International travel bloggers set sights on destination Sri Lanka
A selected number of Sri Lankan travel bloggers will participate at the upcoming Asian Travel Bloggers Conference scheduled for November this year.
Travel bloggers from around the world will gather in Colombo this November from 14-18 for what has been described as an “on- the go touring conference” capturing moments travelling across the country for the Travel Bloggers Conference Asia 2014. About 350 local bloggers and stakeholders would participate in the final day’s conference titled TBC Asia , organising officials said.
John Keells Holdings Deputy Chairman Ajith Gunawardena ( second from left ), shares a light moment with Professional Travel Bloggers Association Immediate Past President Michael Hodson. In the picture are also SriLankan Airlines Chief Marketing Officer G.T.Jayaseelan (left ) and Professional Travel Bloggers Association President Elect Laurence Noah. Pic by Indika Handuwela
The uniqueness of this bloggers conference is that participants could avail themselves of first-hand experience on developing their skills as bloggers through expert advice during the conference that would be conducted while on tour. In this respect, the conference would be held throughout the four days the bloggers would be in the country while a final day sit-in meeting would be in Colombo.
About 50 bloggers with 10 experts would form the group that would be one of the largest such travel bloggers conference held organised by Cinnamon Hotels and Resorts in partnership with the Professional Travel Bloggers’ Association (PTBA) and SriLankan Airlines. The national carrier would be flying the delegates on a complementary basis.
The John Keells (JKH) Group believes this would entice the travellers who search for information on destinations online to gain access to places visited by others to the country and generate more tourism to meet the 2015 target of welcoming 2.6 million holidaymakers, JKH Deputy Chairman Ajith Gunawardene said at the media briefing.
Speaking with the Business Times, Mr. Gunawardena explained that if they were going to bring them to the country, JKH believed it was necessary to give them an experience of the destination as a result of which they came up with this unique idea of a conference experience while touring the country.
With travel decisions increasingly made online by most visitors today, JKH has embarked on this initiative in a bid to gain attractiveness and mileage through the bloggers as part of a strategic investment into marketing the destination.
Bloggers would be represented from the leading social media sites like Google, TripAdvisor and Facebook.
The conference would be held while the travel bloggers would be on tour during the four day period during their travel to Habarana, Kandy and Beruwala.
During the tour the participants would be regularly updating their photographs and experiences thereby giving Sri Lanka the necessary exposure it requires to gain wider reach to prospective travellers.
PTBA Immediate Past President Michael Hodson said TBC Asia is unique due to its pre-conference tour and learning opportunities for bloggers in addition to the one-day conference in Colombo. The final day conference would enable local bloggers and industry stakeholders to participate and learn more about the new evolving sector.
Speaking with the Business Times on the sidelines of the media briefing, he noted that Sri Lanka is a destination everyone is aware of but was not an easy place to get to but Mr. Hodson noted it was a “great location”. The theme for this event would be based on four concepts namely: travel writing, technology and value creation.
Currently, the PTBA has about 340 travel bloggers of which at least 40 per cent have already applied to visit Colombo to participate at the upcoming conference this year.