It started a few months ago, just two months after I joined Club Mahindra, as a Senior Manager in charge of the web-initiatives. I realised that our presence on the Internet was limited to news releases and press articles, and occasional links from travel and tourist websites. But there was nothing on the experience that one got from a Club Mahindra holiday, considering the service and exceptional quality of the resorts (5 out of the 15 resorts have been awarded the coveted RCI Gold Crown award).

On further investigation, I realised that many of the satisfied customers would just feel good about it, or leave comments or testimonials with the front desk, and most of them were 2-3 liners. It also didn’t help that most of them aren’t professional writers or bloggers who had an outlet to their views – good or bad. I also learned from some bloggers that most Indian travel bloggers are into budget traveling, and haven’t been to an up-market, luxury resort in their course of travel.

Which is when I realised, why not let travel writers, photographers and bloggers (more keen on traveling) experience our resorts and put their views in their blogs?! For one, I was confident of the experience and the service they would derive from the Club Mahindra resorts, and second it would also gives us visibility on the Internet.I teamed up with Kiruba, who consults with us on our social media marketing, and we decided to go ahead with it. We set about identifying a list of bloggers, writers and professional photographers  – some known to Kiruba, and others I’d identified on the Internet.

Now the question was where? I had 15 resorts to choose from, but since this was going to be the first of its kind, I wanted to make sure that it was convenient logistically.Most prolific bloggers are based down south, and hence the resorts in the south of India would make the right choice.I finally arrived on the Club Mahindra Kodagu valley resort (Coorg) as the choice – the other contender was the heavenly Club Mahindra Lake view resort (Munnar). 

Coorg – Beautiful View

The trip was planned more than a month in advance, and I had time to reserve the rooms, invite the bloggers and plan the overall logistics for the trip.