Work with us: Make your location a must-visit destination

We can help you with that

When you work with us at Spotlight Sojourns, our original travel writing and photography bring professional expertise together with personal perspective to "shine the spotlight" on your brand.

Your strategic and creative partners in success are Marilee and Paul Kostadimas, award-winning travel experts and slow travel storytellers who exclusively create original content.

Marilee Kostadimas, CMP Fellow, DMCP, is the Creative Director. She's the voice and writer behind Spotlight Sojourns.

Paul Kostadimas is the Visual Director, a skilled photographer and FAA-credentialed drone pilot.

We're known as the Hidden Gemologists®.

Our specialty is your hidden gems.

"It was an absolute pleasure working with Marilee and Paul at Spotlight Sojourns. They were incredibly organized; knew exactly what experiences they were looking for; and met and exceeded every deliverable promised to us. They were able to paint an amazing picture of our destination with their words and photos and capture all the amazing attributes that Albany has to offer.

If you are looking for storytellers to draw visitors to your destination, look no further than Marilee and Paul."
Kathryn Cotter, Director of Marketing, Discover Albany

We create the "wow" that you forward

Here's how we do it

We create the “wow” that you forward through Paul's original photography that captures the decisive moment.

Then we weave the visual "wow" together through Marilee's original writing that expresses our lived experience.

That's how we create the "wow" with attentive care and artisanal craft.

But the “wow" is more than a pretty shot and a few pretty words.

Instead, it's a distinctive and cohesive end-to-end story, professional yet personal and wholeheartedly human.

Our slow travel storytelling is an aesthetic and authentic narrative, inspiring and connecting the audience with your location.

It’s the kind of creative storytelling that stirs emotion…

Motivates action…

And helps keep your reservation agents overall busy with advance bookings.

"They are helping us build a new audience and spark interest in our part of NYS. I highly recommend working with Spotlight Sojourns!"
Sarah Foster Calero, President, Oneida County Tourism

Here's what we do

We create Showcases, our signature digital storytelling series.

Showcases feature:

Eye-popping, jaw-dropping visual content
Expert, engaging narrative context
Resonant, relevant subtext

Showcases focus on:

Wonderful places and delightful hotels
Cultural experiences, history, and arts
Local communities and traditions
Candid reviews and recommendations
Authentic characteristics and firsthand perspective

We create and curate Showcases through our proprietary frameworks.

These frameworks derive from two decades of strategic consulting and corporate storytelling, as well as digital media marketing.

Our frameworks also draw on years of expertise and a lifetime of global travel.

We publish Showcases via newsletter, social, YouTube, and in the Spotlight blog.

You, of course, can additionally arrange to receive the digital assets for your own portfolio.

Slow travel photography of sunken ruins in Palaia Epidavross Greece, by The Hidden Gemologists.

Here's what that looks like

Maybe you watched a video, read a blog or an email, seen a social post about a place, a hotel, a museum.

And then you said, “Wow, I have to go there.”

Maybe you forwarded that video, blog, newsletter, or social post to someone else.

Once they saw it, now they have to go there, too.

The results augment your marketing plan...

Amplify your word-of-mouth...

And correspondingly increase your relevance.

Here’s what makes us different

We at Spotlight Sojourns stand apart from lifestyle and travel influencers, bloggers, and content creators. Not to mention, UGC platforms.

Similarly, we stand apart from marketing agencies, advertising, or PR firms already working for you. Although, of course, we collaborate closely with your marketing team and partners.

In short, we’re uniquely and specifically qualified to help make your location a must-visit destination due to years of strategic consulting with successful outcomes for the world's biggest companies.

We've worked with everyone from the biggest global brands and blue-chip firms to emerging entrepreneurs and small businesses.

Along the way, we’ve partnered with countless destination organizations such as DMOs, CVBs, TPAs, and tourism bureaus. As well as hotels, venues, and other travel, tourism, and hospitality brands.

