Tough climate at Travel and Leisure - American Express Publishing Co - Brief Article

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Sept 15, 1993 by Lorne Manly

Travel & Leisure's bumpy flight to recovery encountered further turbulence in late July when a third key executive behind the title's multimillion-dollar makeover earlier this year made an unscheduled departure.

T&L jettisoned editor Ila Stanger during her vacation and scooped up former HG editor in chief Nancy Novogrod. Stanger's ouster follows publisher Alexandra "Sandy" Golinkin's departure for Allure in May. Associate publisher of marketing Ron Prince soon followed her there. Neither position has been filled.

American Express Publishing Company CEO Dan Brewster, who oversees Time Inc.'s management of AmEx's titles, believes Novogrod's sense of the affluent audience is a perfect match for T&L. "She views the way, where and how people travel as a matter of taste and style," Brewster says.

While AmEx executives insist the magazine's strategic direction is unchanged, Novogrod does expect to add more entertainment and adventure-oriented travel stories to the mix.

But there are doubts in the ad community that T&L's redesign is working. (See "Travel books won't see any vacation time this summer," FOLIO:, June 15, 1993, page 16.) "At first blush, it shows the evolution of the magazine is not yet complete, that they spent $5 million on something and they don't like the state of affairs," says Michael Niess, associate media director at Margeotes, Fertitta & Weiss.

Ad pages have continued to tumble since the March redesign--down 7.4 percent through July. "We need to do a better job of articulating ourselves in the marketplace," says Brewster, who expects to name a publisher this month.

While T&L struggles, the rest of the category is showing gains. Conde Nast Traveler is up 4.3 percent in ad pages through July, while revenue is up 20 percent because of more run-of-the-book ads and increased rates, says publisher Tom Florio. Travel Holiday has shown an 18.1 percent ad-page increase, thanks to sizable growth spurts in non-endemic categories like automotive (up 400 percent) and consumer goods (up 37 percent). Publisher Pat Haegele says the Reader's Digest Association title will boost its 575,000 rate base to 600,000 in January. And National Geographic Traveler's ad pages have seen an 8.5 percent increase.