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The hotelier who banned all bloggers from his hotel following a row with a YouTuber who asked for a free stay, has now billed her £4.67m for “publicity” that her blog subsequently received.
Paul Stenson, owner of the Charleville Lodge Hotel and White Moose Cafe, said he was sending an invoice after “social influencer” Elle Darby, 22, accused him of bullying for exposing an email she wrote asking for free accommodation.
On the White Moose Hotel Facebook page Stenson posted: “I’ll be posting out this invoice today…”, which details charges for “the provision of features in 114 articles across 20 countries with a potential reach of 450 million people”.
The invoice also stipulates: “Mentions in videos will not qualify as payment.”
Along with the invoice Stenson also posted to the hotel’s Facebook page the announcement of a competition asking for submissions for a slogan to be printed on a #bloggergate t-shirt with the winner being awarded a “free night’s stay”.
A three-minute long expletive-filled ‘sketch’ video parodying a press conference has also been posted in which Stenson said: “We here at the White Moose and Charville Lodge feel very ashamed and so silly that we didn’t see how lucky we were to be approached by a god-like influencer to collab and boost our sales universally.
“Unfortunately we made a wrong choice and we would like to apologise to absolutely nobody.”
Darby has not yet responded to Mr Stenson’s public posting of the invoice and video but had on Sunday, tweeted to her fans to thank them for their support.
