We caught up with Roni Weiss from RW Social, producing the first edition of the New York Travel Festival, to get the scoop on how the idea came to life and what to expect from an inaugural travel consumer show for the young tech-savvy urbanites.
Monica Suma: How did the idea of the New York Travel Festival come upon? What sets it apart from the other consumer travel festivals?
Roni Weiss: After going to a variety of standard consumer travel shows, I became aware how many people are really tired with the same old booth structure featuring the same speakers talking about the same things. To counter that, I worked on reaching out to various business, media, and consumers to see what they wanted that they found other shows to be lacking.
It’s hard to be in a rut when it’s only your first year, but our goal is to have dynamic content every year, with as much audience interactivity as possible. Not just two questions allotted at the end of a long talk, but engaging with attendees in a variety of ways. We also are making the fun things that you sometimes see on a periphery of a standard show as the main event, with debates, game shows, and tastings being central to what we’re doing.
Additionally, this year, when you buy a ticket to Saturday’s experiences, you get a Sunday tour included as well. We’re lucky to have all five boroughs represented.
In our ever-increasing digital age, word on travel spreads out in an instant second. Why did you feel the need to cater to the young tech-savvy urbanites?
They weren’t being catered to in a model that was designed before the age of internet. Millenials want to know the things they don’t know that they don’t know. It’s easy to go and find basic information about a destination. Our intention was to go deeper, highlighting niche forms of travel and speakers that millenials could better relate to, such as our keynote, National Geographic’s Digital Nomad, Andrew Evans.
The festival features an impressive who’s who of travel experts. What will their Saturday debates cover?
Val from NY1’s Travel with Val and Robert Reid from Lonely Planet will be going head-to-head on a few different hot topics. Also expect Nomadic Matt and Matt Gross to not necessarily agree on travel planning strategies.
How did Sunday’s tours and tastings come together?
If you were plopped down in a lot of standard travel shows, you’d have no idea what city you were in. Our hope is to create a new model to expand on where you don’t lose sight of the location itself. It’s almost criminal to not highlight New York City in a NYC travel show. By giving our attendees the opportunity to see places they haven’t seen within the city, we’re hoping that even the most jaded New Yorker will have a memorable experience.
What are you hoping to achieve with this festival?
I want everyone who is involved to enjoy being there. It’s meant to be a celebration of what travel inspires. There’s so much to learn and do in this world and I want everyone present to be excited to go out and do it, whether it’s locally, regionally, or internationally. In a macro business sense, I’m hoping that this becomes a yearly, must-do event in NYC and we start branching out to other cities soon.
About the New York Travel Festival:
Produced by RW Social, the New York Travel Festival scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, April 20-21, reinvents the concept of the consumer travel show. Designed for younger, tech-savvy urbanites, the two-day festival will open at the Bohemian National Hall with panel discussions and break out sessions. The second day will involve various scheduled tours and activities in select neighborhoods in and around New York City.
Tickets for the New York Travel Festival are $60 through April 1 and $85 from April 1 until the festival. A standard ticket package will include admission to Saturday’s event and one program for Sunday, plus admission to Sunday night’s (program). Doors will open for Saturday’s event at 8:30 a.m., with the program running from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, visit http://nytravfest.com.
