The world’s largest gathering of travel bloggers is coming to Vancouver for the Travel Blog Exchange (TBEX) conference at the Vancouver Convention Centre June 11 and 12.
Tourism Vancouver, Tourism BC and the Canadian Tourism Commission have sponsored the conference, which will bring approximately 550 North American travel bloggers and travel industry public relations professionals to the city for professional development and networking.
It's the first time Vancouver has hosted the TBEX conference, which has previously been held in New York and Chicago. But Vancouver’s tourism community has high hopes for the event.
“We’ve never done anything like this, so in a way it’s a bit of an experiment,” said Amber Sessions, Tourism Vancouver manager of travel and trade media relations
“But I think what we foresee is that, just the fact that we’re going to have 500-plus bloggers and also PR industry – we’re expecting a lot of buzz about Vancouver and also we’re expecting a lot of content created.”
Sessions said the tourism community is hoping to see Vancouver gain from both short-term and longer-term exposure as a result of the event.
“A lot of the heavy hitters in the travel blogging world are going to be in Vancouver and they’re going to be posting about what they’re doing and they’re going to be tweeting and facebooking and foursquaring and everything,” she said.
“We’re hoping this will really put the spotlight on Vancouver in the short term while the conference is happening, but also that that fresh creative content will live on.”
Jenny Wagler
Twitter: JennyWagler_BIV