...well, I'm not invited.

Amsterdam is inviting some bloggers to visit Holland by KLM and stay in 5 star hotels like Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky...and are you ready for this? All paid for accomodations and free flights. The catch is that these bloggers have to blog the trip, be interviewed about the trip, let Holland.com advertise on their blogpage, and place "Bloggers in Amsterdam" logo in their navigation bar for one year. For more information, go to Expatica .

The article furthers with Danny Glover not being "enthusiastic" about it. He claims the these bloggers are being bribed with luxurious treatments. In fact, bloggers are the ones who orate verbosely about these kinds of bribery directed to govermental authorities by corrupted lobbyist. These 25 bloggers will undoubtedly write only good things about the trip.

Well, I kinda believe that that's the purpose. If you'd like someone to talk good about something or a product, you either give them the product to try and discover the alledged benefits of the product. Only after a set period of time, one will find out about the advantages or disadvantages. Danny Glover does have his point for only 25 are invited. My guess is that these 25 bloggers are carefully chosen. After all, blogs are widely read and that's one good way of advertising. Many people, including myself would take the word of another person. So, word of mouth is a subtle but effective way of advertising. Yes, it's true that someway, somehow, these bloggers will definitely be writing only the good about Amsterdam or Holland for this matter. Simply for the reason they're kinda paid to do so. As a result, there is nothing wrong on the surface. Ethically speaking...well, in the world of business, what is ethical?

Despite the fact that I'm new to blogging, I'm still blogging. How come only 25 are invited. How about me? I love travelling, too. I could also blog about this trip and I'm sure I'll blog about every single detail that I like or dislike. In 1999 and 2003 I've been there. All my life I've been exposed to Holland. So, in fact, I'd probably know more than these 25 invited bloggers. Well, maybe that's one of the reason I would not be invited.