In a previous post I've described how a five day dive trip to Bermuda set me back about £10.
Welcome to the world of familiarisation (often referred to as 'fam') / press trips, where a location's tourism board pays for everything in the hope it will result in an article or feature about the destination. When I say pay, it might not cost them that much. Depending on the airline they may have a set allocation of seats for press and PR purposes, hotels are normally keen to put you up and dive centres, when they hear you are from a diving magazine, will want to show off their facilities.
Generally 'fam' trips are escorted to the extent that every minute of your time is planned out. You'll be exposed to numerous hotels, dive centres, restaurants and bars - I've even been on trips where breakfasts outside of the hotel have been timetabled in.
I've not been on a 'fam' trip where there have been more than eight journalists and fortunately on each occasion they've been a fun lot to be around. However, although these trips have been quite enjoyable, they're still a form of work. You're there to do a job, to get the story and write it up to meet the editor's needs.
The question is - once you have been on one of these trips, to what extent are you beheld to the sponsors? Especially if they are an advertiser with the magazine?
In respect of this question I've posted an ethical dilemma on wetpixel's forum - you can follow it here.
The dilemma posed is in respect of whether you should write glowing reports about a destination just because they are sponsoring the trip, or are big advertisers with the magazine, or both.
I believe the article that came out of the 'fam' trip to Bermuda will demonstrate 
both my stance and that of DIVER magazine, however, I wouldn't try and pull this kind of stunt without first agreeing it with the editor. I seem to remember how Bermuda Tourism stopped advertising in DIVER a couple of months following publication - coincidence I'm quite sure.
Keep writing...
Brendan
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