Digging deep
Patrick Forsyth suggests ways of improving and extending your sources
There are numbers of ways to obtain the content when you write about travel. There’s what you see, what you research and what you are told; perhaps more. What you see simply requires observation, though simply is the wrong word. Observations must be considered and thorough and may also need some organisation too. You are not going to be able to see the sunrise unless you get up in time. Research may take time and is dependent on you knowing, or finding out, where to go: a library, online, a travel agent and many more.
What you are told is quite different in nature. It is perfectly possible to go somewhere and not speak to a soul, or find any contact you do have is minimal and adds little or nothing. You need to make a conscious effort, to take an initiative. If you do this, it can pay dividends and give you material that genuinely adds to anything you can research or see.
For example, after boarding a flight and being kept waiting on the runway for more than two hours, passengers – me included – were understandably restless and annoyed (with Ryanair; sorry I cannot resist a dig). I was, however, the only one who complained in such a way that I was invited into the cockpit to sit and listen to an apology (though not much of an explanation) from the captain. A combination of reasonableness and persistence, rather than the angry outbursts that most other passengers who said anything indulged in, gave me something extra to write about. In this instance I did not mention I might write about it.
Saying you are a writer, explaining a specific commission or brief, can often achieve more when you speak to people. It might, for instance, get you talking with a hotel manager instead of just someone at the front desk. I once had lunch with the manager of Raffles hotel in Singapore, discovering many things about how they look after their best customers (having a car ready to pick them up at the airport as they step out of their private jet, for instance). I suspect that this was only possible because I had a commission to write something about them.
A final comment here concerns press cards. These are particularly useful when shown to gatekeepers, those who can give access to more senior people. But bear in mind too that it is not only senior people who can act to provide material. What might that ragged beachcomber be able to tell you?