Most of my readers know that I love social media and blogging. All of you, I presume, know that I love to travel and plan travel. Fewer of you probably know that I have a M.S. in International Marketing from St. Joseph’s, which I received five years ago (unless you read my long overdue profile blog an remembered this fact, which would impress me). While Chimera has certainly involved all three of the above, I have been looking to truly combine these skills for a while, and some business planning over the summer allowed me to begin turning this into a reality.

When people ask me how I conduct research for my clients, my number one response is social media. (There’s a connection here – no pun intended – I promise). I have built up a network of followers, fans and truly new friends in the industry through my social media outlets – twitter, linkedin, facebook and now Google+. I have learned who has the most experience in various destinations, regions, and niches (i.e biking tours, culinary travel, etc). I have also made friends and connections located around the world. If I want to know the restaurant that serves the best gnocchi in a certain town in Italy, I know who to contact that’s right at the source. I find these connections invaluable.

One place that I’ve found a hole, however, is stand-alone hotels, often smaller ones. I have never had much trouble get a social media response from someone at a major, or even smaller, hotel chain.  On the other hand, when I tweet out that I’m looking for a luxury, stand-alone hotel for a client at “x” destination, I may get a response from someone who’s been or booked clients there, but rarely receive a response from the hotel directly. This means one of two things – either the hotel doesn’t have a twitter account, or they do but don’t have someone watching over it regularly to respond when queries like mine come through. I suspect, the answer for this gap is a combination of the two. These stand-alone hotels are the type of accommodation I work with most, and yet are the trickiest for me to interact with on social media. I realized that this type of hotel is under-represented in social media – most likely because of resource restraints, both human and/or budgetary. It’s tough for a smaller hotel to pull someone from their marketing team to do social media (I’m not sure this is a good idea anyways) and just as tough sometimes to hire someone full time for the task. These hotels may lack consistent blogging for the same reason. I want to help these hotels. I would like them to be as much in the “playing field” as the chain hotels, as they’re some of my favorites.

I decided to combine my love of travel, social media, marketing and hotels (yes, I truly love hotels) to begin doing social media marketing and blog consulting for stand-alone hotels.  I help create and oversee their social media accounts, create and work on their blogs and can include additional tasks such as website copy, email marketing and e-newsletters/e-publications. Because I believe in being very honest up front, a few things that I can’t do include website design, coding and anything of the like. I can take a look at a website and from the perspective of both the travel professional and traveler give my input on the appeal and the usefulness, as well as my thoughts on the design from a top level. I do not, however, actually create the new design unless you want to go with a blog on WordPress, Blogger or similar templates. However, I have some very contacts contacts that can do this, and am happy to work with them on these tasks if the need arises.

I’m incredibly excited about this new business development. However, as I’m sure you’re not quite as excited as I am – unless you’re a stand alone hotel that needs social media marketing, in which case please contact me! – I’ll end this rather long blog. All kidding aside, if you are in the hotel industry and are interested in my services, or know a property that may be, you may contact me by email at maya@chimera-travel.com or by phone at 856-266-8898.

Finally, I want to add that no means does the lack of social media and blogging apply to all stand-alone hotels. To those that are active in blogging and social media, I thank you for setting an example for others and would love to hear your success stories.

Then North Korea started testing missiles and making nuclear threats and riots broke out in South Korea over the suicide of their former president. Many people asked me  if I would still be going. In fact, I was quite intrigued and excited to visit a country at such a historic time and have a first hand view of the situation from as close to a local perspective as I would ever get. 

What I found in South Korea was quite the opposite than what I expect you’d find in the U.S. if our neighbors were threatening nuclear war. From what we saw, the threats from North Korea were not monopolizing the news (TV or print) and there wasn’t a sense of outward panic. In fact, they seemed much more concerned about visitor’s bringing in swine flu (they took our temperature as we disembarked the plane). 

Instead of being consumed by fear and their own political issues, we found the Koreans incredibly warm, friendly and upbeat – stopping to help us find our way when we looked blankly at maps, civilians driving us to the train station when it started pouring, helping us learn some simple Korean, taxi driver giving us a free ride. 

We did see several peaceful demonstrations which revolved around the death of their former leader. We unfortunately missed the massive gathering in Seoul Plaza, as we were in Busan that day. This was probably the only major outward sign of any controversy in the country. 

The final test was our trip to the DMZ. First, I was a bit surprised they still offered this tour, and was excited to participate (my second time, though still incredible). I was equally surprised at how open our guide was in talking about relations with North Korea, over the course of the last 60 years or so, at the present moment and what they expect for the future.  

My conclusion:  South Korea is still a safe and fascinating country to visit. If you have the chance to visit, do so. Enjoy the welcoming people people, the karaoke, the 10-course meals, the Buddhist temples, the lively cities and maybe take away a lesson from a culture that seems to keep it’s cool during what must be a very stressful time. 

Whether couples prefer an intimate ceremony on a secluded island or choose to take their guests with them for the big event, it seems clear that couples are looking to take their wedding on the road (plane, train, boat).  The destination wedding market has grown by $10 billion since 2001 and is expected to increase another $3 billion this year. So why do are destination weddings so appealing?

• Less work  and stress: Many resorts and accommodations employs their own wedding coordinator who can take care of most of the arrangements for the event.  A travel planner can arrange all of the travel for the couple and their guests, leaving the bride and groom much less to do and more time to actually enjoy the upcoming events. 

• More intimate affairs: most couples do not expect 200 people at a destination wedding. By not staying close to home, they can tactfully limit the guest list to those very close to them (or to no one at all) and avoid much of the stress involved in trying to make a large number of people happy

• More time to enjoy loved ones:  destination weddings often double as a vacation for the guests. This gives the bride and groom more than just a few busy hours at the reception to spend time with those closest to them and gives the guest an exciting and generally not too expensive vacation with a special purpose. 

• Cost: believe it or not, most destination weddings costs much less than a traditional wedding. With fewer guests, reception costs are cut by a good deal and many locations have wedding packages which help to save on expenses. 

• A truly unforgettable event: be honest, how well do you remember the flowers at your cousins wedding or the DJ at your neighbor’s reception? Probably not very well. If they had gotten married on a tropical island at sunset, at a Vineyard in Napa or on a mountain peak in Europe, it would be virtually impossible to for the wedding to escape your memory. 

For more information on planning a destination wedding, country requirements and destination ideas, visit the Destination Weddings & Honeymoons link on our Services page.  

Many airlines are doing their part to help ease the pains of vacation changes and cancellations by eliminating their change fee (generally $150 to $250 per ticket) for those who change their flights to Mexico due to the outbreak. 

As the situation is continually evolving, please check the CDC for the most recent updates (www.cdc/gov/swineflu). If you have plans to travel to Mexico in the near future, your travel planner can advise you of the options for changing your plans – it is possible that travel insurance will cover the changes/cancellation and this should be looked into as soon as possible.