TravelBlogCamp - A 'poisonous' yet fantastically healthy debate

Finally, some time to talk about the Travel Rants-hosted TraveBlogCamp from earlier this week.

It was the first time we can recall that an informal Silicon Valley-style event has been planned for the UK, where bloggers can meet up and discuss issues about travel and their craft.

Given that the event was held in the middle of the four-day melee of World Travel Market - Tuesday night, in a bar on London's South Bank - around 80 people showed up, which I think is pretty incredible.

Fair play to Darren Cronian for having the guts to put something on when there are plenty of other distractions associated with WTM.

What is interesting is that the evening didn't really end up resembling a typical dot-commers hoedown at all - for a number of reasons, the majority of which are all valid.

The networking was very good: an ideal and informal opportunity to meet some new faces and catch up with other contacts and also some chaps from Travel Weekly's bitter rival.

The evening was dominated somewhat by the speaker-led sessions.

I followed Alex Bainbridge, Karen Bryan and Molly Flatt with what was supposed to be a short discussion about the Travolution Blog, why we do it, where is it going, etc?

Roaming Tales, Sandwagon and The Trailbeater have good summaries of those sessions. TTG sub-editor Matt Parsons has quotes.

Before the event I managed to get hold of an attendee list and discovered that around 20% of those attending were PRs or from the comms departments of travel companies.

Anyway, I reckoned this was a good starting point for a debate, bringing in Jane Sinclair (Thomson), Sarah Chambers (Holiday-Rentals) and Charlotte Wilmots (lastminute.com) to talk about why they were attending the event.

We also discussed - at some length, admittedly - about the differences between bloggers and journalists, prompted by a profile piece I was asked to do on the Happy Hotelier blog.

Trailbeater says: "Unfortunately what ensued was a navel gazing circular conversation about the triumvirate of PR, journalism and blogs (must admit I kind of switched off).

"The shame was that by highlighting the distinctions this rather poisoned the mood for mutual supportive networking."

I disagree strongly, and told them in their comments section:

"If the event was supposed to be 'mutual supportive networking' surely that then becomes similarly navel gazing."

If anything the debate was useful because of the number of PRs in the audience. Someone has suggested privately that by exposing them (only by mentioning the volume, initially) I alienated them.

This is a shame. Personally I think there is a healthy debate to be had about why travel companies are turning to bloggers as a means of getting their message across.

There are a few reasons why so many PRs turned up on the night, but one would certainly be to learn more about how to influence bloggers and forge relationships.

As I mentioned on Trailbeater:

"Some have even said in the past that much of the editorial content in the mainstream media surrounding travel is 'poisoned' by PR.

"What I was trying to understand is what is the motivation for PRs to get involved with an event such as that.

"It's pretty obvious, in some respects. Blogging is becoming a hugely influential form of media within the travel purchase funnel, so travel firms need to understand more how to influence bloggers."

I have an enormous amount of respect for the vast majority of PRs. Exposing them on Tuesday was simply to bring them into the debate and demonstrate how important blogging is becoming to the travel industry.

A few other things stood out on the night. At one point, one of the bloggers (I not going to say here for fear of bringing him to the attention of the legal community) said as a blogger he could get away with saying things about travel companies.

This is a critical point. As blogging continues to position itself as an increasingly influential information source for consumers, travel firms will soon intervene when they do not like the message.

This is not heavy handedness. Bloggers - as publishers of information - are governed by the same laws as media companies to protect individuals and organisations from libel and ensure fairness and accuracy is maintained.

The smugness which some bloggers have - thankfully, not at the event on Tuesday - is that they are above the law. Perhaps at the moment they have been lucky - but some trigger-happy lawyer make decide to turn his or her attention to them at any time.

"I'm not a media company" is not a valid form of defence at all.

So that's about it from the TravelBlogCamp - it was a fantastic event, let's not forget.

And decent debate, for me, is must better than the self-congratulatory nonsense that so often dominates many Web 2.0-type events.

The list below contains analysis from other bloggers who attended the event. Feel free to comment on any of the above or add your own link...

Heather from On Her Travels
Caitlin from Roaming Tales
Guido from Happy Hotelier
Alex from Musings on travel ecommerce
Anthony from Mr and Mrs Smith
Ben from Trailbeater
Kelly from Sandwagon
Molly from STA Travelbuzz