OLD Media Moves

How Skift has succeeded during the pandemic

JP Mangalindan writes for The Juggernaut about how travel industry publication Skift thrived during the pandemic.

Mangalindan writes, “The once-bustling global tourism industry, as the world once understood it, had irrevocably changed, hemorrhaging as much as $1.2 trillion in 2020 — and its effects were widespread. Travel industry news and information outlets were hit particularly hard, as companies scaled back their travel ad budgets.

“Skift, a travel industry publication geared towards industry professionals, was among the collateral damage. Founded and funded initially by seasoned media operator Rafat Ali in 2012, the business-to-business (B2B) media site — a prolific purveyor of industry news and reports, and hosts podcasts and events — had become an unlikely success story, buoyed by major advertisers like Accenture, Oracle and Accor, and the site’s insistence in 2013 on charging a wide swath of clients like Marriott, Hilton, Expedia, Delta and United juicy subscription fees for its research reports at a time when others were giving content away for free on the web.

“Skift was on track to hit $18 million in revenues in 2020, and had tailwinds behind it to continue expanding its staff and ancillary businesses.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.

Recent Posts

Making business news accessible to a wider audience

Ritika Gupta, the BBC's North American business correspondent, was interviewed by Global Woman magazine about…

2 mins ago

Rest of World hires Lo as China reporter

Rest of World has hired Kinling Lo as a China reporter. Lo was previously a…

37 mins ago

Bloomberg rises to No. 7 biz news website

Bloomberg News saw strong unique visitor growth to its website in October, passing Fox Business…

43 mins ago

Dow Jones plans to expand Middle East operations

Dow Jones & Co., the parent of The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, MarketWatch.com and Investor's…

5 hours ago

WSJ seeks a White House reporter

The Wall Street Journal is seeking a White House reporter in Washington, DC, to break…

5 hours ago

Politics editor Pershing leaving WSJ

Ben Pershing, the politics editor of The Wall Street Journal, is leaving the news organization.…

5 hours ago