As an expanded and improved version of the highly successful travel blog LatinFlyer, Departure Level offers a unique opportunity to reach a highly motivated group of frequent flyers, business travelers, travel agents and well-traveled vacationers. Few other sites provide such an efficient, direct connection to consumers seeking authentic, fresh information about specific topics like unique travel experiences in the United States and Latin America, as well as about LGBTQ+ travel and other niches.
Mark Chesnut, the editor and founder, is an award-winning travel writer and editor based in New York City. He’s been covering Mexico, Central and South America and the Caribbean since the mid-1990s. He contributes regularly to multiple outlets belonging to Northstar Travel Media, North America’s largest travel trade publisher, and his work has also appeared in in Fodor’s, Forbes Travel Guide, HuffPost, Orbitz and the inflight magazines of Aeromexico, American Airlines and Avianca, as well the New York Times bestseller 1,000 Places To See Before You Die. In 2022, Vine Leaves Press published his memoir: Prepare for Departure: Notes on a Single Mother, a Misfit Son, Inevitable Mortality and the Enduring Allure of Frequent Flyer Miles.
Nowhere is Mark’s enthusiasm for travel more evident than on DepartureLevel.com. This website, which serves as a comprehensive, one-stop shop for all the content Mark creates for various media outlets and clients, attracts a readership primarily from the United States as well as from four additional top markets: Canada, the United Kingdom, Mexico and Brazil. With first-person insight as well as sponsored “native” content, DepartureLevel.com is focused on serving the needs of a variety of travelers and travel industry insiders, with unique information and travel tips they won’t find anywhere else.
Interested in partnering with DepartureLevel.com or partnering with Mark to create compelling branded content? By working with Mark and Departure Level, the sponsor gets more than a simple post; you’ll be tapping into decades of experience in custom content and branded content. Mark also works with Northstar Travel Media, the nation’s largest travel trade publisher, on branded content for top suppliers, from Virgin Voyages to Air Canada, from Allianz insurance to Visit California. And he’d welcome the opportunity to use his expertise to help your company create compelling content — which can be used not only on DepartureLevel.com but also in your company’s own newsletters, promotional material and online content.
Here are some examples of what we could do together:
• Standard posts written by sponsor (which input from Mark) that address a general travel topic (not specifically about the sponsor), with a link to sponsor in the text.
• Standard posts written by Mark that are about a general travel topic (not specifically about the sponsor, but sponsor may approve topic).
• Advertorials: Posts that are specifically about the sponsor, with copy written by sponsor, with multiple links.
• Advertorials featuring copy written by Mark, with multiple links.
All sponsored content remains permanently on the site and is also promoted via social media upon publication, with the sponsor tagged.
Use Departure Level to Build Your Business
DepartureLevel.com and its affiliated channels serve as a business-development platform for tourism offices and private-sector companies looking to build awareness with a tech-savvy, well-traveled, largely English-speaking group of consumers. Using branded content, custom content and social media, DepartureLevel.com is a fast, cost-effective route for connecting with this desirable market.
Let’s be frank. Departure Level’s founder, Mark Chesnut, isn’t a hard-sell, in-your-face salesman. But he’s great at creating custom content — good enough, in fact, to have worked with a wide variety of travel industry clients to create attention-getting branded content, which we all know is often more effective than simple display ads. His resume of custom-content clients reads like a who’s-who of the travel industry, including publishers like American Express Custom Publishing, Northstar Travel Media and Performance Media Group, consumer companies like Perrier and tourism industry organizations ranging from American Airlines Vacations to Visit Detroit to Orbitz Worldwide.
A Suite of Services to Build Business
Looking for specific content ideas for your business? Here are a few of the business-building options that DepartureLevel.com offers:
• Branded content (text, photos and video)
• Social media exposure
• Creation and maintenance of unique Facebook, Twitter and other social media accounts to increase exposure even further
Looking to tap into some of this market? Contact me for details.