Measuring hotel PR does not mean counting articles. It means understanding whether the coverage you have earned is relevant, authoritative and aligned with the right audience — and whether it has shifted something in the brand’s positioning. Ten well-built, strategically relevant pieces of coverage are often worth more than a hundred automatic republications. And it is worth saying this from the outset: PR rarely translates into bookings that can be attributed with precision. Anyone promising that kind of causality is usually selling a number, not a result.
In the sections below, I explain what I actually look at when I read a PR report, why AVE and Earned Media Value tell us less than they appear to, where honest attribution has to stop, and how I read two real cases I have worked on. This is an area where numbers, when taken in isolation, are almost always misleading.
Counting articles is not enough to measure hotel PR
The number of placements measures the volume of coverage, not the value of the strategy. They are two different things, and confusing them is the first mistake I see people make.
If I had to choose for a client between one hundred mediocre placements and ten excellent ones, I would choose the ten without hesitation. A passing mention of a hotel’s name in a two-thousand-word article means very little, however important the publication may be. A piece that actually describes the initiative, explains the concept and places the property within the right narrative is worth far more — even if the publication itself is less famous.
A concrete example. For B-Side, the listening bar in Alta Badia, a long and detailed article in Mixmag Italia is, to me, a rare result precisely because of the depth with which it tells the story of the project. A piece like that, in the right publication for that audience, is worth more than a single line in a major glossy title. Coverage is not the business result, and it is not the value of the strategy either: read properly, it is one of the things that tells you whether the strategy is working.
Which KPIs do I actually look at in a PR report?
When I open a report, there are two things I look for before anything else: what kind of publications they are, and how the client appears within the article. Everything else comes afterwards.
The publication and its relevance. I look at whether the titles are authoritative and, above all, whether they are aligned with the audience the property already has or wants to reach. A prestigious publication that is completely outside the target can be worth less than a niche title that is perfectly placed. I assess quality through the publication itself, its editorial presentation, online traffic or print circulation, and its reputation. But it always depends on the objective: if I am trying to communicate an industry story, a less glamorous trade publication may generate new partnerships for the property, and in that case it can be more valuable than a glossy general-interest magazine.
Prominence: dedicated piece, feature or mention. I always distinguish between coverage where the hotel is the main subject, a feature where it receives at least a substantial paragraph within a wider article, and a passing mention. These are different levels of coverage, and they should never simply be added together as though they carried the same value.
Key messages and positioning within the article. A placement is good when it communicates the messages that matter accurately and places the property within the right narrative — not simply when it mentions the name. And where an international strategy exists, I also look at the diversity of the markets reached: one additional country matters if it is a relevant market for the client.
One thing I find misleading is the rate-card value sometimes attached to media coverage. It is a commercial number, and it has very little to do with PR value. An article with an advertised value of ten thousand euros, published in a market that has no relevance whatsoever to the client, does not truly carry that value.
Dedicated piece, feature or mention: why they should not be added together — and the syndication trap
Combining fundamentally different types of coverage into a single total inflates the result and hides what actually happened. That is why a serious report should always separate prominence.
In the case of Premio Fracchia, for example, the twenty-three placements were not presented as one undifferentiated block: sixteen were dedicated pieces, six were features and one was a radio mention. Counting them all in exactly the same way would have produced a bigger number and a worse piece of information.
The same applies even more strongly to syndication and automatic republication. In my view, if these are not distinguished, the reporting is not being done properly. Distributing a press release as widely as possible without identifying the right editors and publications may amplify its circulation, but in terms of PR return and positioning it carries relatively little weight. Publications that simply republish material from elsewhere are, in most cases, not something I even include in my reports. Not because the extra number would not look good, but because it tells the client almost nothing about the work that was actually done.
Is one article in a major publication worth ten others?
Not necessarily, and certainly not automatically. Is it a dedicated article or a passing mention? What is the publication’s reach and market? Does the piece open other doors, or does it remain isolated? The honest answer is that one placement can be worth considerably more than ten others — but not because of any mathematical rule.
The real value of an important piece of coverage is often what it generates afterwards. When The Guardian published Moyseion, with two pages in the weekend print edition as well as the online article, numerous enquiries followed and other publications picked up the story. Coverage like that cannot be measured only as a standalone article: part of its value lies in the chain reaction it creates. Authority, audience, depth, distribution and the ability to generate further opportunities are what can make one publication strategically significant. That is why I also judge the quality of a placement by what it is capable of setting in motion around it.
Do AVE and Earned Media Value really measure ROI?
No. AVE — Advertising Value Equivalency — and Earned Media Value translate editorial coverage into a hypothetical advertising value, but an equivalent advertising value is not a return on investment. They operate on different levels, and treating them as interchangeable is misleading.
