First Ever Major Travel Industry Blogger Workshop @ PhoCusWright

From Left to Right: Ram Badrinathan (not in photo),
William Bakker, Jens Thraenhart, Stephen Joyce, Kevin May, and Phil Caines.
Photo Credit: Vicky Brock

The Blogger Workshop at the PhoCusWright Conference in Orlando was a huge success. Phil and I, miraculously, arrived at the conference a mere forty-five minutes before the workshop was to begin. Phil hurried to make sure the room was prepared while I connected with some of the expert panelists. The workshop began with an introduction of each of the panelists:

• Jens Thraenhart (Canadian Tourism Commission)
• William Bakker (Tourism BC)
• Kevin May (Travolution)
• Ram Badrinathan (PhoCusWright)
• Stephen Joyce (Rezgo.com)

The session was moderated by Tom Botts and Phil Caines worked the laptop and projector:

The panel was asked many excellent questions about blogging and the long tail. The panel answered in an engaging way and my feeling is that the audience enjoyed the presentation. We were only expecting a few delegates to attend, primarily because we were only included into the conference about three weeks before the event. We were excited to see a full room when we started and more people filtered in over the course of the one hour session. We had many excellent questions from the audience and, from the feedback, everyone enjoyed the session tremendously.

Many in the audience asked “How can we engage with bloggers to promote our products?”. My answer to that is to set up a private blog for bloggers that gives them inside access to information before it goes public. This is something every company can do quickly and cheaply and gives bloggers an inside edge.

I explained that bloggers, like traditional journalists, are looking for the scoop and because they generally blog as an adjunct to their jobs or careers, are not tied down by traditional editorial timelines or constraints. Another way to engage bloggers is to invite to become advocates for your product or destination by giving them credit for the work that they do. For example, if you find a blogger has written a review of your company that is positive, then send them an email thanking them for the review and link to them from your site. In many cases, this acknowledgment that their work is appreciated goes much further than you might think.

The workshop ended with a recommendation that the delegates read the “Tips from the T-List” book to get a better understanding of the kind of quality work that is being produced by a diverse group of travel industry bloggers from around the World.

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