Act Like a local conference Brussels

Beautiful conference location: KVS Theater Brussels

We were recently invited to attend (and speak at) the first conference ever on the subject of Local Travel information – “Act like a local”. It was what we expected: lots of fun and interesting!

Panel discussion

Some  highlights:

• Presentations by Use-it Europe, who of course talked a lot about their product: paper maps for young tourists in cities around Europe, by volunteer locals. Lots of local Use-it volunteers from all over Europe were there.
• A presentation about trends in individual youth travel (summary: very interesting market!) by David Chapman – WYSE‘s Director General
• A presentation by Frank van den Block, founder of Bewelcome, about their “open” and not-for-profit alternative to Couchsurfing
• A presentation by Olivier Occelli about how the Lyon Tourist Board engages locals in their city marketing
• A panel discussion with trend watcher Ellen Anthoni (Trendwolves), economist Bart Neuts (City of Antwerp) and Miek de Roeck (City of Antwerp) on various subjects related to Local Travel. Food for thought!

Bart (Spotted by Locals) presenting

Our presentation about how we started Spotted by Locals, how it’s made us better persons and why we think Local Travel is good for the world, was well received. People love what our locals are doing!

We thank Use-it for organizing this conference, and for inviting us to speak. Hopefully, we can soon continue the conversation with attendees and non-attendees about this interesting subject. Maybe we should organize a conference ourselves to do so…

Brussels (by Bart van Poll)