ITB Tips for Travel Bloggers

We are back from our 3-day trip around the world at the ITB in Berlin. Every year we look forward to it. At the same time, however, we were afraid of the visit, because in recent years it was always so that after three days of conversation marathon and forced marches through the halls of the exhibition center completely done and drove home with burning soles. This year, everything was different: 2016, we thought better about our visit to ITB and made a plan how we avoid long distances as possible, spare our feet and set our meetings so that we get the most out of our ITB visit. Here are our ITB tips for travel bloggers that we tested ourselves this year.

Our ITB Tips for Travel Bloggers

• Identify key interlocutors

We usually have weeks, in some destinations even months before the start of the ITB pretty clear ideas with whom we want to speak at the show. We will be the first to contact these people in order to get the desired appointments with them. We went strategically this year: we found out in which halls they have their stand - that goes well over the Virtual Market Place The ITB - and planned those meetings of the conversation partners on the same day, whose ITB stands were not far apart. If you start early enough with this plan, it will work out great.

We chose a different venue for each of our three ITB days as a central starting point. This was then the hall where most of the interlocutors we wanted to speak on that day were. This saves a lot of time and long distances and prevents us from wasting time on the paths between meetings. In the past few years, if we had solved this in such a way that we only planned one meeting per hour, we could fully use our time for appointments this year. Long detours, shuttle trips with waiting times and walks across the fairgrounds were so completely eliminated. We've been able to focus on making plans, finding new destinations, and seeing what every single destination has to offer - so gather valuable information and make contacts. This approach has the added benefit that we spent each of our ITB days in a particular region of the world and were not mentally traveling around the world, so we were able to carry out our plans much more concentrated.

• Schedule press invitations from PR agencies

Each year, in the run-up to the tourism trade fair, we receive numerous invitations to press events from PR agencies, where you can hold personal discussions either with representatives of your customers or with the PR representatives of the agencies. This again has the advantage that you can save a long way, but can be found in these cases numerous contacts in a room. We also selected these events according to their venues (short distances). It was also important to us how many people were represented at the selected events that were of interest for our travel planning in the year ahead. The more the better.

• Invitations to press talks with new destinations

It's the same with personal invitations to ITB talks from destinations, vendors or agencies we have not worked with before. If these are interesting, we offer meetings on those days when our central ITB call centers are near their ITB booths. This allows us to fill any open appointments with new contacts that do not require long marches over the exhibition grounds.

Often destinations organize press events in press conference halls or in large event halls in the City Cube. There are opportunities to find new contacts with representatives of regional destinations and exchange initial ideas. If a country is particularly interested in us, we are happy to use these offers.

• Meeting with other travel bloggers

There are countless possibilities for this at the ITB: the Travel Massive Event, which already takes place on the eve of the ITB, the iambassador and Traveldudes Tweetup, various blogger tweetups from various destinations, which usually take place throughout the day. This year, for the first time, there was a blog corner in Hall 5.3. But often it is enough to spend some time in the ITB media area. Any travel blogger is encountered there every time.

• ITB events and parties

If you still have enough energy in the evening, you can throw yourself into party fun. Destinations and providers invite to their own events, ranging from breakfast with shuttle service to the exhibition center, bus tours for travel bloggers to evening-filling parties. The offer is diverse and offers opportunities to interact with other travel bloggers and the representatives of the respective companies or destinations in a relaxed atmosphere.

For us, this type of trade fair planning has proven excellent. For the first time we have left the ITB 2016 without burning soles, but with a lot of new knowledge, countless ideas and plans, nice meetings with old and new acquaintances and full of motivation and we look forward to the fair next year. The best part of this kind of trade fair planning: we have had more discussions on these three ITB days than ever before. Maybe our ITB tips for travel bloggers will help you to plan your next trade fair visit at the ITB in Berlin. We would be glad.

Here you will find more travel blogger reports from the ITB 2016:

Tanja Starck from Reiseaufnahmen reports of her three-day trip around the world at the ITB.
Tanja Klindworth opened Expedition to the journeys of the future.
Sabine tells how she loves her second year at the ITB.
Markus reports of his Experiences with the first ITB visit as a travel blogger.
Janett tells of her Hunt for the ITB mascots and their experiences at the ITB 2016.
Stephanie from Family Escapes thinks that Travel blogs have established themselves, We have the same impression on this ITB.
Tanya from Vielweib has fallen in love with her first ITB visit, Why you can find out under the link.
Marion from Escapes from Reality has become one Overview of the trend destinations 2016 provides.

Source for our ITB tips for travel bloggers: own experiences

Text: © Copyright Monika Fuchs, TravelWorldOnline
Photos: © Copyright Monika Fuchs, TravelWorldOnline