Media-Worthy Travel Studies and Data
How can you make data and consumer sentiment newsworthy? How does it tell a story or lend credibility to your pitch? In this article, I’ll jump into the differences between a study vs. in-house data and offer up recommendations for when you might not have the significant numbers or budget to produce in-house. Years of conducting research and pulling data has taught me A LOT, and I am sharing those learnings with you along with other experts and media who use them. Bookmark this blog post, it will save you thousands of dollars.
Why data is important for the media
By leveraging studies and data, public relations professionals have the tools to generate news and explore relevant angles that answer the ‘why now’ that journalists need for a story. When there is a significant number of individuals changing buying behavior or sharing similar feedback on a travel topic, that is information that readers need and want. This information is helping the editor or broadcast journalist be able to serve their audience. As PR Pros, we serve our clients who want publicity and the media serves their readers. That’s the pecking order. We need to understand and manage the value of each hen.
“The key to viral data storytelling lies in three key ingredients: timeliness, universality, and conflict. It's rare that you'll get all three to converge — but the travel industry offers amazing opportunities to bring them all together in a way that can drive the popular narrative: everything from blended travel and new work models to inflation and consumer confidence is reflective in travel data. It's a gold mine for PR professionals,” said Kelly Soderlund, TripActions' Senior Director of Corporate Communications.
An example of the type of convergence Kelly speaks to is this Yahoo! News article (syndicated from GoBankingRates) about “How Much It Costs To Travel To These 10 Hidden US Gems in 2023.” Note how it taps a bunch of different pieces of source data to back up a narrative.
Should you conduct travel research?
Not every company has the means to conduct a proprietary research study or access to a significant booking data sample size. However, there are ways to leverage other public brand studies that reinforce your point (ex: AAA, Booking.com, Deloitte.) Surveying your email database or Facebook group and anything that carries a significant amount or what we call ‘sample size.’ If it’s soft news and not a hard-hitting outlet, the information can be anecdotal but if you’re a part of an association, or have a partnership with a larger company, consider aligning with them and jointly leveraging intel to provide the media with hard data.
Always start by doing a media audit. Check your competitors and the statistics being used to determine the approach that would support your company's value, goals, and media significance.
When you are after significant news coverage in top-tier publications, you need to consider the methodology and approach the process with great detail. Hiring a research company can be the smartest route so your results have credibility and are set up for success.
“I look for stats and how it was done. Online surveys of a company's readership that show *surprise* the company's product is the answer to the problem, don't cut it with National outlets. I've had editors throwback stories with skimpy stats,” said Harriet Baskas, a journalist for various top outlets and author of StuckattheAirport.com.
How to create surveys and collect data
For those of us who’ve worked on various accounts and business sizes, owning your research is valuable. Hiring a research firm can range in cost from $10,000 to 75,000+ based on sample size, audience segmentation, online response, phone or focus group responses, how many questions, and a detailed findings report.
Thankfully, we’re able to leverage online opt-ins with greater relevance based on sample size to limit the margin of error. The other two types can be extremely costly and time-consuming, which then chips away at your relevancy if it takes a long time to come back from the field. If it’s an annual study and has seasonality, then you can plan better for the window of significance.
When you are initiating a research firm there are a few key steps to getting started. I asked Joseph Bates, President of The Institute for Association and Nonprofit Research, who I’ve worked with on behalf of my American Society of Travel (ASTA) client, about his process:
“The first step is a kick-off call with all stakeholders to discuss the details of the research proposal and confirm the goals and objectives of the project. During this call, each step of the project is discussed so that all stakeholders understand the process by which the research will be conducted. Following this call, the researchers create the timeline for the project. Generally speaking, a typical project will take about 90 days to execute from kick-off call to final presentation of the report.”
I cannot stress the significance of this first step and getting everyone on board. Once a study is out in the field, you cannot change the questions or control the results.
Develop non-leading questions
Agree on the questions with all parties and/or sponsors of the study. “A good researcher will never bias the wording of the questions in an attempt to hook the media. A researcher has to understand what topics and information will be most interesting to the press and their audience. It is best to include a variety of questions because you do not know how respondents will answer. Having multiple questions increases the likelihood that you will have data that is of interest to the media without compromising the integrity of the research,” Bates added.
Sample Size
Bates continues, “As a rule of thumb, researchers conducting consumer research should never rely on sample sizes less than 400 and should strive to always achieve a sample size of 1,000. These larger sample sizes not only reduce the margin of error for the aggregate survey results, but also allow the researcher to analyze subgroups, such as gender, age, and income, with a higher level of statistical confidence. In the past, many media outlets required a minimum sample size of 1,000 respondents to report results, but this is not the case today. A good researcher will ALWAYS guide a client with sampling goals and parameters to ensure the objectives can be met with success and the media will have confidence in the results.”
