Episode #3 Jacqueline Gifford, Travel + Leisure

Hanna (1:24) Hi Jacqui!

Jacqui (1:25) Hi, how are you?

Hanna (1:26) Good, how are you? Welcome aboard. 

Jacqui (1:28) Good! It’s so good to see you guys, albeit virtually, but hey this is the world we’re living in right?

Hanna (1:30) Exactly. 

Michael (1:31) Absolutely. 

Jacqui (1:32) Gotta embrace it. 

Michael (1:33) So Jacqui, you’ve been Editor-in-Chief of Travel + Leisure since 2018. So for our listeners, what does an Editor-in-Chief actually do and what do you do on a day-to-day basis?

Jacqui (1:37) Oh gosh, that’s a very good question. What does an Editor-in-Chief do? Uh well, so I joined T+L in June of 2013 so it’s been a little over seven years now and then I started as Editor-in-Chief in November of 2018, so I’ve held a number of roles at the brand and I’ve done everything from edit features and run sections, to media appearances, and then when I stepped into this role I have to say, the really interesting thing about it is, you know, you’re just, you’re always on.

I think a lot of this job, there’s absolutely a glamorous component to it, certainly when you’re traveling and meeting people around the world and going to conferences and events, but there’s also a very interesting side of it which is just managing people and being, you know, the boss of a magazine, and you have to work with lots of different people, different personalities, keep the brand running on a very like basic day-to-day level.

A lot of the things I’m doing are just problem solving or answering questions for my team, making sure that our lineups are great, and I work with our executive editor quite closely on that, and, and then obviously working with the publishing side, which is, you know, driving advertising or finding you know, strategic solutions for our partners, and then continuing to do media appearances, reach out and also just, read!

I know that sounds really crazy but I try to read a lot just to understand what’s happening in the world, what’s trending, and so there’s a lot of the job that’s, it’s less uh, you know, it might seem like it’s super creative but at times it’s actually not that creative anymore because you’re sort of in the day-to-day grind of just producing and, and, and sort of having everything come together and so I let my team do a lot of the creative stuff so that I can keep the train moving, so to speak. 

Hanna (3:25) Wow, you’re wearing many hats. 

Jacqui (3:27) Yeah, I guess so. But you know what, I'm a multitasker. I think anybody who’s in this role learns pretty quickly that you have to be able to sort of multitask, put out a fire here, put out a fire there, come up with a solution to a problem, uhm but also just, you have to be accessible too. That’s the other part of it. 

Hanna (3:47) 100%. Yeah, so Jacqui you love travel and I know your last travel destination was India, which I love, love, love. So with this recent lockdown, are you getting serious cabin fever..like me?

Jacqui (4:04) I would say yeah I guess so, I mean I think yes, uh, the answer is yes. I feel like our last big international trip, big, big trip, was definitely India. We went over Christmas with my parents, but we haven’t. We went to Charleston, South Carolina in the middle of February before everything really shifted. We were there for a long weekend, and that was the last time I flew anywhere.

I think right now it’s, you know, for a lot of people and our readers too it feels like it’s hard to plan but, but I’m starting to think like, okay, a year from now, two years from now, what are the places I really want to go, and, and, and then also I’m gonna take, you know, little weekend trips here in New York State, which, is totally safe, and you know, do everything that’s according to state and local guidelines, just to feel like I am traveling or seeing something new because that’s really how your, your mind stays fresh.

But I, I obviously haven’t traveled abroad, uhm, since this all began but look, you gotta play the long game. I think anybody who’s in hospitality knows that there will be an end to this, we will come out of it, it’s just a matter of when, and then, and then, you know, travel might look different, that’s completely plausible, feasible, all of that but I think we should all, we shouldn’t keep dreaming. There will be other trips to take, you know, down the line. 

Hanna (5:10) Agree. So what do you miss most about travel? 

Jacqui (5:13) Oh gosh, I miss, I miss everything about it. You know, even boarding a plane, you know the sort of stepping onto a plane and feeling like you’re going somewhere and, you know, there’s, there’s so much that I miss about it. I miss staying in hotels and sort of talking to people, I miss arts and culture and, you know, going to a museum. I miss everything. Uhm, there’s not one part of it I don’t miss.

I think, you know, there’s some things that I, I wish I had done even in the last year, it’s, I thought about it when, with India, we rushed home and we missed staying New Year’s Eve in Mumbai, and I really regret, I don’t know why we didn’t do that, i felt like we had to get, I had to get home for work but the reality was we probably should’ve just stayed the extra night and my husband and I could’ve had a cool celebration and New Year’s a, New Year’s Eve. You know, back then, you know that’s when we could all gather and have a party, and so I’m kind of kicking myself that we didn’t do that. I think I’m gonna try and say yes to more things going forward, and not stress about small stuff. 

Michael (6:11) That’s a great approach to life in general. 

Jacqui (6:13) Yes, yeah you have to be that way I think at this point.

Michael (6:16) So, we could really imagine that coronavirus obviously has affected the content of the magazine since travel has been so curtailed, as of late. So how are you approaching what’s really the seismic change, and what kind of stories are you going to be working on in the next six months?

Jacqui (6:33) Yeah, it’s a great question. I mean, I think we’re still publishing the magazine which, uhm, you know, we’re the only monthly travel magazine in the United States.  That was the case before this all started and we’ve continued to publish, so I think, I mean the honest answer is we are trying our best to keep up with the times knowing that the conversation shifts every day.

