8th Annual DIY Tourism Conference

Effectively enticing visitors to explore your community, make a reservation, attend your events, and shop at your local businesses is tough enough on its own. It doesn't get any easier when platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Google, MailChimp, Constant Contact, Canva, and HubSpot constantly evolve with consumer behaviors. Digital marketing in the tourism and travel industries requires skill, strategy, and creativity. That's why we created the DIY Tourism Marketing Conference.

In its 8th year, this event provides the latest digital strategies, resources, and tools to help you reach potential visitors and motivate them to visit.

Learn from Chris Cavanaugh, a travel and tourism marketing strategic planning consultant and founder of , Sarah Benoit and Justin Belleme, co-founders of the digital marketing training program , as well as a host of industry experts in topics such as video, influencer marketing, social media, local SEO, Google Ads, SEO, and more. These experts will show you how to tell your business or organization's story compellingly to reach the right audience and encourage them to take action.

This two-day event is located in the heart of the downtown of one of the country's fastest-growing tourism destinations: Asheville, North Carolina. Enjoy the sights, sounds, and fall colors of the Blue Ridge Mountains while you gain up-to-date marketing knowledge and skills you can take back to your region, venue, tourist destination, or local business to implement immediately.

Book your discounted stay at this year's event venue, the Renaissance Hotel Downtown Asheville, and enjoy this Southern destination city's walkable restaurants, shops, and other hotspots.

This event will feature classes suited for marketing professionals in travel and tourism and tourism industry leaders. Additionally, we'll provide content focused on local marketing designed for hotels, attractions, and small businesses that want to attract visitors and residents alike. Our vision is that representatives from tourism organizations — their leadership teams, marketing staff, CEOs, owners, and other marketing professionals — will attend this event together. These groups can learn in a supportive and collaborative workshop setting.

Full schedule and session details will be announced on .

Discounts are available for group tickets. Contact the JB Media Institute for questions via email at [email protected] or by phone at 828.490.9299 ext. 2.

Please Note: No refunds will be given to cancellations received after October 11, 2024. Refunds before October 14, 2023, will incur the loss of Eventbrite processing fees. Tickets can not be used for credit to future events. Tickets can be transferred to another person's name or in-person attendees can switch their ticket to virtual to attend the hybrid instead.

A serial entrepreneur, Justin founded his first business, AshevilleNow.com, an online magazine about the Asheville area for visitors, in 2003. He continued to work in tourism marketing, holding interim positions in online marketing with the Asheville Convention & Visitors Bureau and the City of Asheville in 2010 before launching the digital marketing agency in 2011. As director of strategy, Justin oversees the strategic direction for projects in SEO, online advertising, social media, event marketing, email, and public relations for clients ranging from the Eastern Band of The Cherokee Indians to the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area, Holistic Holiday at Sea and the Social Capital Markets conference. He and Sarah Benoit have also provided strategic consulting and training for Harrah's Cherokee Casino.

In 2012, Justin saw a need for training for marketing professionals and business owners in online marketing from industry professionals. He teamed up with Sarah Benoit to found the shortly after, and under his vision and leadership, the program has trained more than 200 students in its first three years. Justin is also a frequent presenter on the more technical elements of internet marketing, including Google advertising for businesses and nonprofits, SEO, and social media advertising. The recipient of the 2014 Entrepreneur of the Year Award from the Asheville Chamber of Commerce, Justin is a strong advocate for entrepreneurship. He has served on the Asheville Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors since 2015 and is a previous Board Chair for the NC Stage Company.

In early 2019, Justin led the acquisition of , the most visited travel and vacation planning website for the Asheville area, with over 5.5 million site visits in the last year.

As the Lead Instructor for the , Sarah leverages her 13 years of experience as an online marketing, SEO, and social media strategist to create training content that gets results. She is dedicated to making digital marketing accessible and understandable to business and marketing professionals with timely, relevant, and engaging classes and seminars. Her online marketing experience includes work in the travel and tourism field for websites such as , the visitor site for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, and , the official site for the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area. She has also worked with a variety of organizations to create digital marketing events and training programs, including , an initiative of the Sequoyah Fund, , , , the , and many more.

In 2013, she co-founded the JB Media Institute, a digital marketing training program with Justin Belleme. Last year, Sarah was instrumental in adapting the original curriculum offered in Asheville three times yearly to an online program accessible to students worldwide. She now teaches sessions in in-person and online institute programs and oversees continuous curriculum updates to keep up with the ever-changing world of internet marketing. Sarah has presented to groups local and national. She was inducted into Asheville's Forty under 40 in 2013 and won Woman Executive of the Year from WomanUp at the Asheville Chamber of Commerce in 2017. A graduate of Leadership Asheville, Sarah is dedicated to supporting and enhancing the local community.

Before founding , Chris spent 10 years as vice president of marketing for The Biltmore Company in Asheville, NC — the owner of Biltmore Estate. While there, Chris also directed marketing for the Inn on Biltmore Estate, a four-star hotel on the Biltmore property, and the Biltmore Estate Winery, the most visited winery in the nation. Chris has served as chairman of the North Carolina Travel and Tourism Board and the Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority, overseeing the work of the Asheville CVB, and Blue Ridge Mountain Host, a regional marketing association. He was the 2014 recipient of the Southeast Tourism Society Shining Example Award and, in 2015, received the Travel Industry Association of North Carolina's Tourism Excellence Award for an Individual for outstanding contributions to the development of the travel industry in the state.

Event Venue

Renaissance Asheville Hotel, 31 Woodfin Street, Asheville, United States