Today we are so excited to meet Helen and Isabel, the two aMAzing founders of Starling PR. Starling PR is a boutique PR agency based in Munich specialising in sustainable travel PR coupled with luxurious tourism and lifestyle. We met the Starlings via our shared clients in the Maldives, Milaidhoo Island and Baros Maldives. Here you will learn more about how luxury PR is changing and what you need to know about it.
Helen and Isabel, tell us more about you and your company.
Before founding Starling PR, we worked for years as colleagues at a PR agency in Munich. We soon realised that we shared the same vision and ambition to approach luxury PR differently, so we decided to set up on our own. That was over three years ago, and things for Starling PR have gone from strength to strength! We want to challenge the standard approach many agencies follow to deliver real value to our clients. This is what makes us different and in demand, combined with over 20 years of luxury tourism expertise and a genuinely personal service.
A few weeks ago you launched Retreat it Forward. Can you tell our readers more about the idea behind this new way of travelling and about the game-changing project itself?
As PR experts - what does PR mean to you?
In our eyes, PR is the most authentic way to achieve awareness for your hotel brand. Compared to investing in advertisement, PR is not only much lower in cost but also higher in credibility and persuasion. In today’s highly competitive hospitality market it is more important than ever to create stand-out. Most luxury hotels talk about the great services they offer; accommodation, a state-of-the-art spa, and delicious meals. However, only a few leverage the power of storytelling to truly distinguish themselves.
At Starling PR we believe in boutique PR, which for us means tailoring the message to the brand to create impactful stories that connect with guests and the media. It’s not just talking about the big features of your hotel it’s covering those finer details that will help make your brand more relatable such as the people, stories and experiences behind the hotel.
Why is PR so important for hotels and what should every hotelier consider in their PR approach?
First of all, it’s no longer enough to simply “sell” your brand, but rather about finding a way it can be of service to the media and thereby communicating your product to your potential guests via these media channels. Many people make the mistake of viewing PR as a short-term approach for standalone projects. It’s important for hoteliers to see PR as a long-term investment. It takes time to build lasting relationships and certainly more than a few great articles to create an increase in revenue. An outstanding PR agency should be there to support you in setting up a holistic PR strategy and offer expertise in cross-medial and integrated communications. The agency also needs to deliver a media network that is relevant and tailored to your needs as well as a strong understanding of marketing and sales.
You specialise in sustainable travel PR coupled with luxurious tourism and lifestyle. What do you think luxury nowadays is all about?
Luxury is not necessarily only linked to things money can buy or status symbols. Today it is much more about experiences and having access to quality time, flexibility and individuality. You need to keep this in mind in every aspect of the PR work you do and always make sure your messages and communications tap into these modern-day perceptions.
Why is PR measurement so important for PR strategy and can you recommend key metrics for our hoteliers to use?
How can you possibly know how successful your work is if you can’t measure it? Some believe even today that PR is hard to quantify, but we know that tracking performance is critical to success as well as building trust with our clients. Thanks to new technology tools it has become easier to measure the performance and impact of PR and such data can help to optimise and shape PR strategies of the future. Hoteliers should consider standard tools such as press clippings, media impressions, content analysis, market surveys and social media mentions. Also look to add booking codes to your article that will help you to measure generated leads and email marketing tools that allow to see who has opened and read your releases as well as who followed links.
What is your take on press releases nowadays? What are the must-have elements a release should always include?
We believe in the importance of regular press releases, which have the following characteristics:
1 – They update media with true and relevant news.
2 – They are written in press style with facts and emotion, are wrapped in an eye-catching designed word document and include a link to a high-res image library.
3 – They are individually tailored to a specific mailing list representing certain themes.
All of above ensures that the interest from media stays high and your updates are relevant to the respective target group. Only then your brand is of value to the media and subsequently to your prospective guests.
We at MA people are specialised in crafting innovative hotel concepts and brands: what are the key points to consider in a new hotel concept and brand in terms of public relations relevance?
To create stand-out in the highly competitive hospitality market, a hotel concept needs to include truly innovative aspects that make the hotel interesting and a real talking point for media and prospective guests. When developing the hotel concept, really consider and identify those specific pillars and stories that can be used for storytelling later on.
About Starling PR:
Starling PR is a boutique PR agency specialising in sustainable travel PR coupled with luxurious tourism and lifestyle. It’s owners Helen and Isabel are experts in their fields and offer PR, marketing and sales services to their clients. They understand their boutique service in the fact that clients are taken care of by the agency owners without changing faces of juniors handling their accounts. Oh yes, and a cute migration and songbird called starling is the story behind the name of their company ;-)
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