Silk Road Ch@llenge at WTM 2012

Now in its second year, in 2012 UNWTO and WTM host the Silk Road Bloggers Ch@llenge where the world’s top travel-bloggers compete in a race to create the best travel blog on the Silk Road. The winning blog will be chosen by a panel of judges, consisting of representatives of Travel Perspective and UNWTO, who will select the blog that best captures the essence of the Silk Road, captivates readers, optimises outreach through social media networks and has high quality content.

The challenge runs from 1 to 30 November 2012 and is open to bloggers from around the world. The winning blogger will win an all-expenses paid trip to Armenia, sponsored by the National Competitiveness Foundation of Armenia, with tours of some of the country's best attractions, such as the Norovank Church and capital Yerevan and a number of special culinary experiences.

To enter, bloggers - who must post entries in words, images or video on their own sites - should focus on a food or drink aspect of the Silk Road, the historic 4,000 mile long trade route running between Europe and Asia and taking in countries as diverse as China, Armenia, Turkey, Azerbaijan and the Lebanon. The winning entry should have been published this year, have an identifiable food or drink theme, demonstrate the cross-border nature of the Silk Road, show inventive use of multimedia and encourage tourism to the region. Blogs should be publicised using the #silkroad2012 hashtag on Twitter.

Anyone interested in taking part in the Silk Road Ch@llenge should sign up at http://silkroadchallenge.eventbrite.com/ with their name and blog address.