In 2010, globetrotting travel writers Lara Dunston and Terence Carter, in partnership with
HomeAway Holiday-Rentals, will trade hotel rooms for holiday homes as they embark on a contemporary grand tour of the globe. They’ll be travelling slowly, living like locals, doing and learning things, and giving something back at each destination they visit. Their mission is to explore more enriching and authentic ways of travelling, and make travel more meaningful and more memorable.
Previously in: New York, USA
Currently in: Austin, Texas, USA
Next: To be announced!
© 2009–2010 Terence Carter & Lara Dunston. All rights reserved.
MEDIA
Interviews
Lara and Terence will be available throughout 2010 to do interviews about the project, the destinations they visit, and their experiences, by phone, online chat, twitter, email, or in person when possible, for all forms of media.
HomeAway Holiday-Rentals is also glad to make spokespeople available to talk about the project, their company, and their properties.
Stories
As widely published travel writers (convenient, no?), Lara and Terence can also write feature stories and columns or review the properties they’re staying at, for magazines, newspapers and websites, and are happy to discuss angles and ideas with editors.
Blog Posts & Q&As
Lara and Terence would love to participate in Q&As for your travel, food or other blogs and write guest posts when their travel schedule permits. Don’t be shy!
Editorial Policy
HomeAway Holiday-Rentals have hired Lara and Terence to travel the world, stay in their properties, and write about the destinations, the homes they stay in, and their experiences. It’s important to note that Lara and Terence have complete editorial control over the Grantourismo blog and the content they produce during the project. You can be confident they will use the same critical skills they apply to any destination they are writing about or hotel they are reviewing and will maintain the same ‘tell it like it is’ attitude and opinionated writing style they’ve had throughout their careers as travel writers. HomeAway Holiday-Rentals are obviously very confident in their product, don’t you think?
Information
The Grantourismo project is described on the various pages of this blog, however, if you have any questions or need more information, don’t hesitate to ask. From time to time media releases issued by HomeAway Holiday-Rentals about the project will be placed here on this page and at their very helpful Press Centre on their website. You can also learn more about HomeAway Holiday-Rentals on our Friends page, on their website, and on the HomeAway Facebook page.
You can find out more about Lara and Terence on this site, download their published articles at Lara’s Media Bistro page, see Terence’s work on his photography site, or read their reflections and ramblings about their work as travel writers on their personal blogs Cool Travel Guide (Lara’s) and Wide Angles, Wine and Wanderlust (Terry’s). They also have personal Twitter pages (twitter.com/laradunston and twitter.com/terencecarter) and Lara has a LinkedIn page.
Images
Photos of the types of properties Lara and Terence will be making themselves at home in are currently available at HomeAway Holiday-Rentals’ Flickr page. Once the properties the couple will be staying at are confirmed those images will also be made available for you to use, along with photos the couple will take throughout the trip of the places they stay at, destinations they explore, things they do, and people they meet. Lara and Terence don’t have many pretty pictures of themselves yet, but they’re working on it.
Video
Lara and Terence will also be shooting some video footage from time to time that you might also be able to get your hands on. (Handily, the couple were filmmakers in a former life.) For starters, they’d like to shoot walk-throughs of the properties they stay at, and they have some other ideas too. Let them know if there’s something you’d like.
Project Launch
On 1st January, the Grantourismo project will have a soft launch when the blog goes live and Lara and Terence begin to plan the exciting year ahead with HomeAway Holiday-Rentals from their family home in Australia. In early February there’ll be a small send-off of sorts in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, Lara and Terence’s base since 1998, and in mid-February, there’ll be a full-blown project launch in London, HomeAway’s home town, where the couple will host a cocktail party at one of HomeAway Holiday-Rental’s swish London properties (check it out here!). Want to know more, get involved or get on an invitation list? Contact Sarah or Lara.
Competitions
In partnership with HomeAway Holiday Rentals, Lara and Terence will hold competitions throughout the year on the Grantourismo blog. To participate in the competitions you must first do four things: 1) subscribe to the Grantourismo blog by email or RSS; 2) join the Grantourismo blog’s community of followers; 3) follow us on Twitter @gran_tourismo; and 4) become a fan of the HomeAway Facebook page. More details will be released soon, however, what we can tell you now is that there will be several competitions with monthly winners. The travel writing and photography competitions are open to anyone, winners will be selected monthly, the winning entries will be posted on the Grantourismo blog, and winners will receive fantastic travel-related prizes, including cameras. The travel blogging competition is open to travel and food bloggers only, winners will be selected monthly, finalists and winning blog posts will be linked to from this blog and the HomeAway Facebook page, and tweeted about on Twitter, and winners will receive a stay at a gorgeous HomeAway Holiday-Rentals property, which – naturally – you’ll be asked to blog about. Details to be announced soon.
Festivals, Events, Activities, Courses & Other Stuff
Throughout the year, Lara and Terence will be doing loads of interesting things and learning tonnes of stuff, from lessons in language basics to learning how to cook local recipes to going on walking tours to attending local festivals and events. If you have any ideas, suggestions or recommendations in relation to courses, tours, activities, festivals and events, do drop us a line.
