We announced our keynote speakers and main panelists months ago. See the Speakers page for more information. However, as time moves on we flesh out our breakout sessions and other panels. The Agenda page is now up to date with all content and speakers and we thought it would be a good time to shed some light on some of our recent additions to the November 14-15 conference. Here are the six breakout sessions:
- Michelle McCue of McCue Communications and Kimberly Charles from Charles Communications will be presenting a talk on Wine Tourism PR.
- Andrew Healy of 3 rock marketing and Todd Iseri, Sales and Marketing Manager at the Napa Valley Marriott will be giving a presentation on Social Media in Wine and Travel.
- Sylvie Tannhauser from Bricknell Travel, Gonzalo Merino from WineSur, and Wendy Cheropita from Wines of Ontario will be presenting about Wine Tourism Around the World.
- Mike Steele from the Lake Chelan Chamber of Commerce, Moya Dolsby from the Idaho Wine Commission, and January Wiese from the Texas Wine Trail will talk about Up and Coming Wine Tourism Destinations.
- Beth Costa of The Wine Road and Paul Asikainen of Conn Creek Winery will provide insight into Organizing and Promoting Successful Wine Events.
- Colby Smith, Executive Director of the Concierge Alliance of Napa Valley and Sonoma, will lead a panel on Working With Concierges.
In addition, we will have a penultimate session on Working Together in Wine Tourism. The conference is very much about each participant leaving with information he or she can use to improve his or her own business or organization. However, it is also about exploring ways we can all work together to improve wine tourism as a whole. We’ll hear from Linda Bruno, owner of Consulente International; Maggie Anderson, Marketing Director of the British Columbia Wine Institute; and Tim Zahner, Director of Public Relations and Marketing at the Sonoma County Tourism Bureau. The panel will be moderated by Brian Baker of Chateau Montelena.
How’s that for an incredible amount of capable people speaking at one conference and listed in just one blog post?