In the hot seat:
Sarah Hartley: Travel Editor at The Mail On Sunday
Sarah’s Focus:
- She Travel desk is Sarah Hartley. No one else on the desk
- Each week Sarah has 6 pages a week to fill.
- 5 travel supplements a year – 32 pages each. January (x2); May; October; x1 Cruise
- Commissions writers for a story on a case by case basis. Don’t pitch to the freelancer
- Sarah is mainly desk bound but loves meeting PRs for coffee
- 8:30-10:30 is a bad time to contact due to 9.30am MoS conference
- Doesn’t mind phone calls
- Will go to client events if relevant and has been given enough warning (3 months +)
Travel Focus:
- The Mail on Sunday reader: loves food and drink, over the age of 50 and either travelling with their family or alone, is affluent, active, and will be spending £3,000 plus on holidays. Will travel 3 – 4 times a year, they love travelling in the UK – “Great British Boltholes” runs every week
- The reader is not excited by exclusives as they prefer tried and tested
- 1 in 3 cruises are booked via the travel section
- Escorted tours are very popular and the reader loves art, history, culture, food and drink.
- Readers want to make sure tourism is responsible – big interest in the environment
- The weekend pages are a bright shot of inspiration for readers.
- Skiing is being reintroduced to the paper
- Sarah is making sure it is truly global and covers everywhere
- Travel stories tie in with the weather and the climate
- Earliest Christmas stories will be run is when the clocks go back
- Consumer focussed and celebrity travel stories are off limits
- Cost or price of a holiday is not required
Top Tips:
- Paper goes to print on Friday for Sunday
- All print content goes online – separate entities and Ted Thornhill looks after all online content
- From about 10pm on Saturday night, all Sunday travel content is uploaded online
- Sarah reads every email she is sent – relies heavily on PRs
- Sarah works about 12 weeks ahead and likes to line each story up so that she knows what is going on in advance
- Sarah asks herself “Would I send my friends or family there?” before going ahead with a commission
- Press releases should be kept uncomplicated and simple. Let the initial intro tell the story and leave it to 3 – 4 lines
- If the pitch is right, she will say from the beginning and will tell PRs what the title of the piece will be
- Images are important as help visualisation
