October 1, 2008

Travel Trade Gazette shrinks to A4

Travel Trade Gazette has had redesign, shrinking from A3 to A4.

The title, which has been A3 for 56 years, also has a new logo, still retaining the pink used in the previous design.

The CMPi-owned magazine for those working in the travel industry also has new sections for news, breaking the magazine down into niche travel areas.

Editor Lucy Huxley said: ‘What we’re doing is covering the broad spectrum, distilling it down for people into specialist sectors with detailed product knowledge. People can do so much research on travel now with the information available readily on the internet, so our readers have got to have more knowledge than their customers.”

The shrink in size was the result of reader research which showed that A3 was seen as ‘unwieldy”. Huxley said that the change in size doesn’t mean that the title should be viewed as a magazine, as its still retains its news lead agenda. ‘We’ve kept it very news lead, going to A4 doesn’t mean we’re a magazine, we still call this a newspaper. We feel very strongly that it’s a news lead cover. Every single cover will have a news story.”

The magazine now has a taster section on pages two and three, which Huxley said was inspired by the Miami Herald in Florida, which has a ‘Two Minute Herald’section at the front.

Huxley said: ‘A lot of our research showed us that people don’t have time to read the whole thing, they want to know which bits they want to read.”

The paper stock has been increased with whiter paper, aiming to look more ‘professional and classy’and signposting has been added to help readers through the increased pagination.

The magazine has enhanced its city and finance section and six new columnists including Kane Perrie, managing director of Travel Republic and travel and transport correspondent for ITV Mike Pearse.

Travel Trade Gazette competes head-on with RBI-owned title Travel Weekly. It has an audited circulation of 24,007 of which about 23,000 are free copies.