When a client asks me for an estimated value, I can provide one, but I do not simply copy figures from media kits. I assess the actual characteristics of the article alongside tangible data: website visits measured through tools such as SimilarWeb, print circulation, publication frequency and the timing of the piece. It is an informed estimate, not a figure lifted from a rate card.
There is one point on which I am particularly strict: the way reach is presented. I would never put the total monthly traffic of a major website into a report and suggest that all those people read my client’s article. They did not, and implying otherwise is simply inflating the result. What I do instead is estimate readership conservatively — for example, by considering a limited proportion of the site’s monthly traffic — in order to provide a credible order of magnitude. The exact number is almost always impossible to know. An honest approximation is worth more than an enormous but false figure.
The attribution problem: from PR coverage to hotel bookings
Attributing a booking to an article is, in practice, almost impossible. The exception would be a specific arrangement involving a tracked booking link agreed with the publication, and those cases are rare. Outside circumstances like that, anyone telling you that “this article generated X bookings” is guessing.
It is much more realistic to look at indirect signals over time: growth in website traffic, an increase in branded Google searches, or social growth after PR activity has been running for a while. I also look at signals coming directly from the media, which I consider among the most reliable because they are difficult to manufacture: spontaneous journalist enquiries, new editorial opportunities generated by previous coverage, and publications picking up a story following an important article. The Guardian example is revealing again here: the real confirmation was not simply that the article existed, but that it generated further interest afterwards.
I am explicit about this with clients. I do not promise causality that I cannot prove. In the case of Premio Fracchia, for example, attendance at the festival increased significantly from one edition to the next, but that figure came from the organisers and I have never attributed it to PR. Attendance depends on the programme, guests, weather, word of mouth and many other variables. Reporting it as context is legitimate. Presenting it as a direct consequence of media coverage would be dishonest.
How I read a PR report without being misled by the numbers
A good report explains the numbers rather than simply listing them. It also states the conditions under which the work was carried out, because without that context the results cannot be evaluated properly.
My reports include every placement, with screenshots, links or PDFs, classified by prominence and publication so that the picture can be verified. But alongside what worked, I also include the genuine constraints: when I had to work without essential assets, when news reached me late from the client, or when inviting journalists to the property was not possible. Not as an excuse, but because the client should be able to assess the results knowing exactly under what conditions they were achieved. Ten pieces of coverage secured in one week without photography or travel budget cannot be read in the same way as ten pieces secured over six months with every necessary asset available.
The Premio Fracchia case study is structured precisely in this way: it separates coverage, format, timing and prominence, states openly that it does not report aggregated reach, AVE or financial ROI, and keeps festival attendance clearly identified as third-party data. A report that hides its own limitations should raise more questions than one that states them openly.
Two cases, two very different timeframes
Reading results means reading them in relation to the project and the amount of time available. Two projects I have worked on show this particularly well because they sit at opposite ends of the spectrum.
Moyseion Matera is a cultural hospitality project supported through an always-on press office mandate. Over twelve months it generated 114 published outputs, 78% of them dedicated, with independent editorial coverage across 12 countries and 38 international outputs, including a first-person report in The Guardian and an independent 9/10 review in The Telegraph. The result I consider most significant is not the largest number. It is the depth and consistency of the coverage over time, and the fact that the work continued to build authority month after month, ultimately leading to the renewal of the mandate. The 114 outputs are impressive, but the figure I really look at is the 78% dedicated coverage.
Premio Fracchia is almost the opposite: a festival in inland Liguria, with a one-month national press office mandate that began at the last minute and left no time to organise a press trip. Under those conditions, 23 placements across 21 publications, with 96% either dedicated pieces or features and 15 already published before the festival opened, should be read for what they represent: national relevance built in a matter of weeks, across titles including Corriere della Sera, Panorama, Donna Moderna, Io Donna, SiViaggia, Artribune and Radio 24, without a press trip, creators or paid placement.
Comparing Moyseion’s 114 outputs with Fracchia’s 23 without any context would make little sense. One was a twelve-month mandate, the other lasted one month. The right measure is never the absolute number alone — it is the number in relation to time, circumstances and objective.
How long does it take to judge hotel PR results?
The first pieces of coverage can arrive within a few days or a couple of weeks after PR activity begins. But a hotel PR partnership should realistically be judged after around six months, not before. Events are different by nature: because they are time-sensitive news stories, they tend to move much faster, as Fracchia demonstrates, where the entire campaign unfolded within one month.
