What is Your Goal at TBEX?

This post is directed at fellow travelers attending TBEX. If you aren’t attending TBEX, you can apply the same thought process to any conference you are attending this year – be prepared and go with goals!

Why did you sign up for TBEX?

Did you sign up with a goal or do you just really love Toronto and want an excuse to visit?

Either way, the weekend is yours to do what you want with the time. TBEX is a chance for travel writers, bloggers, photographers to connect with PR agencies, travel bureaus, travel products and build relationships with the travel community.

C’est Christine recently wrote about why she is not going to TBEX and I respect her post a lot considering I think a lot of people are going with no idea why.

I realized I don’t want to be a full-time travel writer or professional travel blogger; I don’t want my travel to be solely confined to press trips and sponsored trips (although I certainly don’t mind one every once in a while!)…

But when it comes down to it, it’s not the right fit for me anymore. I’d rather stay in New York and have a birthday picnic with all of my friends in the city. – C’est Christine

We have two weeks until TBEX Toronto 2013 is upon us. Take the next two weeks to research who is going to be there and who you want to meet. What other travel bloggers do you want to put some face time in with to maybe partner in the future. Is there a travel bureau that will be there that you have a creative idea to pitch? Take time to get your ideas planned out and pitches ready.

So…back to my first question, why are you going to TBEX?

Network with other travel bloggers

You participate in weekly chats and spend hours talking to @ signs with # hashtags at the end of your tweet. It’s time to put a face to the twitter handle and meet some of these bloggers.

If this is your first time meeting other travel bloggers face to face it might be strange at first. You are meeting someone who you have read about online, and you probably know more about them then some of their closest friends. Don’t be surprised when some of these strangers you meet at TBEX quickly become some of your closest long-term relationships.

Build Long-Term Relationships with Travel companies

The sponsors and travel companies aren’t only participating in the conference and purchasing a table during speed dating to meet the perfect blogger to hand over a free press trip to. They want to find travelers and writers that want to work with them. They want to begin build relationships and meet creative people who want to do creative things.

Come to TBEX prepared with ideas. You know your strengths, get creative and leverage those to make yourself stand out and be sought after by the different companies.

Learn how to improve your blog.

Beyond networking, TBEX offers a lot of great keynote speakers, break out sessions and knowledge surrounding how to build a successful business and blog. If this is your goal hopefully you are signed up for the writing course in the beginning of the week, and have already targeted certain bloggers you can reach out to and find a mentor.

Take advantage of the wealth of experience that will be at the conference. Instead of firing off every question you’ve ever had, pick your 5 most important and spend time getting a really good answer on those few.

See Toronto.

Maybe TBEX is your excuse to finally make it to Canada. You plan on going to the evening parties, but you most likely will skip the day sessions so you can go out exploring Toronto. I’m sure you won’t be the only one with this goal, send out a tweet and set up a meeting point to explore together.

What did I miss? What’s your goal at the TBEX conference?

Tweet me @traveling9to5 if you want to connect in Toronto!