AntSol Travel

Featured Image: Me interviewing Pauline Frommer, the Editorial Director for the Frommers Travel Guides.

I am taking you for a look at the media perspective of the Travel & Adventure Show, an open-to-public travel show that helps attendees directly connect with company representatives in the hospitality, travel, and tourism industry. From up the central coast of California for the LA show to safari in Africa, they can give you ideas for your next in-state weekend trip to your next big vacation abroad! They have well-renowned speakers from the travel industry experts including Rick Steves of his travel PBS TV series & European tours, Sarah Dandashy of Ask A Concierge, investigative travel journalist Peter Greenberg, Pauline Frommer of Frommer Travel Guides, and more to maximize travel inspiration and experiences. The Los Angeles leg was on February 18th & 19th, at the Los Angeles Convention Center, located next to the Crypto.com Arena in the LA Live Complex.

Check out part 1 where I request my media pass & getting to the Los Angeles Convention Center from Anaheim.

I arrived at the Los Angeles Convention Center at 9:15 am, fifteen minutes before the doors opened to the media. However, I was confused about where the media registration was as there was signage for all other registration but media, the email stated room 302 in hall G. I asked several staff people with the show where media registration and one at the attendee registration said just go to the door of the show floor, however, that was not the case. Then I double-checked the email which said was in room 302, and then another staff person directed me to the room, which was outside of the meeting room on the third floor. When I got there, I got my media badge. However, I was not sure how to schedule interviews or which exhibitors are up for interviews when I emailed the public relations person. The woman at the media registration was not sure, then I ask the show staff on the convention floor about interviewing, and they did not know either. After that, I texted the public relations person who emailed me about the media registration, and after some back and forth, she pretty much said to ask each exhibitor if they want to interview & ask speakers to do interviews after their talks. With over 140 exhibitors, it is hard to tell who is interested in giving interviews without asking each one, with a high probability of declining the interview.

On the show floor, after all that, it was 10 am and the attendees came rushing in. I tried to scope out which exhibitors were willing to give me an interview. I wanted to interview California destinations as that is the scope of my channel and work with in the future, however, pretty much everyone denied me since I had a small fan base of 200 subscribers on my YouTube channel at the time, which was understandable, or they were not prepared for media interviews, understandably as well. I wish that was disclosed or given a list of exhibitors that are okay to ask for interviews, if so, how big of a following is desirable to give an interview? However, that’s okay with me since I was here to watch and interview the speakers. I saw that ABC 7 news crews were there, however, I cannot find the article on the show. I walked around a bit with my media badge out and see if any other exhibitors were inserted or flagged me down, however, no one did. I was okay not talking with exhibitors as I was there primarily to interview the speakers.

At 10:15 am, the first speaker, Rick Steves, was known for his travel guides, TV series, and tours across Europe. The travel guides started out as a supplement to his tours. His talk was on European travel skills, this was to inform attendees about travel to Europe, including updates for the recent year, as if the guest is willing to be in a crowded convention hall, you should be fine traveling. He said that a small percentage got sick while out on his tours, mostly due to crowded spaces of a pub that was on their itineraries. Make sure to check if there are online reservations for museums or places you want to visit. However, he was not doing meet & greets after his talks to decrease the chance of illness, by extension, interviews, oh well.

After Rick Steves, I went to another stage, the Savvy Traveler Stage, where Sarah Dandashy, a former hotel concierge in who overtime started her own concierge consulting & tips for travelers company from her social media posts, to what is now Ask a Concierge. She also has a book, “Hospitality From Within”, about how hotel services can deliver thoughtful & genuine service. She gave attendees tips about traveling & staying at hotels, such as tipping the guest services & housekeeping and guests should plan for up to three activities per day. When it comes to guest services/concierge requests: Money, time, and contacts of the hotel to pull off the request. Afterward, I asked Sarah for an interview, and I had to wait after clamming attendees for her to answer their questions, then she could answer mine. My interview consisted of education if you wanted to go into hospitality as you should get your bachelor’s to be a manager & start in entry-level positions in housekeeping to get the experience foundation to build up in future promotions. There were a few other questions, however, checking the footage, the microphone cut out even though it was working perfectly before, I was not happy afterward.

After the interview, it was 1 pm, so I decided to get lunch, the convention center cafeteria was good but not worth writing home about, but I am still writing home about it. They had premade sandwiches, pastries, $3 bananas, precut fruit, bottled sodas as they did not use the soda fountain, and a hot coffee station. At the hot food station, they had $14 hamburgers & veggieburgers, and $8 hot dogs. I got a salad with a protein for $16 with either chicken, beef, or salmon. I got the salmon and was cooked perfectly and complemented the salad, well worth the extra cost. I also had a coffee, they did not have any specialty coffee, just a plain medium coffee, you could not even add ice to make iced coffee since the soda fountain was switched off.

Then after lunch, I went to watch and record investigative travel journalist, Peter Greenberg. He regularly works for CBS News as their Travel Editor, along with his PBS series The Travel Detective with Peter Greenberg & the Royal Tour, and Eye on a Travel radio show on CBS News. Unlike the last two who worked in the hospitality & tourism industry, Peter is a journalist who looks from the outside of the industry, looking in, as he is a journalist with a passion for travel. His media medium attracts the older crowd since mostly older generations would still watch CBS News & listen to a three-hour-long radio show unless the younger generations would listen and watch there too. Most attendees at the show were graying and/or balding. 