Media Deliverables and Best Practices
As part of the project timeline, you want to build in creative assets, press materials with approval, and make sure a spokesperson is available for potential interviews. Include time to actually pitch and receive feedback from the media. Everyone is so busy these days, you need to build in that time whether you’re after an exclusive, specific embargo date and interviews.
In terms of why journalists need studies and data, Wendy Gillette, CBS Travel Expert and Anchor, shared, “they can prove a trend and provide imperative information to back up soundbites from experts.” This is why you always have a media-trained expert available for the dates you’re pitching and releasing the information.
Be prepared to share the study, the questions asked and the response data in an easy-to-digest way. Typically a research company will provide an executive summary and graphs. The more detailed, and research assessment can always increase your cost, however, it’s worth having an expert read the data based on their years of experience unless you have a background in data.
Make sure your charts, visuals, and infographics aren’t overly branded or they won’t be able to be used. Be willing to offer items not watermarked or only citing your brand as the source. Marketing materials don't tend to make editorial.
You can do all the steps perfectly with a study, however, if you cannot serve up succinct information and be prepared to offer tailored media responses, then you can still fall flat.
“Broadcast journalists don’t need quotes. If they want to conduct interviews, they will. But providing quotes to them is an obvious example: you're just cutting and pasting a blanket email meant for print journalists. That usually doesn’t go over very well,” Gillette shared.
Baskas seconds this and says, “It’s helpful for me to be able to get quotes and comments beyond the press releases.” Outlets will not reprint a competing outlet’s quotes in a story… well unless you're a huge company like Apple or a mega-celebrity. I doubt we have that luxury here.
During my days on the Expedia PR team, we had several annual studies where we didn’t take ourselves too seriously, and it resulted in huge publicity wins because of it. We released an Airplane Etiquette Study - including the Top 10 Most Annoying Fliers on the Plane – which made Late Night talk shows and national Morning Show TV each year. We then followed that up by creating the Road Rage Report, timed to AAA’s summer road trip report to reinforce our study and media pickup. Very meta.
Left: An infographic from Expedia’s Airplane Etiquette Study.
Tailored Travel Data
If you need travel data for a specific media story, you can find ways to pull existing data and isolate the specific information needed. This is more cost-effective than a new study if you have someone on staff who can do this and you have enough data or a large enough email database to survey.
Take Kelly Soderlund’s methodology for example, “I pull, scrub, analyze, and package data myself (I was actually hired by Adam Goldstein and Steve Huffman to write data stories, long before I led PR), and have leveraged the fact that I can write SQL queries and use Tableau and Holistics into a competitive advantage. My data team trusts me, and that has empowered me to be able to become an asset to top-tier publications and broadcast companies.”
Timing is the biggest part of whether you should do a study vs. pull existing data. “The last thing you want to do is invest time and money into a study that becomes stale,” says Soderlund.
Gillette said, “PR professionals should always strike when it’s hot, when a story first breaks, and when journalists are looking to localize angles and are first diving into the subject.”
This also underscores the importance of always reading and consuming the news in all forms. When you can see a headline and jump on it with your input for an ongoing hot topic, your media stock value went up significantly.
A great example is AAA Newsroom. The company has the long-standing credibility and consumer base to provide a large swatch of consumer sentiment and travel intent. Every year, they put out an annual estimate of how many travelers will take to the roads over the holidays, Memorial Day, summer, and so forth. Those consistent and reliable stats prompt many travel stories.
A chart from AAA newsroom showing the 2022 Year End Holiday Travel Forecast
For my client Kind Traveler, a sustainability-focused tech startup, we created a White Paper to establish authority and thought leadership in the sustainability space by leaning on the significant number of hotel partners and the collective feedback to create a trends report. We timed it to the beginning of the year to hook onto the early year outlook stories before Earth Day, ahead of our competitors who release their studies then.
An illustration from the 2022 Impact Tourism Report
The 2022 Impact Tourism Report combined information from the hotels and email data survey with more than 1,000 respondents by Kind Traveler to help drive these significant consumer insights:
96% of respondents noted that it’s important that their travel dollars are making a positive impact on the places they visit.
48% stated that choosing accommodations that are sustainable and socially conscious is the hardest part about traveling sustainably.
37% stated that reducing or eliminating their carbon footprint was the hardest.
This data grabbed headlines on CNBC and garnered significant media coverage. It also served as a tool that their partners could share with their audiences and media contacts.
Pro Tip: White papers tend to be more densely written reports, so make sure you can hire a writer with a background in this type of writing and extremely cognizant of the media outcome goals and timing.
In conclusion, you want to assess what information is at your disposal and the credibility you need to earn media significance. Stats can have publicity value when you do it right and can be nimble too. The first and most reliable source gets the press! If you want to conduct surveys or consulate an expert, please get in touch via our portal and we can send a custom proposal based on your needs: https://www.tripwhisperer.co/ourservices or email directly to jessica@tripwhisperer.co
