I’m suddenly faced with making a number of travel arrangements as a result of speaking gigs, consulting trips, and attending events, and it made me think about travel conventions.  What are the top travel conventions or trade shows?  I decided to hop over to Google and find out.  Turns out there is a travel convention and it has actually named itself “The Travel Convention” as if to say there are no other conventions out there but theirs.  I like the boldness of that statement.  Who makes the bold statement?  Why of course none other than THE Travel Association.

The Travel Association is a UK based association:

Formed in 1950 by 22 leading travel companies, ABTA - The Travel Association - now represents over 5,500 travel agencies and 900 tour operations, throughout the British Isles. Our Members range from small, specialist tour operators and independent travel agencies through to publicly-listed companies and household names; from call centres to internet booking services to high street shops. All of them carry the ABTA logo, which means choice, value, and high levels of service.

The Travel Convention is set to be held on October 6-8, 2008 and is taking place at Gran Canaria.

Of note is Mark Tanzer, Executive Director of ABTA’s behind the scenes blog.  Although this is more like an online newsletter than a blog, I see that they are trying to move into the social media marketing arena of using a blog to communicate.  Tanzer states:

“The Maspalomas Conference Centre provides us with another stunning business setting which is perfect for the UK’s premier travel event of the year,” said Mark Tanzer, ABTA’s Chief Executive.

The Maspalomas Conference Center is described in its site as a very beautiful facility and I think its in a beautiful part of the world.  I would be interested in attending just for the scenery and the fun on the beach.

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