How to pitch for Sponsorship

Since our return from Europe in 2013 we had been wishing, dreaming and planning on our return.  We had since travelled to Asia and New Zealand, but Europe had never been far from our minds. Our dreams of travel inspired us to create A Hole in my Shoe early in 2014, without really knowing where to begin or what was involved. But we’ll leave that for another post, as for now we want to talk about sponsorship.

Planning 44 days of travel throughout Europe can be expensive and our style is not fitting for hostel stays. We prefer the comfort and privacy of a hotel and the luxuries associated. Reading through the travel blogs that we regularly follow planted the seed to seek sponsorship.  Why not, we thought? After all, we had a good following of readers and a great reach on our social media. Our Twitter reach peaked at 1.99 million and a single Facebook post reached 21,050. With increasing interaction and good feedback we felt we had a lot offer a brand.

Again, not sure where to begin, we researched our favourite chain of hotels in the areas we would be staying, googled and checked out LinkedIn, searching for marketing and PR staff to approach. We created a media kit, and drafted a sample letter to tweak for each location.

Our letter introduced ourselves, told why we were writing and informed what our niche was. We generalised some site stats and included our media kit. In our pitch we made our goals clear, advised our itinerary and outlined what we could provide in return for their assistance. Included in our email we shared with them our excitement to either return to an area we had visited previously, our anticipation of a White Christmas or our exhilaration to visit an entirely new area.

Email were sent off and a few days later received a surprising response. It was from a Manager from the Global Sales Office of a large hotel group. One of the hotels we had contacted forwarded him our email and we were advised of his positive reply. They asked if we would agree to send our travel itinerary so they could assist with our travel plans by contacting their colleagues to see what could be offered.  Surprised and thankful we responded and that lead to what we hope will become a long term partnership.

We are happy to advise that AccorHotels had kindly provided full sponsorship or media rates in many cities throughout Europe. We were truly grateful for their support and hope to establish a long and lasting partnership with AccorHotels.

At the time we were filled with a mixture of excitement and nerves. Our trip was less than a month away and we had planned a journey of 16 cities in 44 days travelling through Europe by train. We were grateful that a huge part of our trip had been made easy for us with the generous sponsorship from AccorHotels, accommodating us throughout most of our trip.

We asked that while we were away everyone followed along via the hashtag #EuropeanChristmasDiscovery. As we wrote about travel with a mixture of enthusiasm, awe and trepidation you know as always, our opinions were our own. We ask you to please share our thanks to AccorHotels by clicking on the AccorHotels image on our homepage or below. This will enable you to check out their awesome range of hotels throughout the world from Sofitel, MGallery, Novotel, Mercure and Ibis. Please note we do not gain any financial benefit from you clicking the link or making a booking, it just shows your support to a wonderful hotel group.

Have you pitched to a hotel group for sponsorship? Has fear of rejection prevented you hitting send?

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