Last year, I went to IMM (International Media Marketplace) for the first time. I met with many great destinations and reconnected with many travel friends. The conference is very well organized and professional so I came back for IMM 2020!
We spent the day for our meetings in the the all-glass River Pavilionat the top of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. Now that The Vessel and Hudson Yards are open and they extended the “7” on the Metro it is much easier to get to Javits Center by subway.
I am so glad I was able to participate in both the Summit and IMM 2020. I look forward to coming back and highly recommend you participate in this professional travel conference.
One of my favorite moments at IMM was seeing Dan Gibson from Visit Tucson who I first met at Travel Classics. In honor of their meetings with journalists, they donated to Iskashitaa Refuge Network which helps refugees integrate into the southern Arizona community while strengthening the local food network. Did you know that Tucson is a UNESCO City of Gastronomy? They want to ensure that everyone has access to healthy food and that food service employees earn a living wage. Visit Tucson donated $10 to Iskashitaa for each of their IMM appointments. That is the best use of “SWAG” dollars EVER! Thank you Dan, Mary and Cindy!
Dominican Republic Ministry of Tourism – Pacome Schembri
Choose Chicago | DQMPR – Stephanie D’Adamo
Emerald Waterways | Gillies and Zaiser – Public Relations – Lauren Frye
Tourism Vernon – Angeline Chew
Austin Adventures – Carol Austin
Fairmont Hotels, Pacific Northwest – Casey Barks
Pursuit – Michelle Gaudet
Hotwire | Citizen Relations – Jina Michael
Travel Portland – Jackie Hagan
Augusta | Pineapple Public Relations – Brianna Reid
Samoa Tourism Authority – Jessica Felipe
Margaritaville | Finn Partners – Caitlin Galeotti
Hong Kong Tourism Board – Bryan Hansen
Western Montana’s Glacier Country Tourism – Lucy Beighle
The Travel Corporation (TTC) – Arnelle Kendall
Transformational Travel Council | EM Adventure Marketing Inc. – Elyse Mailhot
Destination Canada | Beattie Tartan – Kate Rogers
Visit SLO CAL | TURNER – Deborah Park
Curacoa Tourism – Michelle George
AMA Waterways – Brenda Kyllo
REI Expeditions – Megan Behrbaum
South Africa Tourism – Justin Barnette
Last year at IMM, I met with Cara Schneider from Visit Philly and we planned a visit and a segment for KTLA TV.
Lisa Niver on KTLA with Lu Parker and Glen Walker
At CMM, I met with Nicole Ford from Rocky Mountaineer after my train trip, I did a segment on KTLA and one of my videos from that trip is now the most popular on my YouTube channel with over 51,000 views!
I wonder what adventures will happen in 2020 after all of my meetings! I hope to go to Brazil for the first time this year and maybe back to Africa.
I went on safari in Tanzania and Kenya with Abercrombie and Kent and at Sanctuary Olanana, they sang to me:
Lisa Ellen Niver is an award-winning travel expert who has explored 102 countries and six continents. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, she worked on cruise ships for seven years and backpacked for three years in Asia. She is the founder of the website WeSaidGoTravel which is read in 235 countries and was named #3 on Rise Global’s top 1,000 Travel Blogs. Niver is a speaker at the Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Dallas Travel and Adventure Shows for 2023. Her podcast, “Make Your Own Map,” has been watched in more than 11 countries on 4 continents. Niver is represented by Chip MacGregor of MacGregor Literary, Inc. Look for her memoir in Fall 2023 from Post Hill Press/Simon and Schuster.
You can find Lisa Niver talking travel on broadcast television at KTLA TV Los Angeles, Satellite Media Tours, The Jet Set TV and Orbitz travel webisodes as well as her YouTube channel, where her WeSaidGoTravel videos have nearly 2 million views.
With more than 150,000 followers across social media, she has hosted Facebook Live for USA Today 10best, is verified on Twitter and listed on IMDb, and is the Social Media Manager for the Los Angeles Press Club.
As a journalist, Niver has interviewed Deepak Chopra, Olympic medalists, and numerous bestselling authors and been invited to both the Oscars and the United Nations. She has been a judge for the Gracie Awards for the Alliance of Women in Media, and has run 15 travel competitions on her website, publishing over 2,500 writers and photographers from 75 countries.
For her print and digital stories as well as her television segments, she has been awarded three Southern California Journalism Awards and two National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards and been a finalist twenty times.
Niver has published more than 2000 articles, in more than three dozen magazines and journals
including National Geographic, Wired, Teen Vogue, HuffPost Personal, POPSUGAR, Ms. Magazine, Luxury Magazine, Smithsonian, Sierra Club, Saturday Evening Post, AARP, AAA Explorer Magazine, American Airways, Delta Sky, enRoute (Air Canada), Hemispheres, Jewish Journal, Myanmar Times, BuzzFeed, Robb Report, Scuba Diver Life, Ski Utah, Trivago, Undomesticated, USA Today, TODAY, Wharton Magazine, and Yahoo.
https://bit.ly/m/lisaniver
Awards
National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards
2021 Winner: Book Critic: Ms. Magazine “Untamed: Brave Means Living From the Inside Out”
2019 Winner: Soft News Feature for Film/TV: KTLA TV “Oscars Countdown to Gold with Lisa Niver”
2019 Finalist for: Soft News, Business/Music/Tech/Art
Southern California Journalism Awards
2022 Finalist: Book Criticism
2021 Winner: Technology Reporting
2021 Finalist: Book Criticism
2020 Winner: Print Magazine Feature: Hemispheres Magazine, “Painter by the Numbers, Rembrandt”
2020 Finalist: Online Journalist of the Year, Activism Journalism, Educational Reporting, Broadcast Lifestyle Feature
2019 Finalist: Broadcast Television Lifestyle Segment for “Ogden Ski Getaway”
2018 Finalist: Science/Technology Reporting, Travel Reporting, Personality Profile
2017 Winner: Print Column “A Journey to Freedom over Three Passovers”
Social Media Presence
YouTube Channel: We Said Go Travel (1.7 million views)
Short form video:TikTok, Instagram Reels, Facebook Reels, YouTube Shorts
Twitter: lisaniver (90,000 followers)
Instagram: lisaniver (24,000 followers)
Pinterest: We Said Go Travel (20,000 followers and over 70,000 monthly views)
Facebook: lisa.niver (5,000 followers); We Said Go Travel (3,000 followers)
LinkedIn: lisaellenniver (9000 contacts)
