The owner of a hotel approached me to publicise his establishment. While no expense had been spared on the architecture, decor, and cuisine PR and marketing budgets were clearly NOT a priority.
Strange how so many wealthy people with no experience in hotel management don’t like forking out for experienced staff, PR and marketing representation!
The contract clearly stated we’d need to supply the high-end culinary and travel media with complimentary bed nights and meals to encourage them to visit and review this hotel with its internationally-trained chef.
For six months, I was called fortnightly to ‘explain’ why I was giving the press complimentary visits as they would NOT ‘appreciate’ the venue if it was free!
The owner’s mistress managing the hotel, kept telling me her ‘husband’ was getting ‘very cross’ even as I referred her to the contract.
The media coverage had amounted to hundreds of thousands of rands in editorial space value, yet this made no impression on her.
When the owner accidently copied me in on an email to his love asking why the media were STILL getting complimentary stays, I decided not to renew the contract.
The ‘manager’ has since placed me on their database, bombarding me with weekly ‘specials’ written in atrocious mispelt English.
I’ve seen nothing in the media about them, and I cannot imagine why …
