After publication of his acclaimed memoir, Over the Moat, Jim Sullivan traveled to Vietnam in early 2005 on assignment for the New York Times and National Geographic Traveler, reporting on the country’s emergence as one of the world’s hottest travel destinations. That two-month tour of the country led to a further assignment from National Geographic...
When we launched the Balcony Media Group in 2006, we did so as a vehicle for hotels, resorts and golf courses that wanted to generate media exposure in English-language media markets around the world. We’ve had tremendous success in that regard, as you’ll note from the stories we feature monthly in our Clip of the...
Not every destination sells itself the way it should. This is especially true for places that lack sophisticated, destination-driven PR operations. And therein lies an opportunity for hotels, resorts and golf courses, as well as the agencies that serve them. Case in point: In Hue, Vietnam, Phu Bai Airport recently revealed (but did not announce)...
A former colleague from the world of journalism recently forwarded me a link to this story about hospitals in the United States that are producing content, including print, video and blogs. Most businesses produce content, and most of this falls under the guise of marketing. But what the Cleveland Clinic and others are doing in the States is something...
If you’re a hotelier, Bangkok’s the place to be these days. Mastercard Worldwide on May 27 crunched the numbers of international arrivals and found that more travelers are flocking to Bangkok than to any other city in the world. Check out the news here. In all, Bangkok is winning 15.98 million people per year, besting London,...
We increased one of our client hotel’s Facebook fan base by 50%, from 1,122 likes on the day we started to 1,683 likes 55 days later. That boost, over the course of two months, is equivalent to the number of fans the hotel had garnered over the previous two years. How did we do this?...
Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business says you, hoteliers, are going to spend one of out every five marketing dollars on social media within five years. Right now, you’re spending almost one of every ten dollars on social media. Coca Cola’s spending, for example, is going to jump from 10% to 25% within five years....
The publisher of a prominent magazine once sketched out for me the ways and means of a PR agency he once knew. Describing the principals at a cocktail party, he described “her in that corner with a glass of white” and “him in that corner with a glass of red.” I was thinking about this...
When I first showed up in Vietnam in 1992, Coca Cola was not readily available, nor was Pepsi. A trade embargo was in effect. American companies could not sell in Vietnam. And so, back then, we drank Tribeco soda, which wasn’t all that bad. After the embargo, consumer brands dipped their toes in Vietnam’s waters....
When I was traveling into Vietnam’s most out-of-the-way pockets in 2005, reporting for National Geographic’s first travel book on Vietnam, I would ask my guides about sightings of the region’s most charismatic animals. Outside Kontum, gazing at the distant peak of Chu Mom Ray, my guide Nguyen Do Huynh, told me that 5-6 tigers were...
