Rachel Gaffney’s Letter From Texas

By now clients had either cancelled or postponed their trips to Ireland. It was not pessimistic but realistic to assume I would not be booking any more for this coming summer. What now? Do I post photos from past trips, do I talk about Ireland on Instagram or do I look for as much content as possible so I can prepare and organise future trips? All of it, I do all of it.

It started with some baking classes on Facebook and from there people engaged in conversation with me. I browsed through Instagram and watched the posts coming in from Ireland. Like some voyeur, I watched, listened and took notes. Never was there a more important time for me to gather content. Ordinarily I am meeting with clients, planning their trips, handling billing and generally running my business, like everyone else. There never seems to be a good time or there was never enough time to organise my research into categories and counties. Now there was time.

One day, an alert popped up on Instagram. Chef Kevin Dundon from Dunbrody House was about to go live. With my morning coffee, I sat by the pool and watched as Kevin made a simple sponge cake with strawberries. Sophie, his teenage daughter, filmed as he baked and talked and, watching him teach, I longed for strawberries from Wexford. A simple bowl of strawberries with fresh Irish cream poured over them was what I longed for. By watching this it gave me an idea. I needed to contact Kevin and ask if he would be a guest on my podcast and talk about Dunbrody House. I did and he did.

Both he and his wife Catherine connected live with us from Dunbrody House. During this podcast, we shared photos and video of Wexford. Places to stay. Things to do and see. A little history and more. People watched on all social media channels. The Irish Consulate in Texas shared that it would be airing through their distribution channels.

On Wednesday, May 13th I will be visiting Waterford when interviewing a lady in New York who owns a public relations agency - she visited Waterford 2 years ago and had the most wonderful experience at the Waterford Distillery. People are listening and watching. They are planning trips for 2021. In fact only this week, a family of 12 contacted me to create an itinerary for them.

There has never been a more important time to share content than now. People may not be able to travel now but they want to travel. They want to plan their travel. While I am busy planning their travel and curating some new trips of my own, I am looking for content. I am doing more research, bookmarking websites, creating lists on Twitter and contacting people. Please keep sharing and we will return.

http://rachelgaffneys.com
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rachel-gaffneys-real-ireland/id1454052171