April 30, 2008

Travel Weekly editor Longbottom leaves after under a year in charge

A management overhaul at business title Travel Weekly has seen the editor leave after under a year in charge.

Sarah Longbottom, who joined the Reed Business Information magazine for travel agents and tour operators in June last year, has left the title in a restructuring that management said was to part of a new print/online strategy.

Reed Business Information has drafted in Penny Wilson as editor-in-chief across Travel Weekly and the TW Group which includes www.travelweekly.co.uk, its travel agent information website Gazeteers.com and Travolution, its brand for the online travel market.

Wilson, who has worked in business to business magazines for over 25 years and was editor of Enterprise for Entrepreneurs magazine, will be charged with overseeing the main magazine and the overall brand strategy. She has spent the last three years as global editorial director of ICIS, the world’s largest chemical information provider which is also part of RBI.

Travel Weekly online editor Martin Couzins will take on the role of managing editor for the magazine, working across print and online.

In a letter to staff, Travel Weekly publishing director Simon Ferguson said Longbottom had left the editor’s chair to ‘pursue new opportunities”. Longbottom joined Travel Weekly last June after an 18-month stint as editor of Retail Newsagent. Before joining retail newsagent Longbottom worked on Air Cargo Week and Travel Trade Gazette Middle East and North Africa.

The magazine had been without an editor for more than six months after the departure of Richard Siddle in late 2006.

Reed Elsevier, the parent company of RBI, put the division up for sale earlier this year after it decided to get out of the magazine business. It is not clear at this stage if RBI will be sold on a wholesale or piecemeal basis.