from the hens for their own breakfast. Finding the quirky and using it to its full potential is Catapult PR's forte and sometimes that involves creating it from the off, during the product planning stage.

The two Qs will be very much needed by UK tourism businesses in 2010, if recent reports of the number of Brits now abandoning any thought of staycationing are accurate. PR underpins both Qs and travel and tourism PR will be needed by many hotels, guesthouses, pub chains, tourist attractions and restaurants this year. PR need not be an expensive outlay, but can be a great investment when used correctly, as demonstrated by Catapult PR's clients.

Quality and quirkyness apply across all sectors. The 21st Century consumer expects quality as a given, so if your professional service is high quality and you think that is enough to attract media attention, think again. It is finding the translation of quirky in your individual sector that will give you the mass coverage you want, whether you are offering professional services, providing a health product or selling retail items. If your product isn't quirky, you have to do something different with it, in order to stand out. That's why you the need the type of highly creative PR that Catapult PR provides.

If you want to get right on Q for 2010, call Jane Hunt on 01253 595558.
<< back