The pitch to the tourism board is the pitch to the specific person whose job title is “International Press and Partnerships Manager” (or the equivalent) and who receives 200 media requests per month and responds to 15 of them. The 15 they respond to have three things in common: the pitch is specific about what coverage will be produced and for what audience, the creator’s media kit demonstrates that the audience exists and is relevant to the destination, and the pitch arrives at the correct time in the tourism board’s annual media planning cycle. This guide gives all three.
Reading time: 7 minutes | Last updated: 2026
The Tourism Board Structure
Before the pitch: understand who you are pitching to.
National tourism boards (Visit Britain, Tourism Ireland, Turkish Tourist Board, Tourism New Zealand UK): the government-funded organisations that promote the country to the UK travel market. The UK press and partnerships team is typically based in London (the 10-20 person team handling all UK media and creator outreach). The team has a budget for the press trip programme, the media coverage, and the creator partnerships.
Regional tourism boards (the Tuscany Region Tourism Board, the Andalusia tourism authority): the regional promotions that operate with smaller budgets and more specific geographic targets. Often more accessible for the new creator (the lower reach threshold) and more flexible on the deliverable requirements.
Destination Management Organisations (DMOs) (the local tourism organisation for a city or area — the Visit Ljubljana, the Istanbul Tourism Board): the most specific and often the most accessible press trip operators. The DMO for a city of 500,000 is operating a smaller media programme than the national board and is more open to the creator with 10,000-20,000 followers.
The Annual Planning Cycle
Tourism board press trip budgets are allocated annually — the financial year (typically January-December or April-March depending on the country) determines when the budget is available and when the media invitations are issued.
The correct pitch timing:
September-November: The pitch for the following year’s programme. The tourism board’s press team is planning the next year’s activities — the media trip to Japan in April, the Ramadan food tourism programme for Morocco in March, the summer accommodation campaign for Croatia. The September-November pitch arrives in time to be incorporated into the plan.
February-March: The catch-up pitch for the current year’s programme. Some budget remains unallocated at the year’s halfway point — the creator who pitches in February for a March-May trip is pitching into the gap created by the trips that were planned but not executed.
The pitch that arrives in July for a July trip: The tourism board’s July budget is either allocated or depleted. This pitch arrives too late for the current year and too early for the following year. July is the wrong time to pitch unless you have a specific relationship with the press team that gives the flexibility.
The Media Kit for Tourism Board Pitches
The tourism board pitch requires a more specific media kit than the general press trip request. The national tourism board’s press team assesses:
1. The audience geography: Does the creator’s audience include the UK travel market that the tourism board is targeting? The 80,000 follower account whose audience is 70% American gives the UK tourism board approximately 56,000 UK-irrelevant followers. The 15,000 follower account whose audience is 85% UK-based gives 12,750 qualified potential visitors to the destination.
Include in the media kit: The audience geography breakdown (the Instagram Insights “Top Locations” screenshot showing the percentage of the audience from the UK), the audience age range (the 25-44 demographic that has the travel budget is more valuable to the tourism board than the 18-24 demographic), and the engagement rate by platform.
2. The relevant coverage history: The tourism board wants to see that you have covered comparable destinations successfully. The media kit for the Morocco pitch should include the coverage you produced from Tunisia, from Turkey, from the UAE — the destinations that demonstrate your specific knowledge of the Muslim-majority destination travel.
3. The specific deliverables: The pitch that says “I would like to visit Japan” gets no response. The pitch that says “I am proposing a 7-day circuit of the Kyushu region, giving: 3 Instagram Reels (target 50,000 combined views based on my recent performance), 1 YouTube video (target 15,000 views), 1 blog post at bggdworld.com (target 8,000 organic visits in 90 days), and 15 Instagram Stories” gives the tourism board a specific output to assess against their media value calculator.
The Media Value Calculator
Tourism boards use the advertising value equivalency (AVE) or the earned media value (EMV) to assess whether the press trip cost is justified by the coverage. The simplified calculation:
Instagram EMV formula: (Total impressions on the content) × (cost per impression for the equivalent paid Instagram ad in the UK market). The current UK Instagram CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) for the travel category: approximately £5-15 depending on the audience specificity.
The calculation for the typical BGGD account (10,000 followers, 6% engagement):
3 Reels at 15,000 impressions each = 45,000 total impressions × £10 CPM = £450 earned media value. 15 Stories at 1,200 views each = 18,000 total impressions × £5 CPM = £90 earned media value. 1 blog post at 8,000 views × £8 CPM equivalent = £64.
Total EMV from the campaign: approximately £604.
The tourism board that spends £2,000 on the flight and accommodation for this creator is spending £2,000 for £604 of equivalent advertising value — a negative ROI by the AVE calculation. This is why the pitch at 10,000 followers typically receives a press trip with no flights (accommodation and activities only, the creator self-funding the flight) rather than the full-package press trip.
The threshold for the full-package press trip: The EMV calculation at the average engagement rate gives the break-even at approximately 30,000-50,000 followers for the Instagram-primary creator. The creator who additionally delivers the blog traffic and the email newsletter reach crosses the threshold at a lower follower count.
The Follow-Up Relationship
The press trip that produces the agreed coverage, on the agreed timeline, with the mandatory disclosure, and with the honest editorial assessment is the press trip that generates the follow-up invitation.
The three specific actions that convert a one-off press trip into a recurring partnership:
1. Deliver early: The deadline for the Instagram Reels was “within 6 weeks.” Post within 3. The PR who sees the deliverables arrive early registers the professionalism.
2. Tag correctly: The tagging of the @visitcountry account, the use of the official hashtag (#VisitCountry), and the geo-tag of the specific location give the tourism board the ability to repost and amplify the content. The creator who provides these tags makes the PR’s job easier.
3. Send the results: 90 days after the trip, email the results: “The 3 Reels produced a combined 62,000 impressions (target was 50,000). The blog post has received 11,200 organic visits from Google search. Here’s the link.” The PR who receives this report has the justification for the next budget allocation.
