Last weekend I made an impulsive decision to hop in my car and head to Manhattan and join the travel blogging event of the year in Greenwich Village. TBEX ’10. Although I spent almost as much time in my car traveling to and from NYC as I spent in the Big Apple, it was well worth the journey.
The Travel Blog Exchange has taken very little time to find it’s feet and its focus, bringing together travel bloggers from around the world to learn from one another and inspire one another. I first encountered many of the travel blogging community on Twitter. They were there on their little Ning site dreamed up by TBEX founder Kim Mance (@kimmance) to assist bloggers in getting to know one another before the first TBEX event, a one day get-to-know-everyone affair that was an add-on to the already popular BlogHer conference (creating opportunities for women who blog to gain exposure, education, community and economic empowerment) happening early summer 2009 in Chicago.
Being keenly interested in the direction technology as been taking tourism, I headed to South By Southwest in Austin Texas, 2009 where I first crossed paths with the vanguard of the travel writing community – those edgy folks even had their own travel blogging session at SXSW and the room was full to overflowing!! Congrats to that to Pam (@nerdseyeview) and Sheila (@SheilaS) for opening the door to the first real community event for travel bloggers.
After Chicago and the first TBEX gathering, NYC and TBEX ’10 came along.
Wow.
Hundreds of travel bloggers converged on NYC – learning how to craft stories, how to use multimedia, how to earn money by telling travel stories on the Web in two days of learning and networking events. Although the conference took place over two days, the social events and gatherings that were bookended on this event kept the party going for more than a week. Don’t believe me? Check out the #TBEX hashtag on Twitter to see who was there. You’ll see they are already getting ready for TBEX ’11 in Vancouver. Early Registration has opened and the early registration blogger spots are almost filled already.
The only thing missing? The Travel Industry.
Tourism Folks, these are people you NEED TO KNOW! Travel bloggers are the cool hipsters who have been using the Web to tell travel stories since before you even knew what a blog was. I know, some of us still don’t get it but that’s OK. Because since these folks get it, we don’t have to understand everything about the Web, we just have to get connected to more travel bloggers.
Top 10 Reasons I hope to see you in YVR
- Travel Bloggers have a wide range of niche travel interests and they have an audience (your ideal guests) that shares their interests.
- Travel Bloggers Get it! The whole it. They have access to places to distribute their stories about YOU and your community – cool places to go and things to do!
- Travel Bloggers can help you learn what you need to know. Over the past year a few of these travel bloggers have creating new business cards – cards because they are sharing their expertise with the tourism and travel industry in online training.
- If you like the social part of conferences, you’ll love TBEX. Sponsored after conference gatherings are good opportunities to network with travel bloggers. If you (like me) prefer out of the way gathering places, you’ll be sure that TBEX in Vancouver will help you connect with all the neato places to go and things to do so you can enjoy out of the limelight quality time with interesting folks you meet.
- TBEX is sponsored by the tourism industry in Canada.
http://tourismvancouver.com/
http://www.canada.travel/media
http://www5.hellobc.com/travelmedia/ - Learn how to pitch stories and meet the people looking for interesting, out of the way places like yours.
- Since not many in the tourism industry know about TBEX, you’ll get almost exclusive access to travel writers and bloggers.
- TBEX is the least expensive travel conference on the planet, especially for bloggers, but for tourism industry it’s a great deal too!
- Did I mention that TripAdvisor gave away three iPads at TBEX10. I enjoyed the time to chat with my good friends at TripAdvisor and share my concerns about the new paid business listings for accommodation providers. I’d have had a tough time getting my say at a traditional tourism gathering.
- Get re-inspired about the latest trends in the uses of technology and social media on the Web in a language you actually understand.
Learn more about Travel Bloggers and their value to the Tourism Industry with these podcast episodes:
