TravelMole’s Graham McKenzie reflects on last week’s Travel Convention in Barcelona
It’s interesting what a difference a year makes.
This time in 20O8 I was pondering as to the effectiveness and value of the Travel Convention.
Travel thousands of miles just to go on the piste? Brag about how late, who, when, how much?
But Barcelona was different. How so? Well, I think the location lent itself to better and more serious networking. The hotels were away from the attractions of Las Ramblas and other hot spots of the city.
In the past it’s been all too easy to just walk across the road, literally last year, to find Club Trouble and Club Hangover. Not necessarily something that has stopped people in the past, but nevertheless a contributory factor.
We are all a year older and as time passes so does one’s ability to survive a 5am finish and 9am start.
The most important factor, however, must surely be that delegates are now having to be more focussed.
Life has changed in the travel industry in the past year and time spent away at a conference now must see a return on that investment.
Having four or less hours sleep is not conducive to good business or respect within the fraternity.
An example of this was on the Wednesday night when buses returning to the conference hotels gave people the option of getting off and going to a bar area – on my bus out of, say, 50 people only three got off.
Typical? I don’t know but indicative perhaps of a change of attitude. Or is it me just becoming a grumpy old git?
