Catapult celebrates putting on a tourism and leisure PR show

Lancashire PR agency, Catapult PR, is celebrating the success of its travel and tourism PR podcast, Poodling Around.

Poodling Around has seen its downloads soar into the thousands during the year, as the show and its interviews have covered everything from traditional Cumbrian sports to sunken Viking ships.

Now, to showcase 12 of the episodes broadcast during the year, Catapult PR has created its own 12-days-of-Christmas advent calendar round-up.

Each day in the run-up to Christmas, it is highlighting a particular episode from its chosen 12.  As we reach Boxing Day, it is also promising a prize, on offer to someone who can find answers from within its podcasts.

 Poodling Around sniffs out the very best things to do, both in the UK and beyond, and is a major support for Catapult PR’s work in tourism PR and travel PR, which are specialisms. 

Its insurance PR work, on the other hand, another key area for the Poulton-le-Fylde based agency, is showcased on the Catapult PR Show podcast, along with other business-to-business topics.

 Whilst both podcasts are very popular, Poodling Around attracts listeners from around the world and has been deemed a top 15 leisure podcast by Feedspot.  However, for managing director and show host, Jane Hunt, it serves other purposes.

She said: “For me, Poodling Around is about helping some of our travel, tourism, pet trade and retail clients really attract new audiences and benefit from hugely popular audio content.

“It provides them with another channel and at no extra cost to them, so it’s all part of the added value that Catapult PR provides.

 “It’s also a great source of inspiration for our PR campaigns and the blog content that we produce for clients, to keep them riding high in search engines.  It’s amazing what some clients will suddenly reveal, when being interviewed, telling me about things that they’d failed to mention in the course of many meetings and telephone calls.  

 “However, for me, it is also a joy just to find out about travel and leisure businesses in this way.  We are now featuring a variety of businesses or destinations, with whom we do not work. It provides me with a real buzz, when discovering more about these.  Podcasting really is my happy place.”

 Poodling Around has featured businesses in the UK, Italy, France, Germany and Denmark and Jane’s first podcast of the new year is set to focus on another Italian business.  

Although she does speak Italian, she ensures that interviews are only conducted in English, so UK listeners can learn more.

The December 2024 podcast, just published, features Atlas Ski Co and Atlas Ride Co, ski and mountain bike experience providers who focused initially on Morzine in France but who now offer the same type of holidays in places as far apart as Whistler in Canada and Scotland.

There is also a 10 per cent discount on 24/25 wintersports experiences with Atlas, available to anyone who quotes a special code, as revealed in the episode.

 Jane said: "Poodling Around is such a great showcase for the travel PR and tourism PR into which we throw our heart and soul and which has been such a rich source of PR and content awards for us, over the past few decades.  However, it also showcases our expertise in retail, pet and general leisure, without really pushing our services down anyone’s throat.

“Any mention of Catapult PR is usually very subtle.  This is about giving travel businesses additional profile first and foremost, with Catapult PR very much in the background.

“And it’s a show that’s growing in popularity all the time, so it can be really beneficial for our guests.  

“Any business, as long as it fits our listener profile, is welcome to put themselves forward as suggested interviewees, if they want to get that audio benefit.  We are currently working on the 2025 guest list right now, so are looking forward to helping listeners, based across the world, discover that life’s much more fun when they are poodling around.”

The Poodling Around podcast is available on Apple, Spotify, YouTube and other podcast channels but also available from the direct link at https://poodlingaround.libsyn.com/website