We possess professional credentials and standards, industry engagement and leadership, and global perspective.

Here’s a few of our fancy-pants qualifications

Strategic consulting

Paul Kostadimas honed superlative strategic and operational skills during his 25-year career in litigation management and cloud software consulting.

He's especially known for handling complex scope and difficult stakeholders under seemingly impossible deadlines.

For instance, he delivered critical consulting support for the largest-ever bankruptcy of a utility company, with $37 billion in pre-filing assets.

Paul is equally recognized for achieving measurable, repeatable, scalable success.

Marilee Kostadimas built an award-winning career as a strategist and industry leader in destination management, corporate events, and her specialty, incentive travel.

As a public speaker, Marilee has addressed groups of every size, from intimate gatherings to hundreds and indeed thousands of people.

Both onstage or on camera, Marilee seeks to educate, engage, inspire, and motivate the audience.

Professional credentials and standards

Paul holds credentials as an FAA-certified, FAA-licensed commercial drone pilot (Federal Aviation Administration).

Paul is also a trained photographer with 30 years of experience in photography and photographic printing.

Marilee holds credentials as a Certified Meeting Professional (Events Industry Council) and Destination Management Certified Professional (Association of Destination Management Executives International).

She’s a byline contributor to the international planner’s indispensable Events Industry Council Manual 9th Edition: A Working Guide for Effective Meetings and Conventions.

In 2024, the Events Industry Council honored Marilee's career accomplishments and global industry contributions by elevating her to CMP Fellow.

Industry engagement and leadership

We’ve belonged to international and national industry associations, for instance:

• American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP)
• Association of Destination Management Executives International (ADMEI)
• Meeting Professionals International (MPI)
• New York State Tourism Industry Association (NYSTIA)
• Society for Incentive Travel Excellence (SITE)

Additionally, Marilee has led multiple professional industry associations.

Her style of inspirational leadership seeks to elevate excellence and transform experience, motivating diverse members to unite behind a singular vision and mission.

Global perspective

We're all about slow travel and meaningful travel. We travel constantly and have visited many countries on five continents so far. Including several around-the-world trips.

Global circumnavigations aside, Paul's global perspective is basically innate to his personality.

He's lived in the capital cities of Ethiopia, Greece, and Canada; then, together with Marilee in San Francisco, California's cultural capital.

In addition, Paul speaks three languages fluently. Marilee is learning Modern Greek, as well.

Singapore Mural quote © Spotlight Sojourns

It's all about slow, meaningful travel

Spotlight Sojourns' professional storytelling with a personal perspective builds on the slow travel foundation for meaningful travel experiences.

Quite simply, slow travel is meaningful travel which we specifically define as the:

Purpose to broaden horizons, create connections, and deepen understanding (our love language is experiences).
Passion to collect moments that echo in memory (moments > things).
Path to seek beauty and find joy, wherever you are (even if an armchair).
Perspective that WHY you go matters more than WHERE you go (must-visit list vs. checklist).

Meaningful travel is indeed part of our story from the very beginning.

Here's what to expect when you work with us

We believe, above all, collaborative partnerships and trusted relationships hold the crucial key to success.

Our clients know, without a doubt, we deliver on time and on budget. They know we’ve got their backs – strategically, creatively, aesthetically, and expertly.

In the same way, we will deliver for you on time and on budget. Likewise, we've got your back – strategically, creatively, aesthetically, and expertly.

Furthermore, we wholeheartedly believe in quality over quantity, in travel and in life. Also in business.

As such, our commitment to quality standards and the quality metric in general exceed the usual industry emphasis on follower counts and vanity metrics.

In sum, our promise to you is this:

All the "wow" you see and read is, and always will be, original content created with attentive care and artisanal craft by yours truly, Marilee and Paul Kostadimas.

In other words, all the "wow" is wholeheartedly human at Spotlight Sojourns.