Philadelphia Convention and Visitor's Bureau Hosts Talk With Travel Blogger

Peak Johnson, for GPA -- The Philadelphia Convention and Visitor’s Bureau (PHLCVB) held a special seminar at their Strategic Global Marketing Committee Meeting late last month, highlighting award winning travel blogger Megan Singleton.

Singleton has been travel writing for 15 years. She started her own blog “Travel Blogger at Large” in 2009 and has a weekly column in the New Zealand Herald. PHLCVB recently partnered with Travel Press Media, which brought Singleton to Philadelphia and a few other cities in the U.S.

The seminar started with Singleton discussing and demonstrating ways that members of PHLCVB and other organizations could make their press releases and assignments stand out from others.

Singleton’s primary goal throughout the seminar was to get participants to think like an editor versus a freelancer or blogger.

“A lot of that depends on you and how you host,” Singleton said as she began her presentation. “Be brilliant. Be you.”

According to Singleton’s website, she was 17 when she moved from the tiny town of Hastings on the East Coast of New Zealand and set off to see the world as an exchange student, travelling to Rockville, Maryland.

In addition to freelancing for the New Zealand Herald, Singleton has also written for Let’s Travel Magazine, Herald on Sunday, NineMSN, USA Today and other supplements and magazines.

She added that she didn’t take writing seriously until 1999 when she prusued a Diploma of Freelance Journalism at the New Zealand Institute of Business Studies and fell into travel writing.

Singleton added that what turns her off to a story pitch is a generic email simply stating an event without a specific hook to grab her attention.

“When I get a press release I need a reason to open it because they’re so generic that they just don’t grab me,” she said. “You need your press release to stand out. You need a great hook.”

Image courtesy of PHLCVB.