Travelling for work is fun, but it’s certainly not easy

At Bergen’s Magic Ice Bar in September on a trip I took for work.

I’m in Vienna this weekend for work.

I love my new job. Although it sounds mundane – Digital Marketing Executive – it’s quite exciting. A way to surmise what I do is extremely easy. I take care of the online marketing for Liverpool John Lennon Airport so, essentially, I have a hand in anything that happens on social media, on the airport’s website and with the emails we send out.

Not only do I get to work in an industry I love (some may consider it travel, others aviation), but I’m also encouraged to come up with ideas and actually put them into action.

I would say approximately 70% of my job is running the airport social media channels, and one thing I thought could help to massively improve the performance across the board is the implementation of video. It’s the way social is going, with algorithms on sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram appearing to reward posts containing video. They reach more people, they get more impressions and engagement appears to be increased.

So, I made the suggestion to promote the destinations that we serve from Liverpool using this medium, and we’d do so by travelling to destinations to gather content – essentially to capture images and video, then use them to create packages to send out across our social media.

I made a proposal, I outlined the benefits and it was accepted.

They liked my idea, and so I ran with it. Last month I went to Bergen for three nights and it was a corker. I got some great images, shot some great video and got plenty that will help push the Bergen to Liverpool route, and I’m following it up with this weekend, slightly longer as I’ll be staying in Vienna for four nights.

Bergen was great, and it was great to explore yet another European city I had yet to visit, and although I’ve been here before, I’ve had a sick first full day in the capital of Austria. As you can imagine, in my excitement, I’ve told various people that I’d be going away to Bergen and Vienna for work, and while some are excited for me and some reacting with a hint of tongue-in-cheek jealousy, most people have considered it to be some sort of holiday.

One of the best photos I took in Bergen, when the sun came out over the Norwegian fjords.

To be honest, I can see why they’d think that. Both Bergen and Vienna are places people like me would go for a city break, and I’m always travelling – in fact, I’ve been away at least once a month since January 2016, so even if I wasn’t here this weekend, I’d probably be visiting somewhere else.

But it’s so much more than a holiday, and it’s a hell of a lot more tiring than a day in the office. Today I awoke at 07:30, it’s gone midnight and I’m still working. We’ve had two meetings with Vienna Tourist Board, visited various attractions and eateries and filmed and photographed everything along the way.

With one of these content gathering trips, the mind never rests. You’re either actively using a camera, or you’re scanning the area for the next thing to snap. There’s utilizing a DSLR, then switching between two iPhones to get content for both work’s Instagram story and my own. We’re also wresting with time as we want to cram in as much as possible so we can give our fans and followers a real flavor of what they can expect from a given destination. This means early mornings and really early nights. It approaches one in the morning as I write this, and I have to be up for 07:00 at the very latest.

While travelling for work is great fun and an aspect of my job that I love, it most certainly isn’t a holiday – it’s hard, but rewarding, graft.