Over the past year, the global travel industry has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, with widespread travel restrictions and a decrease in consumer demand leading to a significant drop in tourism. This has also had a major impact on the world of travel blogging, with many bloggers finding it difficult to continue their travels and document their experiences for their followers. Before the pandemic, travel blogging was a popular and lucrative activity for many people. Bloggers would travel to different destinations, document their experiences through writing, photography, and video, and share their content on social media and their own websites. Some bloggers even turned their passion for travel into a full-time career, working with travel brands and creating sponsored content. However, with the onset of the pandemic and the resulting travel restrictions, many bloggers found themselves unable to continue their travels as they had before. Many were forced to cancel their plans...

How do you quantify the value derived from exchanging unsold travel & tourism inventory for media exposure? The concept of converting unsold inventory into marketing assets is equally relevant when applied to hosting travel writers (or any media specialist, for that matter). Unsold bed-nights or packaged tour itinerary tickets, empty seats in restaurants, on tour coaches, and on airlines are very much like perishable products in the FMCG sector – if they're not sold by the due date, they’re gone forever. Historical data, however, should provide an indication of average unsold inventory. In the accommodation sector, for example, global average occupancy rates for hotels can range anywhere between 60% to 80%. In South Africa, the occupancy rate of hotels and similar establishments in 2021 amounted to just 23%. (Statista, Nov 8, 2022). In financial terms, this means that hospitality establishments are losing between 20% to 80% of their inventory. Inventory that could easily be con...