Originally Posted by
laxmillenial
Lol. Tell that to the instagrammers that email hotels saying they deserve comp'd rooms at 5 star accommodations because they're going to feature the hotel in an instagram post. They'll shame you right out the door with how instagram is a professional occupation and how they're real and deserving of anything they ask for.
Originally Posted by
paolo64
There’s nothing very sinister in this as it relates to mainstream travel writers: they are obliged to acknowledge the source of the funding ( and reviews can be read through that prism). It gets murkier with travel bloggers, as they rarely acknowledge if they are the beneficiaries of free goods/services, including preferential treatment ( some do acknowledge, or decline to participate, and they deserve credit for it and to be taken more seriously). At the really murky/sleazy/corrupt end of the scale are the “social media influencers”, ie paid shills/agents of corporations,. And there’s all sorts of jiggery pokery going on in that space.
It's not just hotels; I own a small tour company and get approached by "social media influencers" looking for free trips, which I always refuse. Millennials are not my target market and I doubt any of the "influencer" freebies would result in the kind of coverage that would translate into substantial enough sales to cover that cost.