Following a wave of travel title closures at the tail end of last
year, a new industry monthly, Hotel Asia-Pacific, has emerged from the
fall-out.
Filling a gaping hole in the market left by business-to-business titles
- Travel News Asia and Asian Hotelier (MEDIA, December 17), Hotel
Asia-Pacific publisher/editor and ex-Asian Hotelier editor Steve Shellum
insisted the hotel industry was, in fact, on the upturn when Cahners
Asia axed the title.
"With Asian Hotelier gone, there was no other serious trade magazine
addressing the hotel industry in Asia-Pacific," he said.
"Having had the plug pulled once I thought I'd go in and do it
myself."
Asian Hotelier's correspondents and freelance staffer team have also
been retained - with the new publication attracting supply-chain
advertisers and focusing editorial content on hotel-specific news.
"Our advertisers supply the hotel trade, so we're not competing for the
adspend dollars of other titles," Mr Shellum told MEDIA.
Hotel Asia-Pacific's 68-page launch issue will cover January and
February, with a 10-issue target roll-out for the rest of the year.
In keeping with faster-paced news coverage, the publication has also
kicked out a website (www.hotelasiapacific.com.hk).
"The industry has changed dramatically within the last six months and a
lot of that is down to the Internet - it's changed everything," Mr
Shellum said.
"It's a totally different format - the website breaks bite-sized news
daily; while the magazine examines why these issues are occurring and
talks to the people that are influencing the industry, in depth."
Tapping into the needs of time-shy hoteliers, a parallel
subscription-only daily email newsletter has been twinned with the
launch, entitled Daily Lodging Report Asia-Pacific.
"Asia-Pacific has recently become the battle ground for the global hotel
chains - someone needs to cover all this," said Mr Shellum.
