Bloggers can be choosers B

LOGGERS seem to be the new carpetbaggers of the hospitality industry — and everyone and his gran is now a blogger.

They solicit invitations or, at least, huge discounts in return for good publicity. It’s an offer you can’t refuse, or they could just visit anyway and trash you in revenge.

Ethical newspapers do not ask for freebies or discounts but they may accept them if offered and make it clear to readers that they did so. Bloggers do not have to.

They just fire off an e-mail when planning a lovely trip: “I’m Joe Blogg, travel blogger. I have more than 100 000 followers. I will be visiting your country and would like to promote your establishment to international audiences after staying X nights.

“Every post on the blog will be promoted via Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest and Instagram, and optimised to rank as highly as possible in search engines.” Now how could one refuse? The above is an edited version of an actual e-mail. Here is another:

“I will be visiting your town with my family trip (six adults, one toddler). I am planning to write about the hidden gems of the area for our European and US readers.

“We would like 2 double rooms and 1 triple on XXX date.

“After our visit we will be happy to leave a review on Trip Advisor, where we have had a profile for eight years.”

A link follows with “examples of our promotional posts of hotels and services”.

Clearly what they want is a lovely long holiday, sponsored by a string of gullible or terrified hosts.

They are not actually asking for anything free but hey, you get the message. Just read the glowing posts.

We should also get the message not to believe everything we read in social media or on the internet. They can be unedited monsters with more appetite than ethics.

Andrew Unsworth is our travel advice columnist