Ep. 27: Lindsay Paige Stein & The Roundtrip Collective.

TravelInfluencer MarketingTravel Bloggers

Oct 27

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This is the first episode of the limited series on entrepreneurship, Leading The Way.

I’m interviewing a variety of entrepreneurs in the tourism space to talk about what they built, why they built it, and what they’ve learned along the way. Maybe they’ve pivoted in this last year to create something brand new, or maybe they’ve adapted what they do, to speak to today’s travelers a bit differently.

For my part, when travel came to a screeching halt around March 15th, I knew I needed to make a change. It was either that, or binge watch Tiger King. Marketing budgets were cut to $0 and along with that, my expectations as a marketing consultant. Hotels were closing their doors. So I pivoted.

I reached out to my dream clients and offered to work for them for free. I started creating hotel marketing guides for them, specific to web, email, and social campaigns they could build themselves, and Marketing In A Box was born. I had to rethink the way I worked with hotels, and this low cost, high results service for hotel marketers, was the answer.

This podcast was also born out of the pandemic, as a way to make my marketing insights more accessible, and a chance for me to amplify voices we don’t hear enough from, in hospitality and travel.

Today, I’m speaking with another female entrepreneur who like me, reacted to the pandemic by pivoting. It wasn’t a 360 degree shift as you’ll soon hear, but it was a matter of responding to a need—in this case, a need that was realized via DMs in TikTok of all places. Have your ears perked up yet? This story is a testament of the power of social media, and it’s also about a girl who loves to travel.

Before we jump in, I want to thank our sponsor, Soul Community Planet (SCP) for providing me with a venue to record my podcast. It’s pretty cool to host my podcast about hotels, in hotel guest rooms and in some of the meeting spaces at SCP Redmond. I’ve been crazy about this boutique hotel since it opened—it’s hard to beat their rooftop restaurant to watch the sunset. More than that, Soul Community Planet believes in holistic hospitality—their hotels, restaurants, and guest experiences reflect compassion for their guests, their staff, and the communities they call home.

Okay, it’s time to introduce today’s guest.

Lindsay Paige Stein is a NYC-based freelance writer and publicist. While traveling to 30+ countries, she created a blog about her love for food and travel. Lindsay is the founder of The Roundtrip Collective, the first ever program for travel obsessed students looking to pursue careers in hospitality.

I’m excited to kick off this entrepreneurship series with Lindsay today and learn about what she built, why she built it, how she attracted an audience almost overnight, and what we can expect in the future.

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It was great connecting with Lindsay today to kick off my entrepreneurship series. My key takeaways were:

The future of travel is bright—knowing that college students are going above and beyond their curriculum, particularly during this challenging year, to learn about and begin to pursue careers in travel—that’s pretty remarkable. Every day, I see Lindsay onboarding the next generation of PR specialists, marketers, travel bloggers, and hospitality leaders.
I love the fact that Lindsay hired a business coach to help her build her business at record speed. It’s a good reminder that we can all benefit from mentors in our lives. Lindsay’s students are lucky enough to have Lindsay as a guide.
When it comes to working as a travel publicist, food blogger, and now educator, it was clearly a very natural evolution for Lindsay. I’m really impressed that during the pandemic, Lindsay was able to understand and meet the needs of travel obsessed students.

As always, keep sharing your stories.