When it comes to press stays – don’t neglect the red tops

When it comes to press stays, some hotels have an aversion to inviting red top journalists to stay with them for a review.
 
Often the reason cited is that they don’t think the readership is the right fit.
 
And of course, for some, that may make sense – but, for the vast majority, doing so sees you miss out on a huge potential audience.
 
The demographic reading the red tops is massive, stretching across the full spectrum of society – you’d be surprised who reads them!
 
The Sun, for instance, has a print readership of 1.6m, and an online readership of more than 10m unique visitors per month. The Daily Mirror has a print readership of 388,718 but 8.2 million online unique visitors per month. The Daily Express has a daily print audience of 251,736, and more than 10m online, The Daily Star, slightly less at 237,266 and with 2.7m online. These are considerable numbers – which makes them well worth pursuing!
 
All of these newspapers, when it comes to politics, are ideologically diverse – with the readership reflecting that. This means you can’t pigeonhole ‘red tops’ as capturing one type of potential guest – they’ll pretty much capture the full breadth of the British public amongst their readerships.

If you target a certain demographic by offering a very specific hotel experience, that will be who you’re likely to attract, regardless as to where it’s placed. Being featured in a red top newspaper, will expose you to those types who read them – which may very well include your ideal guest.
 
As a quick example of how this can play out, recently, one of our hotel clients, the 5-star Chester Grosvenor, hosted a journalist from Reach PLC

Reach PLC is the publisher for regional newspapers across the country, as well as several key national publications. By liaising with the travel editor for the whole of Reach, we were able to secure multiple pieces of press coverage following one stay – with the Chester Grosvenor subsequently featuring as the hotel of the week.
 
This included several of the Sunday newspapers, including The Sunday Mirror (circulation of 371,540), The Sunday Express (248,666) and The Daily Star on Sunday (106,995) – but alongside these, it also featured in their regional editions, including the Sunday Mirror for Ulster (a further 15,746 readers) and The Sunday Express Scotland (an additional 18,585).
 
The hotel of the week feature is a popular one, reaching a broad audience – so the team at the Chester Grosvenor were delighted to appear in it.
 
Ultimately, your hotel offering boils down to who can afford it – with someone willing to pay for the cost of a stay with you likely to do so regardless as to their background.
 
Our message to you then is don’t neglect the red tops – there’s a wealth of untapped opportunity and a huge audience you could be missing out on.