Hi, travel community, [TLDR: I am thinking about closing down my travel blog after eight years. Does anyone have any advice on closing vs selling vs transforming?] I have been a relatively active blogger for almost eight years. I started The Altruistic Traveller (https://thealtruistictraveller.com) back in 2015 from a deep curiosity about the intersection of travel and sustainability. Over the years, the blog (and podcast) has been a valuable resource for those wanting to learn about sustainable tourism. A few posts have quite high rankings in SEO (e.g. volunteer guides/sustainable eateries). I have won awards, been featured in news articles and have written hundreds of posts. Last year, I published a memoir that encapsulated many years of travel and stories that had made it to the blog. Since writing that book, I have been feeling as though perhaps it was an ode to a chapter of my life that is coming to an end. The world of blogging is fast evolving. I am not a TikToker, n...

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...