My name is Chris Clarke, and I am delighted to say that I am attending this year’s Canada-e-Connect conference.

I’ve been blogging about hospitality industry topics for about eighteen months on various sites, including my own personal blog at VacantReady.

Through my blogging activity I have been fortunate to meet some terrific people in the blogosphere, one of whom is Jens Thraenhart. Jens is the Executive Director, Marketing Strategy & Customer Relationship Management for the CTC, and he is also the founder of the first ever Canada-e-Connect conference. Many of you probably know Jens already.

Since we’re both based in Vancouver, Jens and I get together once in a while for coffee or a beer (preferably the latter) to discuss our blogs and general goings-on within the e-marketing climate. During a recent conversation, Jens asked me whether I would be interested in writing for the CEC conference blog.

Hmm…an exciting conference program & awards, an opportunity to write about topics I feel passionate about, a chance to meet some of the smartest folks in e-travel marketing, a chance at a free t-shirt…Jens didn’t have to push too hard to get me on board.

So, please allow me to introduce myself as an eager conference co-blogger. Other than being a conference delegate and friend to the CTC, I have no particular affiliation with Canada-e-Connect. This means that I’ll be writing about the conference as an attendee rather than an organizer. I’m pretty jazzed about that.

This week I visited with Jens, Mimi, and the rest of the conference organizing team at the offices of the Canadian Tourism Commission in Vancouver. Naturally I brought my camera with me to capture some of the essence that is the CTC.

So what’s the vision for this blog space over the next months? The below images from the CTC offices helped make that decision a no-brainer:

“Through this blog we hope to Inspire you to attend, and participate. We want to Explore and reveal the conference planning process, and meet conference delegates. And we hope to Tell a Great Story along the way.”