Domestic PR

• Annual Media Party – January 11 2011, London
A ‘Take-Your-Pick’-style evening where every journalist wins a prize. The 2011 event achieved 63 journalists, an increase of ten from the previous year’s event. A press pack is produced including information on ‘What’s New’, ‘Anniversaries 2011’, ‘2011 Natwest Island Games’, ‘Royal Connections’ and a look at what’s ahead of 2012 and events surrounding the Olympics, as well as the bicentenary of Dicken’s birth.
Each year more than 60 individual prizes are required for the event. Each prize is publicised in a flyer as part of the press pack including the contributor’s website url.

If you are interested in donating a prize for next year’s event, please contact Katy Bell.

This year’s prizes that were kindly donated included a ‘Brighton Rock’ themed weekend in Brighton and Hove; a ladies shopping experience for six at Bicester Village; a luxury hospitality package at Ascot Racecourse; a behind the scenes champagne tour of Portsmouth Historic Dockyard with overnight accommodation; and a package for four to visit Chichester, including tickets to local attractions and a solar powered boat cruise of the harbour.

• Domestic Campaign press launches
Both domestic marketing campaigns, Family Fun and Time for Us, are launched to national, regional and online press via a press launch. The launch is held at one of the campaign-partners’ venues and is themed to suit the campaign and time of year. All campaign partners are given the opportunity to include literature for the press packs and Tourism South East creates campaign-specific press releases for the event featuring all major campaign partners.

• VisitEngland Media networking events
Tourism South East represents the region at these events, providing local food (working in partnership with local food groups) and press packs, along with personal expertise.

• Media Roadshow – September 2010
This was a new event in 2010; the road show consisted of a series of media lunches in Cardiff, Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh. The event was combined with Travel Trade Breakfasts with local travel trade contacts.

• One-to-one meetings with key travel editors and journalists
The Saltmarsh Partnership organise these for the Head of Marketing. A recent one with Prima resulted in three press trips.

• Reactive enquiries - when enquiries are received from journalists these are sent out to all the destinations. A response is then coordinated back to the journalists, including information from press releases received by Tourism South East.