Mandarin Media, a U.S.-based PR and digital media firm, has stimulated the development of 925 stories in international media outlets for its Vietnam-based clients in the first half of 2010.
The stories include major features in the world’s leading travel magazines, such as Travel + Leisure, which is running an 11-page feature about Vietnam in its current issue. A 3-page feature on Vietnam’s spas in the current issue of Spa Travel + Lifestyle, North America’s leading consumer spa magazine. And a 3-page feature on Halong Bay in the June issue of DestinAsian, Southeast Asia’s leading travel magazine.
“If you were to calculate how much it would cost our clients or the tourist authorities in Vietnam to buy space in all of this international media, we’d be talking about millions of dollars,” said Jim Sullivan, managing director of hotels and resorts at Mandarin Media. “In Travel + Leisure, where a single ad page costs $111,715, that one placement alone is worth US $1.23 million in advertising equivalency value. And we’ve landed 925 placements for 2010 already.”
Of those placements, Mandarin Media is tracking 519 placements in the consumer press and 406 placements in the travel-trade press. By the end of 2010, Mandarin Media expects to manage 1,500 placements for Vietnam internationally.
“This kind of work is incredibly important for Vietnam,” said Herbert Laubichler-Pichler, general manager of The Nam Hai in Hoi An. “Unless a destination is constantly appearing in the pages of media outlets, whether in print or on-line, travelers will not visit the country. We, as a destination, have to pour more and more resources into the destination marketing efforts that we’re seeing from companies like Mandarin Media.”
Mandarin Media’s client list spans Vietnam, from the Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi and the Emeraude on Halong Bay, to The Nam Hai and Life Resorts in Central Vietnam, to Princess d’Annam Resort and Spa on the south-central coast and the Caravelle Hotel in Ho Chi Minh City, as well as the newly refurbished Movenpicks in both HCMC and Hanoi.
Its golf course clients include the recently opened Montgomerie Links and Danang Golf Club.
“When we celebrated the grand opening of the Montgomerie Links in April, we arranged for 11 members of the international media to fly in from Hong Kong and Singapore and Australia,” said Hal Phillips, managing director of golf and resorts at Mandarin Media. “We identified the best targets, contacted the media and worked to ensure major play for Vietnam’s central coast golf courses. We’re seeing the fruit of that now, in dozens of publications, including a 6-page feature in the June issue of HK Golfer, Hong Kong's leading English-language golf publication.”
As a PR company, MM works to ensure its clients and Vietnam are featured prominently in the editorial that results from media visits, and the editorial generated by press releases issued by the company from its offices in the United States and Singapore. So far in 2010, Mandarin Media has issued more than 40 press releases to international media outlets for client properties in Vietnam.
The 406 placements Mandarin Media has arranged in travel-trade media outlets involve stories about a new incentive program at the Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi, a new luxury helicopter package at the Princess d’Annam and new airline routes that link golf courses in Dalat and Danang. These placements are especially important because tour operators and travel agents who read these stories have cause to think, again, about Vietnam as a destination.
“We cannot claim credit for Vietnam’s emergence as a highly acclaimed travel destination,” said Sullivan. “But the thousands of international media placements we have managed since we started representing Vietnam in 2006, most of which would not have occurred without Mandarin Media’s efforts, have contributed greatly to the country’s appeal.”
The company’s principals claim that much more could be done in cooperation with the Vietnamese tourist authorities. But efforts to work hand in hand with the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism have yielded little so far.
“VNAT isn’t in a position to know who the most important editors are, or which magazines are important, but we do,” said Phillips. “If VNAT would fund media visits to the country, like most other countries in Southeast Asia do, we could do so much more for Vietnam.”
H.L
Vietnamese
