How to find a travel-related job without a higher education in tourism, what are the latest trends in the tourism market, how to become a blogger, writer or journalist and talk about travel for money. We talked about this with the author of The Orange Guide to Paris and 24 other travel guides, the editor-in-chief of Voyage, the oldest Russian travel magazine, and Olga Cherednichenko, a teacher of travel journalism at the Media School.
Is it necessary to get a higher education in tourism in order to find a travel-related job?
There are not so many lucky people who, even in high school, realized what they want to do all their life, and then entered the right place. Much more often I meet people who need five years at the institute and as many more at the office to realize and finally accept the fact that they are not going their own way. According to statistics, for many, this happens by about 30 years, in women, often after the birth of their first child.
I believe that in such a situation, starting everything from scratch and getting a new higher education, including tourism, is a waste of time and money. It is much more practical to practice with the search for your destiny, to highlight several directions to which the soul lies, and to be like different lectures. At the same time, I think it is very important to analyze all the existing skills and knowledge in order to come up with how to use them with pleasure in your new field of activity. By the way, this is how people find their niche.
If we talk about travel-related work, then it is important to consider the following - the tourism market is changing rapidly, and classical education in tourism does not keep up with it. In addition, there are many types of work in travel, and the general approach of most universities can discourage any desire to grope for a niche. In a word, I believe that in order to find a job in tourism to your liking, it is much more useful to study independently - read articles on the Internet, watch videos and webinars, look for suitable lectures and courses on tourism, attend professional events, and try yourself in something that responds.
But how can a beginner find a job in tourism? After all, this is an area of high competition, where there are many experienced players. It is one thing to choose a creative profession, to take some kind of tourism courses, and quite another to integrate into the tourism market
Of course, many people want to find a job related to travel. But the specificity of the tourist market is such that a standard combing through of vacancies will not help here. To find an interesting job in tourism, you need to keep your nose down the wind and understand areas completely unrelated to this topic. This is where higher education in another specialty turns out to be a trump card.
For example, I was lucky to be one of those lucky ones who made the right choice in high school and went to the right place. But I didn't graduate in tourism. My profession is a journalist. Despite the fact that I still like her, even at the University I realized that I wanted a job in tourism. So I combined two directions that I like and found my own niche. This is travel journalism.
Tell us about your personal journey: how did you become a journalist, wrote 25 travel guides, started teaching at a journalism school and from a writing journalist turned into the editor-in-chief of Voyage, the oldest Russian travel magazine
In 2008, when I wrote my first guidebook for the Eksmo publishing house, even such a word as travel journalism was not really used yet. No one then taught how to write texts about travel, and the direction of travel in journalism did not stand out. I moved in the profession by touch, experimenting with formats, trying to use my knowledge and skills from other, related fields.
I graduated from the journalism faculty of Moscow State University, trained in Paris for Elle magazine, worked in PR for entertainment television channels TNT and MTV, wrote scripts for Mosfilm, ran a column in the Russian Cosmopolitan - all this experience was very useful to me when, in 2015, I decided to formulate a theoretical basis new profession "travel journalism" and create your own course in the Media School.
Since the creation of my course for the AiF journalism school, I managed to work as an editor of travel literature at the Eksmo publishing house, create my own blog, study and try all kinds of ways to promote and monetize it. travel "Voyage".
I re-branded Voyage: I came up with a new concept and headings in accordance with the latest trends and my own vision of what is interesting and useful to the modern Russian reader. To carry out my plan, I brought in my team, which consists of the best graduates of my travel journalism course. I was very pleased when, at the end of 2018, Voyage magazine received a personal award from the Ambassador of Indonesia as the best print media for promoting tourism.
The experience of all types of work that I have listed helps me a lot to comprehend more and more facets of travel journalism, to deepen and constantly update the theoretical and practical basis of my course.
Do you think anyone can become a writer or journalist, or do you still need talent?
I have been teaching travel journalism at Media School since 2015. The cycle of my classes is a kind of mix of a course on tourism and a course on journalism, which I constantly modernize taking into account the latest trends in these areas. When I just started, I was sure that anyone can become a journalist - you just need to study all the available methods of writers and practice a lot. Now my opinion has changed.
There are three types of people who come to my journalism course. In 20%, from the first lesson, I see a talent for becoming a writer or, at least, a writing journalist. They have no difficulty in writing a great text about travel, and all the tricks of the writers that I teach are usually already known to them. Usually they already got the profession of a journalist, and they need from me, rather, a course in tourism in order to narrow the niche in which they work.
The other 20% have very poor travel writing abilities from the start, and no matter how I train them, their chances of becoming writers or journalists are extremely small. However, this does not mean that the path to tourism is closed for them, because you can choose a niche that does not require the skills of a writing journalist. In addition, in the classroom, I give different practices for assignment, which help to better understand myself. It is also important to realize in time that the field of travel is not suitable for you.
The remaining 60% have all the abilities to become journalists and realize themselves in a creative profession. They only lack knowledge of certain tools, practice and motivation. They get all this on my course, and by the tenth lesson, their travel texts have become quite professional. Representatives of this type of my students are subsequently quickly realized in the profession of a journalist: they publish travel guides, collaborate with the media about travel, or become bloggers. I, of course, help them in the beginning of their journey with acquaintances and portfolios. On Facebook, I have a closed group of alumni, where I publish information about press tours, interesting lectures on our topic and vacancies in the field of travel journalism.
