We have no plans at this point to bring back the Wine Marketing & Tourism Conference.
Founded in 2011, the conference last ran in Oregon in March 2020, just prior to the pandemic. The conference took place nine times over nine years in locations such as Sonoma, Virginia, and Texas with an audience that include wineries, winery associations, tourism organizations, and tour operators.
Obviously, the pandemic has been bad for conferences. Even conferences that have run have tended to have fewer participants and sponsors than in pre-pandemic years.
We at Zephyr Conferences also faced the reality of losing 1/2 our four-person staff due to the pandemic. We would need to hire new staff, since our beloved employees Reno and Sara have moved on to new careers.
We are also faced with the reality that in 2021 there was a surge in (mostly domestic) travel and this surge has only increased in 2022, as people are hungry to again travel around the world. This means the tour side of our Zephyr United business has been booming and requiring much of our time and attention. Which we are not complaining about!
In the end, we have decided to focus only on our media conferences, which includes the Wine Media Conference, for 2022 and beyond. We are open to any suggestions from key wine or tourism industry players regarding the future of the WMTC.