How to Get Conde Nast Travel and USA Today Travel to Cover Your Client or Story

Nancy Trejos Travel Editor for USA Today and Paul Brady from Condé Nast Traveler.

The Public Relations Society of New York chapter recently held a Meet the Media panel featuring two writers from USA Today and Conde Nasté Travel. USA Today has a daily readership of 3 million+ and total circulation of 2,862,229. The USA Today websites had nearly 38 million unique visitors and 654 million page views as of February 2014. Condé Nast Traveler Magazine has over 780,000 subscribers and 2.6 million unique visitors to the website.

Paul Brady of  Condé Nast Traveler stated that since most journalists and reporters are busier than ever with only so many hours in their day, he finds himself more reliant on PR professionals to provide story tips and information but does not want the story to sound like a press release. Paul gets his story ideas from trending topics on Facebook and is open to being pitched on social media. Some recent topics Paul has covered include trends such as apps that improve the air travel experience and mobile check-ins to avoid the lines.

Paul spoke about a recent pitch e-mailed by Global Gateway Alliance an organization that strives to improve New York City airports. Global Gateway provided a fact based and credible sourced study  that was not just an exclusive for Condé Nast but also a great story with facts and perspective. He also spoke about receiving a pitch from a private jet group that gives travelers an around the world experience for $180,000. The problem was that the Condé Nast travel budget does not allow for Paul to experience the trip so the private jet group told Paul that the plane was going to have a stopover at a New York airport and invited him for a tour. After hearing a presentation given by the jet company Paul was able to get information on the travel experience the jet company provides. Paul concluded by telling the audience how the recent Condé Nast website relaunch offers the opportunity for video to be included with web stories and one that impressed him was drone footage submitted by a cruise line. Even though it was a commercial, the footage was exciting to watch and ended up being posting on the site.

You can follow Paul Brady on Twitter @p_brady

As the Travel Editor for USA Today, Nancy Trejos shared that an email pitch that catches her attention usually begins with “There is this trend currently at XX Hotel but you can also find this trend at hotels in Las Vegas, San Francisco, New York City, etc…”  She advises PR folks to think beyond the USA Today print version but to include the USA Today web properties as well to reach a large online audience. One thing is for a week and most don’t realize she has to go out and cover stories and meet deadlines. Some trends going into 2015 include Starwood Hilton smart keys which most other hotels will eventually have smart keys. Nancy also wondered if the fully digitized hotel trend will include robotic butlers and maids as well as  Google glass getting into the area as well.

She mentioned some great bargain destinations such as Puerto Rico offering direct flights under $380 with no passport needed.  Similar to Paul’s pricey jet experience Nancy spoke how USA Today was not able to afford a first class Emirates trip on Qatar airways but attended a dinner onboard the plane at Dulles Airport. She learned that a wine consultant picks specific wines from all over the world for business and first class passengers and became an article. Nancy also requested videos now that the New York bureau of USA Today has her interviewing chefs in restaurants and hotels for the food and wine videos that are found on the USA Today website.

You can follow Nancy Trejos on Twitter @nancytrejos

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