Thoughts I took away from Travel BlogCamp 2011

Firstly, a huge thank you to the sponsors Skyscanner, Bookingmarkets and Canadian Tourism Commission and the speakers Benji Lanyado from the Guardian and Alastair McKenzie of Travelllll.com who all supported the 4th Travel BlogCamp.

Before I give you my own thoughts of last night’s event I want to thank Kevin May who has moderated the event for the last three years and has been a fantastic support. I’d like to think that the BlogCamp is a good example of collaboration in travel working well, so a huge thanks to Kevin for his support.

When I created the event in 2008 it was because I wanted to bring bloggers and the travel industry together but since then it has evolved and I hope that people realise that the event is not another blogging conference, but a good opportunity for people to have their voice to be heard, have a good discussion, in a pub, where people can just kick up their feet and relax.

A few people have said to me to hire a huge room and increase the audience, but that goes against everything I wanted from the BlogCamp, which was to attend an event for people to feel confident enough to get up and speak their mind, which very rarely happens in a conference.

A few points I wanted to mention.

1) Gary Arnt of Everything Everywhere was spot on when he said that the travel industry was so hooked into traditional media. They love to see their full page spread in a national newspaper that tomorrow you will be eating fish and chips out of. Until the people with the money realise that by working with a blogger they can build something long term, and that it offers a good return on investment, I’m afraid bloggers will struggle to generate revenue, unless they think out of the box and be entrepreneurial.

2) I cannot remember who said this now, but I agree that you cannot wait for travel companies to come to you to ask for advertising. Go to them. I know with My Life in Leeds I have had to go out to local businesses and TELL them why my business is much more advantageous to them than a newspaper or magazine. There’s an education process there, in that bloggers have to tell them WHY they should work with them – find out more about your audience.

3) I firmly believe that you have to try new things and think outside of the box. I did that with BlogCamp in 2008, and I have done that with My Life in Leeds – I wanted test the water, work out a business model that I can generate money from, but is sustainable. Unless you try things out, take risks, don’t worry about rejection, you will never achieve anything in life or business.

4) I have thought about this for a while and it was brought up briefly last night – you have to look at bloggers in other industries and pick up things that they are doing well and then see how you can replicate that in travel. As a few people mentioned last night, fashion bloggers have agents in the US, and I know that wedding bloggers here in the UK are incredibly successful and it is time that those who seriously want to make money, look at these other industries.

5) Finally, I have written about this on this blog before, and Matthew Kepnes, from Nomadic Matt said this last night. Bloggers have to think like a business. Do what you do well and let other people do what you are not so good at. On My Life in Leeds I have 5 paid writers because I do not see myself as a travel writer – I’m not particularly good at it, and if the truth be known, I prefer to do the marketing side and learn about SEO and other skills which will benefit my business more.

There were lots of great points raised and a good discussion with lots of things to think about for the travel industry, PR, and travel bloggers.

I hope that everyone who attended Travel BlogCamp enjoyed themselves, and apologies if I didn’t get to speak to you. I’m not the best person with a room full of people. I will be sending out an event survey this weekend, so I would really appreciate it if you could spend 5 minutes completing that to make 2012 even better.

Again, a huge thank you to Skyscanner, Bookingmarkets and Canadian Tourism Commission – Alex at TourCMS for the registration and Kevin May of Tnooz for doing an excellent job on the moderating.

That’s it for another year!

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