Paul Johnson is the principle author of A Luxury Travel Blog. When he’s not blogging, he is a Director of two travel businesses – The Dedicated Partnership Ltd. , which specializes in online marketing and affiliate marketing for the travel industry, and Kendal Holiday Cottages Ltd. , a vacation rental enterprise in the UK. He has travelled extensively, solo backpacking around Europe as a teenager, inter-railing as an undergraduate student, and doing glaciological research in Greenland as a postgraduate. Nowadays, having worked in the industry for 24 years, his blog takes him to some of the finest hotels and resorts in the world, but he still takes budget camping holidays with his family from time to time to give himself the occasional reality check!
TBU: What was the reason behind creating ‘A Luxury Travel Blog’?
PJ: I felt there was a gap. Most of the early travel blogs that I stumbled upon were from backpackers and budget travellers (and I think that’s something that still persists today). Nobody really seemed to be blogging about luxury travel. It was also a part of the industry that interested me.
TBU: Is it difficult to stay up to date with the multitude of luxury travel options that continue to emerge? How do you stay current?
PJ: I’m lucky in that my day job is involved with online tourism marketing, so I’m regularly reading travel stories, participating in travel forums and engaging in relevant social media. That, coupled with Google Alerts, RSS feeds and the mass of press releases I’m sent each day, helps me to keep abreast with the latest news.
TBU: We have noticed that you are also involved in a range of luxury travel brands both online and offline which generate a considerable yearly turnover. How do you manage your time between the businesses?
PJ: All my work at The Dedicated Partnership Ltd. is online – exclusively travel-related, but not restricted to the luxury end of the market. We run over 200 travel sites including a popular suite of UK tourism portals ( http://www.ukseries.com ) as well as some other popular sites such as the Aardvark Travel forums (http://www.aardvarktravel.net/chat ) There are just three of us employed in the business, but we work alongside a team of around 40 freelancers to help spread the workload. Our more recent venture, Kendal Holiday Cottages Ltd. , offers vacation rental accommodation between the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales National Parks in the UK. I deal with the online marketing, as well as handle enquiries and bookings, whilst my wife looks after all other aspects of the business.
TBU: Luxury can have a wide range of meanings to different people. What does the word ‘luxury’ mean to you?
PJ: For me, it’s all about the staff. Stunning accommodation, fine food or an excellent visitor attraction counts for nothing if it’s not backed by exceptional service. Luxury is about making people feel special.
TBU: Have you ever been upgraded on a flight? If so do you have any tips for people wanting to try and sit up the front?
PJ: I don’t recall a time when I have. I travel with young family these days so that probably rules us out! Asking, being courteous and dressing the part are all supposed to help, though.
TBU: What is your most memorable travel experience and why?
PJ: It would have to be our honeymoon to Tanzania. We landed at Kilimanjaro Airport, spent the first night at Arusha Coffee Lodge, before heading to the Grumeti River Camp in the Serengeti the next day. From there we went to the Ngorongoro Crater Lodge for a few nights, before spending the remainder of the honeymoon on Mnemba, a very exclusive island off the north-east coast of Zanzibar.
TBU: You have been involved in the travel industry for over 20 years now. What keeps you enthusiastic about coming to work?
PJ: I’ve never had any trouble in being motivated with what I do. Life’s too short to be in a job that you don’t enjoying doing.
TBU: Finally, if you had a crystal ball and could see into the future, what do you see as the future of travel?
PJ: People talk about virtual tourism bringing the world much closer but I don’t see that ever replacing the real thing. You need to actually travel to experience the sights and the sounds, the different customs and cultures, and this isn’t possible from the comfort of your own home. With time, I think commercial space travel is an inevitability. It’s perhaps hard to conceive but then, turn the clock back 50 years, and who would have thought a supersonic passenger jet was about to become a reality?
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Michael is the founder of TravelByU.com
After backpacking around Europe he worked for Club Med in the Whitsundays and Mauritius before becoming a travel agent.
He is a passionate traveller and has recently set a goal to spend a year visiting the best festivals around the world.
