Magazine Readers Travel to China

Readers who travel with magazines - the trend for magazine readers to take group trips arranged by the magazine continues to be a hot trend. At Sweden's Bonnier Tidskrifter, the various magazines will have some 25-30 trips set up for their readers. And one of the biggest destinations is China. M-magasin took 160 of its readers last fall and this year, more titles are following suit.

First out is Allt om Trädgård, with a trip set up for April 18-27 with the theme of parks and gardens with a kickoff in Beijing followed by travel around the country including visits to mountains and China's biggest bamboo forest, finishing up in Shanghai.

Tara's readers will follow, traveling to Beijing April 27-May 4 to learn how to make dumplings, among other things. 

Allt om Resor also will take its readers to Beijing, in November. The program isn't set yet, but it will be a mix of food and culture, a visit to the Great Wall and a peek at the art of silk production.

Oscar Sandberg, business developer at Bonnier Tidskrifter's BT Experience division, develops the travel concepts together with the individual magazines themselves. Sandberg says that China is so popular because it's still a relatively exotic travel destination for Swedes, with a history and exciting culture that everyone wants to experience in real life. "Many want to travel to China, but there are a lot of hurdles, like the language, if you go by yourself," he says. "That's why so many feel more comfortable traveling in a group."

The next popular travel destinations for readers could be South Africa and India, Sandberg says: "They have rich and different cultures and nice climates."

The range of themed arranged travel continues to increase, says Sandberg, but magazine-arranged travel offers certain advantages over the competition. "Magazines have a natural reader base to work with when we create our trips," he says. "We already have a loyal reader group that we already know to some degree. It also doesn't hurt that our editorial staff have a lot of knowledge and contacts."

During the actual trips, travelers tend to feel as if they are part of a club, with similar interests and sensitivities, says Sandberg. "They almost know one another before they've even met," he says.

Among the 25-30 trips arranged by BT Experience this year, there will be a mix - along with the China trips, Privata Affärer readers will visit New York and experience the actual Wall Street. Teknikens Värld readers will travel to England, the mother of motor sports. Allt om Resor and M-magasin will both take readers to Turkey. And Allt om Mat and Allt om Trädgård will be going to Tuscany, where food, wine and gardens will be on the agenda.