A good signal in the first month is that the first placements are relevant and appear in appropriate publications — not simply that there are many of them. After three months, I would expect a clear direction and some meaningful coverage. By six months, positioning should be beginning to consolidate and relationships with journalists should be developing. If, after several months, the coverage is still made up primarily of small, off-target mentions with no qualitative progression, that is the point at which I would begin to be concerned myself.
One of the most unrealistic expectations I hear is roughly this: “our hotel is beautiful, so within two weeks we want a dedicated article in a major glossy magazine, but we do not want to cover the journalist’s travel.” It does not work like that, and anyone promising that it does is setting the client up for disappointment.
When should a hotel start to worry about its PR results?
One caveat first: assessing whether a press office is doing a good or bad job depends on many variables and has to be judged case by case. The following are not automatic verdicts, but they are warning signs worth questioning.
A large number of placements where almost all of them are low quality — brief mentions or passing references. A media report built largely from syndication and automatic republication. The systematic absence of the publications that were originally identified as targets. Articles that repeatedly fail to communicate the key messages. No qualitative growth over time, with coverage remaining at exactly the same level month after month. Results that look impressive only inside the report but lose their impact as soon as you examine what actually sits behind the numbers. And a complete absence of spontaneous media enquiries, which can indicate that no genuine editorial relationships are becoming established. None of these factors condemns a PR programme on its own. Taken together, however, they tell you quite a lot.
What clients misunderstand about PR — and what I have learnt
The most common misunderstanding is expecting PR to behave like sales. But if PR were direct sales, what would commercial teams be for? PR builds positioning, authority and desire: it explains why a project is interesting, why now, and to whom. It is reputation-building through third parties — journalists — who remain entirely free to decide whether and how they cover a story. PR is not a performance channel, and measuring it as though it were one means using the wrong yardstick.
There are two things I have learnt through doing this work that I have never found expressed quite this way in a textbook. The first is that, regardless of the publication, if the story is good, genuinely relevant to that journalist’s interests and proposed at the right time — through a personalised pitch rather than a mass BCC email — no publication is truly unreachable. The second sounds almost banal, but it is not: kindness, a smile, not always being excessively formal, and allowing some personality and personal style to come through genuinely work. Journalists respond to people, not press releases.
In summary: how to know whether your PR investment is working
Hotel PR is working when the coverage is relevant and authoritative, when the right messages are reaching the right audience, when quality improves over time and when new media enquiries and editorial opportunities begin to arise organically. The number of placements, taken on its own, tells you very little. Their nature tells you almost everything.
The healthiest way to evaluate PR is not to ask “how many articles did I get?”, but “what kind of authority am I building, and with whom?”. If your press office gives you numbers without context, or promises bookings that can be attributed precisely to individual articles, those numbers deserve a few more questions.
If you are already working with a press office and want to understand how to read the results you are getting, or if you are considering PR for your hotel and want to begin with realistic expectations, you can explore my PR and media relations services, read the frequently asked questions, or book an initial conversation with me.
Frequently asked questions
How do you measure the ROI of hotel PR?
Rarely as a financial return that can be attributed with precision. In PR, ROI is better understood through the quality of the positioning achieved: coverage in authoritative and relevant publications that explain the project properly and, over time, strengthen the brand’s reputation and presence across Google and AI systems. An estimated economic value can be produced, but it should be based on real information about the article rather than copied from media-kit figures, and it should always be presented as an estimate rather than guaranteed revenue.
Which KPIs should a press office report include?
At a minimum: a verifiable list of placements with publication and link, prominence separated into dedicated coverage, features and mentions, format such as online, print or radio, timing, markets reached and whether the key messages were communicated. Better still if the report also states the conditions under which the work was carried out and its limitations, rather than presenting one undifferentiated clipping total.
How many articles are a good PR result for a hotel?
There is no single correct number, and setting arbitrary thresholds is misleading. Ten dedicated pieces in relevant publications can be worth more than one hundred off-target mentions or automatic republications. The number always has to be read in relation to the timeframe, circumstances and objective of the mandate.
How long does it take to see PR results?
The first pieces of coverage can arrive within a few days or two weeks. A hotel PR mandate should, however, realistically be evaluated after around six months. Events are an exception because their time-sensitive nature generally produces much faster cycles.
Can PR be linked directly to hotel bookings?
Almost never directly, unless a specific agreement includes tracked booking links agreed with the publication. It is more realistic to observe indirect signals over time: website traffic, branded searches, social growth, direct enquiries and growing attention from the media.
How important is publication quality compared with the number of placements?
Much more important. An authoritative, well-targeted publication with an article that genuinely explains the project can shift positioning in a way that volume alone cannot. The number tells you how often people talked about you; quality tells you whether they talked about you in the right way, to the right people.
