Our service covers a wide range of publicity, marketing and sales promotion activities that we tailor to each travel client's specific business needs.

Our activities may include, for example, generating a steady stream of exciting, original ideas for winning your organisation that crucially important promotional edge. We may operate a vigorous, unpretentious and results-orientated print and broadcast media campaign for you in all the media likely to be relevant to your customers. This may include a consumer campaign for promoting your offerings to the public and a trade campaign for winning you more awareness among travel agents.

We also offer a variety of specialised services. We may, for example, advise on steering a company that wants to change its business emphasis such as by becoming a web-based rather than brochure-based business. Or you may simply wish us to be your wordsmith, drafting and placing full-length articles and news stories.

PR has a proven track record of assisting clients with all aspects of publicity, marketing and business development.

What do we believe is the essence of good PR for the travel sector?
Our thoughts on this matter can be summarised under the following points:

The travel industry is highly commercial, with operators continually fighting for market share and needing to do their utmost to demonstrate an edge over rivals. In practice, it is perfectly possible to avoid a travel company's offering being seen as purely a commodity: you do this by promoting the particular Unique Selling Propositions (USPs) of the company and its offerings. Credence PR is expert at identifying USPs and emphasising them. But we accept that there will inevitably be many customers who are concerned primarily about price issues. This drives our energetic and vigorous campaigns, which are geared around winning you editorial coverage that generates a direct response from consumers and/or travel agents.

We place particular emphasis on the quality of our media research. We believe this is often handled skimpily by other consultancies. We look in detail at the nature of your existing customer base and, which is even more important, at where and how you want your business to grow. We identify print and broadcast media likely to be of interest to precisely the kinds of customers you are trying to win. This means looking hard at customers from a variety of perspectives such as: where they live, their financial position, their professional lives, their leisure interests, the special-interest groups to which they belong and so on.

Next, we `work' the media list intensively. We believe that a travel firm that chooses us as its PR consultancy is entitled to expect that we have made submissions to all relevant features planned by media on the media list. We pay particular attention to features planned by high-profile media such as national newspapers and leading consumer magazines. We also pay careful attention to regional newspapers, whose travel sections are often extremely influential for people who prefer to buy the regional newspaper rather than a London-based national. We also pay careful attention to travel trade press features because of their immense importance among travel agents.

We submit incisive, clearly-written accurate and concise editorial material to features. Our executives all have a journalistic background and know how to summarise key points in a few words.

We have considerable experience of arranging press facility visits that allow journalists to conduct a `review' of a travel company's offering and write it up in an editorial submission. We are aware of the importance of carefully defining the scope and nature of the review before the journalist is sent on a trip and we expect journalists to sign a letter of agreement with us that stipulates when the feature will appear, the amount of coverage our client can expect, whether photographs will be included and other key points. We also insist that journalists put the client's contact details at the end of the review.

We are adept at coming up with creative ideas, ranging from competitions through to strategic development plans that can take a client's business in to a new dimension. These ideas play a key role in helping to advance our travel clients' commercial agendas, to reach their target market and bring in the business they need.

What we offer travel companies
Examples of the types of activities we regularly undertake for our travel clients include the following:

Overall campaign management - We run the entire campaign for you, ensuring that every aspect of the campaign is attended to and energy is directed at the right time and to the right effect.

News stories - an essential element of our work as a travel PR consultancy is researching, writing and distributing press releases to the travel trade and the consumer press. These press releases will obviously be tailored to the particular needs of the media that receive them. Travel trade media releases, for example, need to embody an acute understanding of what motivates travel agents and what their own agenda is. Press releases for the consumer press on the other hand, must show a similar awareness of what is likely to motivate consumers. Generally, the news stories we put out on behalf of clients in the travel industry to the consumer press relate to new price deals, new developments in existing offers, last-minute discounts, new types of package, destination information and so on. For the travel trade press, we typically put our stories about new offers and our clients' viewpoints on key trends in the travel industry.

Travel trade press - We maintain regular contact with all of the most crucial and influential travel trade journalists. We keep constantly up-to-date with what features and special issues they are planning. By being aware of what is on the horizon, we maximise opportunities for our clients to appear in trade features and articles relevant to their business.

Full-length articles - at Credence PR we pride ourselves on our excellent writing skills. As well as writing full-length articles under our own names in the travel and other industry press, we have outstanding track record for placing full-length `ghost-written' articles in our clients' media of choice. These articles are written by Credence PR, using our clients' views and thought content, and published under the client's by-line with accompanying contact details. We have found this to be an excellent way of getting a client's message across, and creating that all-important differentiation of their offering and company.

Syndicated articles - Another vital tool in our PR armoury for clients is the syndicated article. These are articles again, ghost-written by Credence PR and published under the client's by-line with contact details. We distribute to non-competing regional newspapers and magazines around the country, thereby achieving an effective blanket coverage of the client's message and maximising their profile among target audiences.

Press trips - Of course, persuading journalists to come on an all-expenses paid trip to a pleasant holiday destination is not a particularly arduous task. The skill comes with identifying which opportunities will reap the greatest rewards and result in the greatest revenue. Credence PR is expert at strategically identifying press events that will result in the most effective and impactful coverage.

Broadcast media - we maintain regular contact with television and radio journalists and invite them to film or record programmes about our clients where appropriate.

Online media - we achieve regular coverage for our clients with on-line travel portals and other relevant and high-traffic travel websites.

Surveys and Competitions - We are skilled at devising and carrying out major national surveys and competitions on behalf of our clients. Both of these tools are excellent ways of achieving widespread publicity in the full range of media from national newspapers to consumer glossies and trade press.

These are just some of the ways in which Credence PR can make a major impact on a travel firm's bottom line. Ultimately, we believe that carried out with thought and care, travel PR can dramatically boost a travel company's success. This is what Credence PR strives to do.