Reed Travel & Meetings Asia (RT&M) has overhauled its management as it
is adding two travel trade titles - Travel Weekly Events (TWE) and
Travel Weekly East China (TWEC)- to its portfolio.
TWE will replace the defunct Meetings & Conventions Asia (M&C Asia)
title - published for five years by Venture Asia Publications under
licence from the Cahners Travel Group, a subsidiary of Reed Elsevier.
The licence expired in January.
RT&M publishing director Fiona Rankine, who set up Venture Asia as its
executive director in the mid-90s, said it was better to build the
Travel Week brand, which Reed owns internationally, rather than invest
in one so closely associated with another company.
Travel Weekly Events, a bi-monthly publication, has a controlled
circulation of 15,200 and is targeting organisers of events, incentive
programmes, conventions and exhibitions.
The publication was launched on February 21 to coincide with the Asia
Pacific Incentives and Meetings Expo in Melbourne, organised by Reed
Exhibition.
In April, the company will launch the monthly Chinese-language TWEC,
which will be distributed in Hong Kong, China and Macau.
Reed has made two senior appointments as part of the launches: Ms Irene
Chua as TWEC's associate publisher and Mr Chris Michaelidies as
international sales director for RT&M.
Ms Chua had worked on competing travel trade titles and was previously
with I-Quest, while Mr Michaelidies' travel publishing experience
included a stint on the now-defunct Travel News Asia in the mid-90s. He
subsequently established the Chris Michaels International media
representation business in Hong Kong.
The appointments coincide with the departures of RT&M group publisher
and business development director Phila Anne Tan, who is joining
computer magazine publisher IDG early this month as business development
manager, and RT&M regional sales director (Northeast Asia) Rachel Choy,
who left to join the International Herald Tribune as regional sales
manager.
Ms Tan, who was at Reed for 11 months, said she had been in travel
publishing for nine years, said she wanted to focus on another industry.
