In the hot seat:
Fiona Duncan: Hotel Expert at The Telegraph
Fiona’s Focus:
- Fiona writes one column a month for Hotel Hit Squad, for this she doesn’t only like new hotels, she likes old and trusted ones as well. Rest of the Hotel Hit Squad include:
- Mark O’Flaherty – focuses on design and restaurants
- Hattie Garlick – focuses on family
- Sherelle Jacobs – reports on hotels for millennials
- Luxury for Fiona is authenticity, location, simple, peaceful. She loves independent hotels and dislikes glitzy and ostentatious. Keep things simple, “generosity is luxury”
- Monday is the best day to pitch to Fiona
- Monday Fiona is at home
- Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday in London
- Friday, back to the New Forest
- If wanting to meet Fiona, Wednesday or Thursday are her preferred days in the Sloane Square area
- Doesn’t like meeting clients
Top Tips:
- Fiona very rarely goes on group trips, prefers individual trips so that she can find a story and experience it as a guest would
- Unable to properly review a hotel before its official opening. There’s rarely any atmosphere and there are also invariably teething problems. Hotels get delayed so don’t under estimate an opening date and be honest/realistic
- New openings abroad with a strong angle work well for The Telegraph, she also likes pitches tied in with history
- Interested in reviewing wellness tied in with travel
- Exclusives are only important for Fiona if it is a leading industry name, if it is a smaller boutique hotel then for Fiona they are not as important
- Keep emails short and clear, include low-res images so Fiona has an idea of what to expect
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