TBU is not pitching itself as an association that represents the whole of the travel blogging industry in one country or globally. I would never try to do that.

When I promote or recommend bloggers, I do so on the basis that I have met them, that they are motivated and dedicated to blogging. I can only meet them at a TBU conference, where I have more time to meet with people than I do after a WTM sessions has ended.

The role I have with PRs has been described as that of a talent agent in the past.

Today I got an email from an agency to help them with a blogger project, this would involve me working in a similar way. The agency would trust my word and recommendation of the bloggers I suggest.

Anyone is allowed in the book who has been to a TBU, unless they are a complete lunatic! 😉

The amount of different bloggers that have attended a TBU conference is quite significant actually. So I do disagree on the “limited value” comment. But then it is hard to judge until it is launched.

The focus is on quality and professionalism, rather than getting high numbers through the door.

The Prof Travel Bloggers Assoc will hopefully be a good thing for the industry, it has taken a while to develop and here is hoping it does a great job.

Only STM can say why they curated a topic Bloggers vs Blaggers and ran the session the way they did.

There will be competition amongst TBU and TBEX of course, but I would hate to see it form amongst travel bloggers. Only time will tell.

I know that anyone is welcome at a TBU event, be it to speak or otherwise. The Book of Bloggers was the first time I placed a restriction on our activities.

There are always going to be different lists, groups etc… that form.

There are other associations in the pipeline and others that exist in other countries.

Ultimately, whenever an ‘independent’ movement grows and develops, it will change. As travel blogging is doing now.

Thanks Linda. That’s an excellent comment and I think you hit the nail on the head with “…almost everything else had come across as sounding amateur and wishy-washy… ”

I’ve held my hands up about the White Paper – I blame my civil service background. I hear the term White Paper used for anything else than other than governmental purposes and I’m immediately suspicious of motives 🙂

Thanks for taking the time to comment Oliver, I really appreciate it.

I would say that my disappointment overall was down to the fact that things hadn’t moved on as much as I’d expected since the last time I listened to travel blogger presentations 12 months ago and that surprised me.

I totally understand what you’re saying about the Book of Bloggers and of course it’s an eminently sensible tool to develop. But as it would only consist of bloggers who attend TBU it did seem to me that it could never be a definitive list and would therefore be of limited use to Tourist Boards/DMOs/PR companies etc.
Clearly it was a good opportunity to promote it and, like you say, it wasn’t off-topic in the context of the presentation. But it just reinforced a feeling I have that there’s a bit of club building going on that isn’t necessarily representative of the whole travel blogging world.

The promo for the professional travel bloggers association at the bloggers/blaggers session reinforced that feeling and also led weight to the idea that there was competition to try to attract the most travel bloggers. Over the course of a couple of days we heard about two different lists which had basically the same objectives.

As for the White Paper, I hold my hands up – the name rankled and that’s why I mentioned it. To me there was (is) a danger that others could view it as a document whose authority goes beyond being a B2B tool. I know you say it was aimed at an industry audience who should know what a white paper is but I’m not convinced that is necessarily the case. Like I said in the blog, I thought there were a lot of good things in it (I didn’t agree with all though) but, yes, by the time I got to the end I was definitely influenced by what had gone on before. So fair point, it was probably unfair to include the White Paper.

Jack

1) Book of Bloggers… wasn’t a salvo of any kind, used in any battle between anyone.

It is a service I have been thinking of doing and working on since well before TBEX were bought out by Blog World and came to Costa Brava.

The intention is to use the book as a way to add value to the blogger delegates of TBU and also to provide a simple, yet valuable resource to the industry.

It was an opportunity to plug the book, but only added into the presentation in the context of…”Keith & Melvin are going to help you understand how to measure blogger ROI, but how do you find the bloggers?”.

I limited myself to a couple of minutes and only added it in after checking with my co-panelists.

As you have said… the session that it was mentioned in, was still very much on topic for 55 minutes.

2) The White Paper… was created after the WTM London team asked us to author one on Travel Blogging Best Practices, after they attended our last conference in Porto.

The authors of the book (including myself) were able to contribute based on our experiences over the past few years of working within travel blogging. It was designed to be informative and useful… and yes, we wrote it knowing that it would act as a B2B marketing tool. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that given the value that we provided in the paper and during the presentation in particular.

It was intended to be written for an industry audience who should know what white papers are.

It is a shame you didn’t attend the presentation as it was very popular and useful.

Whilst I do understand your frustration and can agree with your point on the book, I think bringing in the white paper to the article is unfair.

“…but by the end of the sessions I was tired of being ‘sold’ products and people.”

There was no hook in the white paper which then strayed off topic. There was no unexpected “Sell” of any kind and as you clearly stated, you did not attend it.

It feels as if your thoughts on the white paper were effected slightly by your feelings from other sessions.

Is that a fair comment to make?

Thanks John,

I think we were particularly disappointed with the bloggers/blaggers session because it was running late and we ended up taking a lot more time out of WTM than we had planned to sit through something that we felt tricked us. But it wasn’t just that, there was generally a lack of real depth.

Thanks for pointing that out Oliver. I’ve changed it to Social Media and Social travel Market.

The Topic Headlines got me tuning in live from Lanzarote however I soon became disillusioned with what was being said …it just gave me nothing new to think about!