ITB Berlin 2014: the meeting place for bloggers from around the world

Companies and international travel bloggers meet at the second ITB Berlin Bloggers Speed Dating event – lectures and workshops on working with bloggers – first ITB Berlin YouTube Film Award offers prize money worth 1,000 euros for the most creative entry

Berlin, 31 January 2014 – Bloggers have become an established part of the tourism industry. More and more companies are exploiting the wide-ranging impact of travel blogs in order to target customers. From 5 to 8 March 2014 ITB Berlin will be hosting numerous events where trade visitors, exhibitors and international travel bloggers can meet. On the Saturday of the show, as part of a stage event at the eTravel World, travel bloggers will be offering an insight into their work. The workshops, discussion rounds and lectures taking place at the eTravel World and the ITB Berlin Convention will provide networking opportunities for exhibitors and bloggers. ITB Berlin expects that some 300 bloggers from 15 countries will attend the event, an increase of around one-third compared to last year.

ITB Berlin Bloggers Speed Dating event

This year’s ITB Bloggers Speed Dating event will be taking place for the second time. For exhibitors and bloggers admission to this event on 6 and 7 March is free of charge. The ITB Bloggers Speed Dating event will not only provide hotels and tourism destinations such as Australia, Finland, Florida, Kenya, Jordan and Portugal with a platform for meeting travel bloggers from around the world, but a number of federal States such as Lower Saxony and Thuringia as well. The aim is to show exhibitors new possibilities for marketing their products and services.

Focus on working with bloggers

At ITB Berlin this year’s supporting programme of events will feature around 40 events organised by and involving bloggers. Corporate social media managers often face many challenges when working with bloggers. Thus, the German National Tourism Board has organised a workshop that will illustrate the opportunities and risks involved in working together and will highlight options for generating content and traffic.

Managers at hotels and destination tasked with evaluating their internet ratings can find out more at the workshop organised by Claudia Gunkel, a social media analyst and consultant. Rating portals have long established their place in the tourism industry. The importance of blogs, forums and communities is growing all the time. Claudia Gunkel will be showing tourism experts how to monitor social media traffic, with a focus on the latest monitoring and evaluation methods in this field. Workshops on video blogs and storytelling as well as numerous discussions with travel blogger associations will round off the programme of events. More details on the programme and highlights can be found at www.itb-berlin.de/blogger.

Networking with bloggers

As the world’s leading travel trade show, ITB Berlin also offers bloggers a wide range of opportunities to meet and exchange views. On Friday, 7 March 2014, at 6 p.m. in Hall 17, Ms. Berry, a blogger with Tirol Werbung, will be organising a large bloggers’ meeting for German speakers at ITB Berlin. Details of all the main events for bloggers can be found using the event search function at: www.itb-berlin.de/en/Events/

Once again Travel Massive, an international event, will be taking place at this year’s ITB, and will be hosted by GoEuro and ExploRussia. More details will be available soon at www.travelmassive.com and at Facebook.

ITB Berlin is cooperating with leading bloggers’ organisations: the Professional Travel Bloggers Association (PTBA), Reiseblogger-Kollektiv, Traveldudes and the platform for German-speaking travel bloggers (PDRB).

First ITB Berlin YouTube Film Award

This year, at the first YouTube Film Award, ITB Berlin will be giving short film makers a chance to make a video about the world’s leading travel trade show. The winners will be rewarded with 1,000 euros for the most creative entry. Their film will also be viewed by large audiences on ITB Berlin’s YouTube channel. Entrants are invited to submit their application, which should include a brief profile and a link to short videos they have already made, no later than 7 February 2014. Out of all the entrants Messe Berlin will pick a maximum of five candidates, who on 8 and 9 March will be able to make a video about ITB which highlights what the show has to offer. A jury comprising members of Messe Berlin GmbH will decide on the winner. Applications must be emailed to [email protected], stating “ITB Berlin YouTube Film Award“ in the header.

About ITB Berlin and the ITB Berlin Convention
ITB Berlin 2014 will be taking place from Wednesday, 5 to Sunday, 9 March, and from Wednesday to Friday will be open to trade visitors only. Parallel with the show the ITB Berlin Convention, the largest event of its kind, will be held from Wednesday, 5 to Saturday, 8 March 2014. Additional information is available at www.itb-kongress.com. ITB Berlin is the global travel industry’s leading trade show. In 2013 a total of 10,086 exhibitors from 188 countries displayed their products and services to 170,000 visitors, who included 110,000 trade visitors.

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