Starting a blog about travel, for example, on Instagram, is not so difficult. But how not to get blown away halfway through promoting your blog and get to the point where bloggers make money?
Indeed, it is easier to become a blogger than to promote your blog methodically every day. The first thing I advise you to do along the way is to deal with your fears.“Blogging about travel is not a real profession, pampering for idlers. Such an occupation does not bring any benefit, nor money, nor stability, - such thoughts are very afraid of real knowledge about the promotion of blogs and how bloggers make money, how to become a commercial writer, etc.
The second step is to work with your perfectionism. Doctors, lawyers, writers, journalists have been learning what they can for many years. Who said that you can become a blogger with a million subscribers instantly? Knowledge of a certain theory is required, as well as constant practice, trial, error and new experiments.
I also have good news for everyone who is just starting a travel blog. I follow the trends in the tourism market, journalism and marketing, communicate with colleagues at professional exhibitions and press tours. So, the trends for 2019 are such that advanced PR people are already betting on narrow targeting and microinfluencers in the blogosphere. Soon everyone else will follow them.
The fact is that the trust of readers in small bloggers with 5-10 thousand subscribers on the same instagram is much higher than to those who have hundreds of thousands or even millions. Successful bloggers are making good money so far, but they feel and behave like stars. They no longer have a chance to feed their audience an advertisement under the guise of a friendly recommendation. With microinfluencers, that is, small bloggers, the situation is different: hosting with them costs much less, and they invest much more soul in promoting a blog. As a result, the conversion is much higher.
By the way, I am also considered a microinfluencer. In addition to instagram www.instagram.com/olgacherednichenko/ and Facebook www.facebook.com/olga.cherednichenko.503, I have a blog about travel on the site che-che.ru - this is called standalon (from the English "free standing") … I am working on it alone, and, of course, my traffic is not even suitable for such giants of the travel industry as, for example, the portal "Vacation.ru". But I write in the first person, I try to talk about travel with a soul and understand the latest trends in tourism promotion. The main thing is that I went through a powerful school of journalism while working for TNT, MTV, Mosfilm, Cosmopolitan, Eksmo, Voyage magazine and learned how to make cool native advertising. It is the most effective ad format to date because it mimics regular copyright content and looks natural in print, online media, and any type of blog. For my blog, I select such key phrases that large sites are simply not interested, and my advertising posts are displayed in the top search engines for narrower target queries.
By the way, about native advertising. Research shows that people have started reading longreads again, and this is the most appropriate format for it. Writing a long text about travel so that you want to read it to the end is a whole art. What are the techniques of writers to solve this problem?
This problem is perfectly solved by storytelling - a system of techniques used by scriptwriters. I came up with the idea of adapting it for writing travel reports. You have to talk about travel, adhering to a certain structure. It is not so easy. But the reader's attention remains riveted to the long text until the very end. Longread is indeed the most successful native ad format, and storytelling is the best method to create it.
Of course, I teach storytelling adapted for travel journalists in my course at the school of journalism. This is one of my favorite workshops.
What guideline would you recommend to those who want to choose the profession of a journalist or become a blogger and talk about travel?
I advise you to look for answers to any questions in love for your country. This will tell you the right direction of development and will give you the necessary energy. I love Russia very much, and my mission is to systematize, preserve and increase the cultural wealth of my Motherland. Of course, I understand that this is a daunting task and one little woman cannot cope with it.
But I have identified the vector and now, at my own pace, without straining, I am taking small steps in the right direction: I analyze my own personal and world experience and develop travel journalism in Russia, I advise the ministries of tourism, train employees of tourist information centers, museums, hotels and entrepreneurs in the travel industry, create brands and market their services in a way that benefits future generations. I also teach a course in journalism: I teach you how to become a journalist, tell about travel and come up with effective native advertising, explain how bloggers, writers and journalists make money, gently direct you to become writing journalists and inspire like-minded people.
How is the journalism course you teach at the Media School different from others?
Practical skills - how to write travel texts, tell stories using the techniques of writers and screenwriters, create a personal brand, promote a blog using SEO and SMM, monetize your work, find orders, connections and press tours - are very important for a travel journalist. But this is a creative profession and, in my opinion, there is more to it.
I believe that travel is a powerful psychotherapy. But only if you have a special key. Special knowledge that highlights in a kaleidoscope of roads, faces, museums what you need most for your inner work right now. Therefore, for the past 11 years, I have been studying not only everything that I have listed above, but also tools that help transform impressions from travel into energy for self-development, and carefully select all the most effective.
To write text that will touch the reader, it is not enough just to press the keys with the image of different letters. First you need to do some invisible work somewhere behind your eyes, and even earlier - to adjust your internal apparatus. It is he who does 90% of the creative work. Moreover, this happens with artists, writers, actors, composers, designers, photographers, travel journalists and representatives of all other creative professions in about the same way. Only we express our developments in different ways: some with words, others with strokes, others with sounds. But this is already a matter of technology.
In my travel journalism course, I help to get to know my inner workings better. See and work through fears, blocks, reasons for procrastination. Understand what types of self-expression you are more predisposed to and what business you like. I teach a full-time journalism course only in Moscow, but from time to time I come to different cities of Russia and the CIS countries at the invitation of major media outlets or government departments to conduct intensive courses. Sometimes I take individual students via Skype, but since I don't have much time for this, I choose only those who have the strongest motivation.
