Polish Tourism Organisation participated in the fourth edition of the Bloggers UTD meetings in Belgium. The event provided an excellent opportunity to promote Poland among blogosphere representatives and to build new relationships.

The Bloggers UTD meetings have already become a regular fixture in the calendar of Belgium’s media events. Polish Tourism Organisation (Polska Organizacja Turystyczna - POT) came back this year to take part in the fourth edition staged on Saturday 1 February. Bloggers UTD is a networking event attended by Belgian influencers and lifestyle and travel bloggers.

The latest edition was held in the magnificent Lamot Heritage And Congress Centre in the charming Flemish city of Mechelen. It attracted as many as 130 bloggers, who thus had a chance to showcase their social media channels to 24 partners. The impressive list of the latter encompassed ten countries (compared to the four destinations exhibiting in 2019), including Germany, France, Austria and the Czech Republic, as well as several regions (Tyrol, Flanders, Catalonia) along with DMCs, hotels and travel agencies.

The meeting was kicked off by a series of lectures on issues related to social media - the role of Belgian influencers, the impact blogs have on consumer behaviour and the available options for travel industry - hosted by Matthieu van den Bogaert of Vlerick Business School, Jeroen  Naudts of the Artevelde Hogeschool university and Maarten Kesteloot, CEO of Influo.

The Travel Blog Awards ceremony recognized top bloggers and acted as the high point of the evening. A record-breaking number of 200 nominees competed for distinctions in 11 categories, such as Best Adventure, Best Citytrip, Best Sustainable Travel and Best Social Media Campaign.

The Brussels-based Polish Tourism Organisation International Office is planning to establish cooperation with some of the winners and nominees. Picked in the Audience Choice category, blogger Ben Goes Places has already visited Poland, which inspired him to write interesting articles on the Tri-City, Warsaw and Łódź.