Shaping the future of Travel Rants
By Darren Cronian on Sunday, November 1st, 2009

I have been writing this blog for over four years and I have enjoyed it, sure it has had its ups and downs. I write primarily from my own experiences and thoughts about travel, but also I receive a lot of emails from consumers which spark me into a post about the travel industry.

Shaping the future of Travel Rants

Looking at travel from another perspective

Some people have been very critical that I am always writing about the negative aspect of travel which confuses me because surely there’s so much nice positive content out there that you need someone to look at it from a different perspective.

Keeping busy

You may have noticed that I have not written much around here lately. I’ve been busy in the day job, and planning Travel BlogCamp, but tonight I am sat here thinking how I can take this blog forward and keep it useful for consumers and the travel industry.

My goals

In the four years that I have written this blog I have learnt a lot of skills and if you want to create a successful blog you have to learn them quick. I am not stroking my ego here but; I’ve won a travel award, been featured in the national media, filmed for TV, spoke at a travel event, but where do I go from here.

Sure, my goal is to work for myself full-time and travel more, but that’s another story.

Help me plan the future of Travel Rants

My readers are important to me and I value your opinions. I’d love to hear about the type of topics that you would like me to write about. What features would you like me to add to the blog? So readers, let this post be your chance to help me plan the future of Travel Rants.


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8 responses to “Shaping the future of Travel Rants”

Hugo | 1 November, 2009 at 10:16 pm

Darren – many congrats on the journey to date. You have made your mark on the industry and should be chuffed & proud of what you have done. Fun to ask about the future direction of Travel Rants to the travel community, although not much fun if no-body answers, so I’ll give it a shot… I’m in a bit of a rush, so thoughts are free-flowing rather than deeply considered. So I hope they end up having some value. I’m pretty sure that you will have thought of them all before but maybe they get a discussion going…

bests

Hugo

i) I’m under the impression (correct me if I’m wrong) that you predominantly rant from the consumer perspective. I love this. But perhaps there is broader ranting to be done? Might the travel industry welcome “Ranting on behalf of the industry?”. You could be a lightening rod. You may say that this compromises your position to criticise the industry but I think it could just help you be perceived as a balanced ranter (ok, so that may not be a good thing) ;-)

ii) I would have thought that a forum would be a good addition to your site. You get a lot of comments but could you get more active community with a place where free-flowing communication could take place? Ranting could be grouped by destination, company, issue etc. This may take some of the work load off you? Ranting 2.0 ;-)

iii) I think you have mentioned that travel rants doesn’t make much money? I can see that it is a labour of love and a passion but we all have to pay the bills and have other things that could make more money. Maybe the ads work well, I don’t know and maybe others will have more ideas on this front. I would have thought though that the above two ideas could create sponsorship opportunities ie. Travel Industry Rant of the Month – sponsored by XXXX and forums might also welcome sponsorship.

iv) I like your interview section but it doesn’t focus on rants. I’d love it if there were a raft of case studies about consumer issues companies have had and how they dealt with it. I suppose there would be a danger that it just became PR but I’m sure your skills would ensure that honest/ real life stories about consumer gripes were surfaced and how they dealt with them. We could all learn something v useful from other peoples experiences.

v) I’d personally quite like to see the “Rant of the week Video”. Then you may not get so many questions asking if you look like your logo ;-)

vi) (oh dear I’m banging on a bit now, not much more) Rating rants & view numbers might help to spot the most popular or interesting rants.

vii) (last one, I’ll force myself to stop) You have some other writers occasionally but perhaps you could have some regular Guest Ranters, who might help take some of the work off you. People could send them in on Spec and you could ruthlessly decided whether they merited posting on the homepage or not.

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Nick | 2 November, 2009 at 10:05 am

Darren

Your blog does well, yes it can seem negative, but you present a balanced view and that is what counts.

Ideas
Your destination guides are good thing to expand maybe with help from readers?
Maybe a monthly what’s new in travel?

Lastly as an agent I know you come in for a lot of stick, but there is people out there who enjoy your blog and remember the 10 to 1 rule, 10 times more likely to complain than praise.

As always I will help when and where I can.

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Maria Martinez | 2 November, 2009 at 11:26 am

I like a lot your blog as it is now Darren, I think you are doing a really good job :)

As Hugo said i miss sometimes a bit more of “Ranting on behalf of the industry”
What do you think are good practices or bad ones from travel industry.

And from my perspective (i work on an online service) would be really nice to hear rants about online practices done by the industry.

There’s always a lot to learn and i think it’s great to have different perspectives :)

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Eva Keogan | 2 November, 2009 at 5:29 pm

Hi there – a great addition would be video interviews or posted videos; I’m sure you would go places with an agent who could get you a book deal and slots on TV, then you could happily dump the day job. See you next week

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Darren Cronian | 2 November, 2009 at 10:13 pm

@ Hugo

Thanks for taking the time to comment. Just some responses from your excellent points

i) I cannot really rant on behalf of the industry because I don’t have experience of working within it, other than writing this blog. Unless I have misunderstood? I think it is good that I am writing as a consumer, another pair of eyes that probably don’t look at it in the same light.

II) I have often thought about a forum, and it would certainly help reduce the amount of emails that I receive. I have to be honest and say that the libel issues I found myself in earlier in the year has made me think twice; a comment is much easier to moderator, where as a forum post isn’t.

iii) The ads don’t make a great deal of money, and your right passion about the subject has until recently played a bigger part. I do think nowadays making money from content is not easy and you do have to think outside of the box. I need to put some more thought into how I make revenue from the site.

Your last three points I am going to give some serious thought. .
Thanks, you have given me something to think about.

@ Nick

That is true about the complain ratio; and thanks for the ideas. The destination guides, do you mean the consumer guides that are listed in the sidebar? I do have a few half written guides that I am working on, but, time is the issue.

@ Maria & Eva

Thanks, video seems to have been mentioned a bit, so I might have to look into that. I am not into writing books or even geting featured on TV, I prefer to hide behind my laptop and write. I am not sure I can write about good and bad practises because I don’t work in the industry, but I do write about things that annoy me about online booking etc.

Thanks for the comments. Keep them coming.

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Rohan | 2 November, 2009 at 10:39 pm

I wouldn’t change a thing. Keep on doing what you are doing. I would like to see you write more on the travel news that affects consumers. Not just copy the news, but write your opinon of it from a consumers perspective.

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Hugo | 2 November, 2009 at 11:00 pm

Pleasure @ Darren it was fun and sorry to bang on for so long. A bit OTT but I got carried away with the spirit of a little brainstorm. If push comes to shove I actually tend to agree with @ Rohan – keep on doing what you are doing. Consumers need a ranter.

Agree about being extra eyes for consumer but sometimes the industry & consumers rants can align: like APD or Gatwick Sale, for example. Sometimes the industry needs an extra voice to support them, esp when they are ranting about something in the consumers interests. I can see though that it might be perceived as undermining your neutrality/ consumer focus though if you get to cosy to the industry, so maybe not such a bright idea.

Look forward to saying hello at TBC.

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Nick | 6 November, 2009 at 12:42 pm

Darren

I know you may hate this but tourist boards can be helpful in this, but more also asking readers to come up with ideas or why’s…. the reason I do not blog is I am a crap writter, the reason yours works well is you are good.

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