While recording Mr. Greenberg’s talk, a woman behind me asked me if I was recording the whole thing. I replied that I was filming some clips for my YouTube channel, then she said that she was a YouTuber as well as a social media influencer/travel agent, Alanna Zingano, who specialized in making content on cruise ships. She asked me if I was able to film for her talk later, I said sure since I wanted to help out and she started well after Peter Greenberg’s talk so I still had time to do a quick interview and then head to her talk.

After Mr. Greenberg’s talk, he went to the meet & greet table, and I asked him for a quick interview after the long line of adoring attendees, he said sure. When he was done with the attendees, he first talked to the media infront of me, Travel Trends TV, a father & son duo who just started their YouTube channel from San Pedro, about 22 miles from the convention center. The father is a cancer survivor as well, I wish them luck in their endeavors! 

Then after Travel Trends TV was done with their interview I was next to interview, Peter Greenberg. I am starting on a draft phase on hotel fees, so I got Peter’s perspective. In summary, hotels are a tax dodge so they can charge extra by not getting taxed or tourism fees added on, everything is negotiable with the front desk if the fee does not cover a lot. If it is disclosed & agrees to it, then it is settled unless you can negotiate. 

While interviewing, an attendee asked Peter, not knowing that we were in an interview, asked us where the bathroom was, probably they did not notice that I was recording on my GoPro on a tripod. After the interview, I dashed over to the Savvy Travelers stage to record Alanna Zingano.

I got to the Savvy Travelers stage a few minutes before Alanna Zingano started her talk. Alanna is a social media influencer/travel agent specializing in cruise ships, she started posting on social media about her family’s trips on social media and went from there, establishing her own travel agency down the road. She informed attendees about cruising, the costs & benefits, the cruise ship operators & some of the newest ships, why working with a travel agency like her is important to finding the best rates and perks, on-ship dining & entertainment, the various staterooms, RFID disk for payment and stateroom access system on various ships that is similar to Disney Park’s MagicBand+, top destinations, the amazing cruise ship staff, and ended with a question & answer. I recorded the talk by recording on my GoPro on a handheld gimbal for stable movement around the audience to show that attendees are attentively watching. Alanna thanked me for filming her talk. However, getting the footage from the GoPro to her laptop was not possible without the GoPro software to download the footage, so I worked on it when I got back home and sent her the email link the following day. As a thank you, she sent me a Starbucks gift card, thank you, Alanna! 

As Alanna finished her talk, Pauline Frommer also finished her talk as well, and I wanted to get a quick interview about hotel fees for my upcoming blog post. Pauline Frommer is the daughter of Authur Frommer, the founder of Frommer’s travel guides, who wrote travel guides for U.S. Army G.I.’s about traveling Europe. Pauline is currently the Editorial Director for the Frommers. Looking at the description of the speaker’s schedule, her talk was about life-changing yet not bank-breaking vacation tips. Afterward, she had a meet & greet, during which I also asked her about hotel fees. 

She said “Resort fees are the bane of travelers’ existence and are a tax dodge by the hotels. Hotels have lower taxes often on fees than they do on nightly rates. Unfortunately, the hotel industry is so powerful in this country by giving money to politicians, that I think resort fees will not go away anytime soon. So avoid hotels without resort fees because there is no reason for them.”

After my quick interview with Pauline, Rick Steves started his second and last overall talk of the day. Rick did his premier talk with company COO, Craig Davidson, about traveling in a warming world. In the first half, Rick talked about the ethical dilemma of traveling, in the second half, Craig took over, and half of the attendees left. Rick talked about how there is a lot of carbon and environmental damage that travel & tourism creates, and airlines don’t do carbon offsets based on their carbon output. Rick has a fund from his company that invests $100,000 each to ten organizations that help farmers in 3rd world counties to offset their carbon footprint since the processes for farming and ranching contributes a lot to carbon emissions. Then Craig went into more detail about the program and the benefits of the people there.

After that, it was 5 pm, and the Saturday show of the Travel & Adventure Show ended for the day, with Sunday’s show from 11 am to 4 pm. Then I headed out and walk back to the Sheraton Grand Los Angeles to check in for the night. 

It was great to get the media badge as I can officially interview speakers and exhibitors if I am able to anyone to talk to me. However, it does not feel too much different as an attendee who wants to film and just wanted to get a quick conversation on video as I was able to do that last year as an attendee. It felt a bit shallow as my target exhibitors, the California destinations, did not want to be interviewed due to my small fan base or are not prepared for an interview. I wish that there was a comprehensive list of exhibitors who wants to talk for an interview. Getting a set time for a speaker interview is hard and depending on how famous the person is and getting a formal meet & greet like Peter Greenberg & Pauline Frommer, it is harder to get isolated interview time, vs. someone who has a smaller following like Sarah Deshandy. However, there can be only so many variables that Travel & Adventure staff can control, I just set my expectations too high. Overall, it was fun to interview the speakers, and I would be in media again next year!