Partnerships & Sponsorship
HomeAway Holiday-Rentals and Lara and Terence are open to considering relevant partnership proposals and are looking for sponsors for a few bits and pieces, including competition prizes. If you’d like to partner up or be a sponsor, do get in touch.
Media Contacts
To arrange interviews, stories and blog content, get hold of photos or video, get more information about the project, properties, Lara and Terence, and HomeAway Holiday-Rentals, become a sponsor/partner, or let us know about stuff, contact Lara or Sarah at HomeAway Holiday Rentals.
Sarah Chambers
PR Manager, HomeAway Holiday-Rentals
+44 (0) 20 8846 3430 / +44 (0) 7739 033132
schambers@homeaway.co.uk
www.HomeAway.co.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/HomeAwayUK
Flickr: www.flickr.com/homeawayuk
Skype: sarah_chambers
Lara Dunston & Terence Carter
+61 8 7798 6864 (Australian mobile: until 31st January)
+971 50 720 8690 (Dubai mobile: after 31st January)
laradunston@mac.com
www.grantourismotravels.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/gran_tourismo
Skype: laradunston
Hotmail/Messenger: grantourismo@live.com
MEDIA RELEASES
MEDIA RELEASE #1 issued by HomeAway Holiday-Rentals
In 2010, discover a new way to travel; discover Grantourismo
London, 4th January 2010
HomeAway Holiday-Rentals partners with writers Lara Dunston & Terence Carter to show travellers a more authentic, enriching way to travel
In 2010, globetrotting travel writers Terence Carter and Lara Dunston, in partnership with HomeAway Holiday-Rentals, will swap hotel rooms for holiday homes and embark on a contemporary grand tour of sorts they’re calling Grantourismo. The aim is to slow down, learn and do things, live like locals, and give something back to the places they visit, as they search for a more authentic and enriching way to travel.
Not only will Lara and Terence be chronicling their experiences via a dedicated blog and Twitter page that travellers can interact with (see www.grantourismotravels.com andhttp://twitter.com/gran_tourismo), they will also be available to produce independent articles as they go. Get in touch and read on to find out more.
A huge number of Brits already favour holiday homes over hotels, enjoying the space, privacy, flexibility and authenticity they provide. According to industry analyst Mintel, around one in five people currently holiday in this way and self-catering holidays are rising every year. In 2009, self-catering holidays were forecast to represent over 60% of all overseas holidays and Mintel expects the self catering market to continue to outstrip general holiday growth and exceed 34.3 million breaks by 2011.*
Thanks to the millions of people who own holiday homes worldwide, the choice of rentals is huge, with over 425,000 properties available on the HomeAway sites alone. With this choice, HomeAway rivals the largest hotel chains in the world. The InterContinental Hotel Group, for instance, recently ranked as the worlds largest, with 619,851 rooms. Whatever type of holiday you’re looking for, and whatever type of accommodation, there’s a holiday home to suit.
With Grantourismo, Lara, Terence and HomeAway Holiday-Rentals aim to show how holiday homes provide the perfect solution to today’s travellers’ desires, and the perfect alternative to hotel rooms and resorts. Travellers today are no longer just after a ‘holiday’ of sun, sea and sand, but rather a ‘journey’ where they learn about the local culture, arts, language and people of the places they travel too. A holiday rental is the natural choice for such a trip.
For Lara and Terence, the idea of a ‘grand tour’, a slow, extended journey where they would immerse themselves in the destination had always been appealing. Having already been on the road for over three years, they have called hundreds of hotel rooms ‘home’. But while they have much appreciation for hotels, at every possibility they were quick to trade their swipe cards for door keys and check in to a real ‘home’, albeit a rented one, for a change.
Lara comments, “The contrast between hotels and holiday rentals couldn’t be greater – the chance to really slow down, relax, and take it easy at a holiday rental being the obvious one. There are no breakfast buffet times to wake for, no cocktails to scramble to, and no need to worry about when the kitchen closes. Plus by travelling more slowly, people are also travelling more sustainably – from taking the time to discover local markets and small neighbourhood businesses, to buying and eating local produce instead of expensive imported products. Not only is this kind of travel more sustainable, travellers are also able to learn how to live like locals; which is one of our key aims on this trip.”
Courtney Wylie, General Manager for HomeAway Holiday-Rentals comments, “Here at HomeAway Holiday-Rentals we have stayed in an impressive number of properties between us, discovering for ourselves the benefits of staying in a private home instead of a hotel. Therefore, in 2010 it is our mission, along with Lara and Terry, to help more people discover this unique and liberating way of travelling. Although many people have been holidaying in rentals for years, many are still to try it and yet it caters so well for the millions of travellers today who are looking for a more experiential, more involving holiday, not to mention better value for money.”
Throughout their trip, travellers will be able to interact with Lara and Terence and share their experiences via the Grantourismo blog and Twitter page, as well as on www.HomeAway.co.uk and the company’s Twitter, Flickr and Facebook pages.
To learn more about how you can get involved, if you are interested in interviewing, commissioning or featuring articles from Lara and Terry, please get in touch.
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* Source of statistics: Mintel Self Catering Holiday Report 2007 and 2009