Travel journalism: the process of story creation in the British newspaper’s travel section

In recent years tourism's contribution to many countries’ economic growth is undeniable, not only in terms of revenue, but also in the creation and increase of employment in the sector, and in rising the destination’s visibility, the later attracting both national and foreign investment. Considering its significant relevance and impact, it is nonetheless strange, as some scholars have noted, the contempt with which travel journalism is often regarded: as a less serious genre, or a “frivolous topic, not worthy of serious research” (Fürsich and Kavoori, 2001), probably because it has been associated with entertainment and mass tourism without any social cultural focus of public interest. Usually, newspapers are composed of several sections, each of them reporting to different topics. Tourism and travel news are usually grouped in the travel segment. Although the aim of this specific section is to inform readers, the nature of its written stories differ from the other newspaper’s articles. In fact, the reports published in this unit tend to boast a positive outlook about sights and occurrences. Two main reasons may explain why this happens: firstly, the nature of the travel section is influenced by the reader’s profile; secondly, the symbiotic relation between press and travel or leisure organisations. These aspects, which influence the nature of the published stories, will consequently have an impact on how journalists write their articles. The main objective of this presentation is to present an insight into the process of story creation in the travel section of British newspapers. The research presented is focused on the written press, more specifically on the travel section of newspapers. In order to understand how this professionals come up with their stories and how place brand managers can use and control this source of information to build brand image a set of semi-structured interviews were conducted with six British journalists.