For this to work well, it's essential for many travel journalists to drum up interest. Unlike bloggers or even influencers, some find this self-promotion rather difficult. They have the old-fashioned mindset that the only thing that matters is the product. But that's not enough: The chemistry between the tourism PR side and the journalistic colleagues has to be right. Often, a gut feeling decides whether a journalist gets the opportunity to conduct research. Professionalism, meaning a journalist who knows their craft, isn't enough to get invited. Etiquette also has to be right.
Journalists need to be able to present themselves well, which is usually not a problem. Especially not at trade fairs where the entire tourism world converges. Getting to know people and forging contacts is much easier in person, for example, around the ITB.
This is where the drama begins in these contactless times that have been with us for months now. Personal interactions are being replaced by Skype, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Hidden Cameras VibraGame and a host of specialized video chat conferencing programs. This is causing problems. It's frightening how inexperienced, unprofessional, and helpless many colleagues feel in front of their home computer webcams. Women and men are equally plagued by this.
Light, angle, sound, clothing – every detail is crucial
Light? It often seems like a luxury. However, it leads to unflattering dark circles under the eyes, often with a moderately bluish hue.
Look into the camera? Why? It's enough to just look at the web chat window, which is positioned somewhere on the screen.
Good sound? I can hear myself loud and clear, right?
The self-produced video image often deviates significantly from one's own perception, and it takes a lot of persuasion to improve it. For most people, presenting themselves in front of a camera is an unfamiliar, stressful situation they haven't learned to handle.
There are no extenuating circumstances in web chat. The viewer knows exactly which image he or she likes.
So, if you want to appear professional in the coming weeks at web meetings, camera speed dating at the ITB, the IMM or a specially scheduled get-to-know-you chat with a partner from overseas, you should follow a few important rules:
Outfit
- Sit in front of the camera the way you would dress and present yourself if you were attending a face-to-face meeting. Clothes make the man. This applies to web chats, too.
Preparation and discussion
- It's helpful to create a comprehensive profile beforehand – preferably in English – detailing your professional career, media outlets you've served, and any awards you've received. Selected links to work samples illustrate the style of journalistic work you practice. Many trade fairs and meetings offer profile pages. Alternatively, you can submit one or two pages in advance as a PDF by email.
- Stay focused. Often, there's only ten to fifteen minutes for an interview. A well-prepared profile eliminates the need for a long introduction. Get straight to the point about what you want to cover. Elevator speech training is a great way to prepare: Like a tight elevator ride, you only have 45-60 seconds to get someone excited about an idea.
Light
- Find a perfect place to conduct your web chats. It doesn't necessarily have to be your desk. Two things are especially important: a good background and good lighting.
- A laptop on a table with the webcam facing down is completely unsuitable. This looks unpleasant and leaves unsightly marks on your neck. A solution might be stacking books or travel catalogs on the table until the laptop is high enough so that the built-in camera is at about eye level or slightly higher.
- Let there be light. This is already in the Bible and is especially true for web chats. Cameras are often of mediocre quality. Added to this is often a loss of quality due to poor internet bandwidth. Poorly lit images quickly become blurry, exhibit noise, and other unpleasant side effects.
The best way to prepare good light is as follows: If you can't get professional lighting, you should ensure the room has a good level of basic brightness. During the day, this can be a window. But be careful if the light is coming from the front, in the broadest sense. A window in the camera's field of view is almost always bad and causes the camera to darken your face. Also: There should be artificial light behind the screen or laptop that softly illuminates your face from the front. A suitable office lamp might even be suitable for this. If the light is too harsh or too bright, a loosely hanging tissue with adhesive strips on the lamp head works wonders. Be absolutely careful not to place it in a position where it could overheat.
You can buy small, battery-operated camera lights online for around €20. They weigh only a few grams and can usually be easily attached to your laptop or monitor next to the webcam.
background
- Let there be an image. Or rather, a background. The camera is now at eye level. Now the home environment is put to the test. What kind of converse conclusion does this allow for? In simple terms, it's worth treating your own four walls as a backdrop and preparing accordingly. If changes aren't possible, it's better to choose a location for web chats so that a neutral white wall serves as the background. Some web chat programs even allow you to edit the background in advance. The blur or out-of-focus effect is very popular. At first glance, this seems like the solution to all problems. But be careful: creating a blurred background live requires a lot of processing power. As a result, the streaming quality can deteriorate. And this "trick" almost always results in very unsightly artifacts in the image as soon as you move. This looks highly unprofessional and can also be the case with the supposedly second good trick: the sometimes offered option of replacing the real background with a kind of photo wallpaper. Unless you have the ability to create a perfect punch using green screen technology (and that requires a lot of light), you can quickly end up with rather unsightly effects that unfortunately irritate the viewer. – What you shouldn't do at all: "Funny" image effects almost always seem childish and have no place in a professional web chat!
clay
- Sound makes the music—and especially the speech. For a private conversation via webcam, the built-in microphone will certainly suffice. However, if you're speaking as a panel member on a forum, it's definitely worth ensuring good sound. One way to achieve this is to connect iPhone headphones to your computer and select them as both a microphone and a speaker in the system settings. The wired microphone of earbuds is closer to your face and will generally produce much better sound. Connecting a USB microphone to your computer can be even better.
camera
- The camera is the eye of your conversation partner. This sounds obvious, but it's the biggest problem for most people. Nine out of ten people look at the program's chat window while speaking. Consequently, they don't look into the camera, or rather, into the other person's eyes as they would in a real conversation. This is irritating and inevitably creates barriers. Force yourself to always look into the camera while speaking. There's a little trick here, too: If you place the chat window directly below the camera at the top of the screen, you can minimize the effect and thus at least keep the error as small as possible.
- Journalists, in particular, have made it their mission to tell stories. This makes it all the more important that the "cinema in our heads" of ourselves can play professionally and naturally with new forms of communication. If we don't master this, who will?
