Officials with the annual North American Wine Bloggers Conference announced this month that the 2013 edition of this major wine media gathering will be held in Penticton – and local organizers are now busy getting preparations underway.
The conference, to be held in June 2013 at the Penticton Lakeside Resort, is expected to attract about 400 wine bloggers. It is the first time the North America-wide conference will be held in Canada, and it is considered a great opportunity to showcase the Okanagan, B.C. and Canadian wine industries.
The Penticton bid group has been led by Penticton & Wine Country Marketing Manager Jessie Campbell and Alison Markin, of All She Wrote Consulting, who was hired to prepare the bid.
Campbell is elated at the announcement. “We now have the opportunity to showcase to this influential and vast online community of wine bloggers, new media innovators and wine industry leaders that Penticton & Wine Country is fast becoming a world-class wine destination.”
Markin says the conference officials are also enthused about exposing hundreds of bloggers to the high-quality wines and wineries north of the border. “Bringing this conference to the South Okanagan is good for the wine industry in the entire region and the entire country,” she says, adding the free exposure gained from the bloggers’ online media activity at the conference and afterwards adds up to the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars of marketing and advertising.
Markin notes that the Penticton bidders “couldn’t have done this without the support of local organizations and businesses, who are already plotting to make sure this is the best North American Wine Bloggers Conference to date.” The Penticton bid has been supported by the BC Wine Institute, Penticton Lakeside Resort, Valley First Credit Union, the Okanagan Wine Festivals Society, the Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival, the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association, the Downtown Penticton Association, and many other businesses and groups.
Penticton had originally bid for the 2012 conference, but that was awarded to Portland, Oregon. The conference officials wanted to give American bloggers more time to arrange their attendance at the first Canada-based conference, and wanted to give Penticton time to organize this major get-together.
As part of the lobbying effort to gain the conference, local organizers created Twitter (@wbcokanagan) and Facebookaccounts.
