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Sponsored Travel: Heaven or Hell?
Is sponsored travel really worth the effort?
The advertising industry has undergone massive changes in the past few years.
With soft selling and relationship building increasingly replacing aggressive sales campaigns, opportunities for corporate sponsorships are growing. Could corporate sponsorship be the answer to your travel budget problems?
The pros of sponsored travel are self-evident: an extended holiday without the need to save or borrow money to finance it. The cons may seem like minor deterrents at the beginning of a trip, but can soon weigh you down and cause a change of mindset for those on longer trips. Fulfilling your side of the bargain- constant updates on your trip usually through a variety of media- can make the trip seem more like business than pleasure and erode the carefree, chilled out, nomadic vibe you cultivated at the early stages of your adventure. It can be difficult to really immerse yourself in the unique remoteness of that mountain village, for example, when you’re searching for a wifi connection.
Erich Zelazowski, who set off less than two months ago on a 3 year trip from Brazil to India by bicycle still views the journey with freshness and a real appreciation of what he encounters. In a recent blog post, he gushes: “the route is beautiful, full of sea and clouds and little coloured flowers, and old wooden houses that I like so much, and people working their fields with little cows lying peacefully beside them”.
The tone is more than a little different on seasoned sponsored traveller Ramon Stoppelenburg’s website. He admits that when he decided to go home after 2 years of full-timed sponsored travel: “I was very bitter about it all. I did not want to think about it and for once not care about a website”. Stoppelenburg became jaded from having to submit “a thorough daily report” for the website and a weekly newspaper column.
Travelling for free sounds fun but isn’t easy: you get something but you also have to give something in return. First of all, you need to demonstrate to sponsors that your content is of a high standard and attracts plenty of attention in the form of followers to your website/ blog/ Facebook page/ twitter account/ etc. Your content should attract an audience that is valuable to potential sponsors. While away, you’ll be expected to maintain that quality and volume of followers with frequent, relevant posts. If you can get traditional media such as newspapers, magazines, radio or even TV to take an interest and run a story or report about you, all the better.
In exceptional cases, lucky travellers are approached by companies that are looking for a branding opportunity. This was the case for Matt, the YouTube mini-celebrity who films himself dancing at different places all over the world. He attracted the attention of a chewing gum manufacturer due to the popularity of his video clips. Matt’s initial journey was funded by his savings, but after the company saw his videos, they offered to fund another similar trip which lasted 6 months and included 39 countries.
In most cases though, you’ll have to approach potential sponsors yourself to sell your idea. This will usually involve building up a profile to show to potential sponsors, which requires a considerable time and networking investment. One way to get started is by using a company such as StayNomad, which connects sponsors and travellers, providing a forum for the sharing of travel projects that might interest prospective sponsors. The founders of the company were sponsored on a European bicycle research trip and now make a living from helping others to find sponsors for their trips. The more you invest in marketing your travel project, the more likely you are to be successful in getting the bulk of your trip paid.
So if you already spend most of your free time online, sharing ideas and connecting via social media, then this could be a great option for you. On the other hand, if your idea of a holiday is getting as far away from technology as possible, it could soon start to feel more like a nightmare than a dream.
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