So for example, you know, we were living in New York, the epicenter of the virus, that shifted to Miami. So you have to sort of think ahead but you also can’t, I think, you have to give, our audience gives us the credit and knows that like, this is such a fast developing situation that like you can’t… Publishing, for example, in the magazine an update on the rules and regulations and state closures and this and that seems like a hopeless exercise because it changes so fast, right, like if i was just…who knows what we’ll be in the month from now.

So I think what we’re trying to do is just give them inspirational tools for the future because the print magazine that people, you know they save it for a really long time, and then they eventually take the trip, so we’re doing some really smart stories, like when we left the office in mid-March and then we had to close the magazine in mid-April, we figured okay, national parks, they’re always popular with our readers, I bet once this sort of, people start to come out of lockdown, they’re gonna wanna go to parks.

And sure enough that was true. So we published a story on like how to best see the national parks. Uhm, and then for example, you know we did our World’s Best Awards and we, you know, acknowledged the fact that, and the and that’s our Reader’s Survey annual you know edition always comes out in August, this year it was the 25th, uhm, edition of it and we knew that eventually our readers are gonna wanna travel.

The survey closed in March before the pandemic started so we put a disclaimer at the top that said “look like some of these businesses might be closed, but we know that you voted for them before the pandemic started and that shouldn’t negate what, all the accomplishments that these amazing brands use as an inspirational tool for the future. And then with our digital presence, we’re able to keep people up to date with everything from okay, this destination in the Caribbean is requiring a COVID test, or this is how it’s, you know, this is what flying is really like right now because that’s really, the digital tool, the tool of digital is to tell you what’s happening by the minute and so we’re able to do that and you’re kind of, kind of straddling both worlds which is what we were frankly doing before.

Hanna (8:50) Yeah.

Jacqui (8:52) Um, It’s just even more so now, there’s more of a news, I would say, news hook, news angle to TravelandLeisure.com than ever before. 

Hanna (8:58) Yeah, very true. Congratulations again, 25th issue, that’s incredible. 

Jacqui (9:01) 25th yeah that was a big deal. 25th anniversary of World’s Best and then Travel + Leisure turns 50 next year as a brand, which is kind of amazing. 

Michael (9:10) Congratulations. 

Jacqui (9:11) Yeah. 

Hanna (9:12) Well you guys are aging beautifully. Just like a fine wine. 

Jacqui (9:15)  Thank you. 

Hanna (9:17) Totally. I mean it’s one of my favorite issues of the year and I look forward to it and I like keep this issue for a long, long time. It just makes you feel like dream you know, there’s a place to go. 

Jacqui (9:26) Yeah. 

Hanna (9:27) So looking at next year, if this pandemic situation continues until early next year, how are you gonna go about the World’s Best Issue 2021?

Jacqui (9:39) Well we have, uhm that’s a good question. We ask readers to give their experiences over the past three years, so there’s still plenty of time to write. And look let’s be honest, people are still traveling right now so you know, there’s traveling domestically, some hotels domestically will tell you that this is the best season they’ve ever had. So, our readers are doing trips.

They might not be the same trips they did before but, I don’t doubt that, that we’ll still be able to have the survey, we’re planning on having the survey, and maybe the results will look a little bit different this year, you know, traditionally we’ve had a lot of hotels abroad, you know uhm, in Asia in particular rank really high on the Top 100 List, well maybe people aren’t traveling to Asia, maybe we’ll have more domestic hotels rank higher, I don’t know.

Who knows what the world, you know, you just don’t know but we’re still gonna move forward and, and you know give our readers the space to vote. A lot of times you know they’re, I think, you know they’re drawing on vast amounts of experience with traveling. Our readers take seven leisure trips a year, so we've still got plenty of time and then look, let's be honest, things will get better, so... 

Hanna (10:40) Yes, agree.

Jacqui (10:41) So they will. 

Hanna (10:44) They will, they will. 

Michael (10:46) No question, no question. 

Jacqui (10:47) Yeah.

Michael (10:48) So obviously the economy has been affected as well. How do you think that’s going to affect travel and you know, knowing that things have been shifting, is it gonna change the kinds of stories or the kinds of places that you feature?

Jacqui (11:01) Yeah, I mean, I - look, there, there’s no doubt that the economy has been impacted and frankly it’s mainly you know a lot of the job, the job loss sadly has been in the hospitality industry, whether it’s restaurants or hotels. You know, one in 10, one in 10 jobs around the world is powered, are powered by travel and tourism. So, uhm, as far as uh, affecting the content of the magazine, you know, we’ve always presented a fair amount of, you know we’re a luxury brand, and, and I mean we cover luxury hospitality but we’ve also, you know, a lot of the hotels that we cover aren’t necessarily super expensive, um.

And we’ve always had that approach where we have, make sure that we have a mix of affordable things, high-end things because that’s just the way that every, you know, people who travel sometimes they splurge on a fancy dinner but they’ll decide to save on the hotel right, so it’s just, we make sure to have things balance but I would say like when you look at what people spend, and it’s still too soon to tell but i don’t doubt that when we come out of this people will, will spend whatever discretionary income they do have if they’re fortunate enough to have some they’ll still continue to spend it on travel.

I don’t think they’re gonna stop spending on travel because it’s still an experience and they, there’s gonna be a lot of pent up demand too so, people will have been locked down for a while or not been able to go anywhere, you know, and so when they do go out I think they’re going to be like oh gosh, this is like “why did I wait to take this, this trip? This was, you know, on my bucket list, amazing trip I wanted to do for years, why shouldn’t I do it now?” So I think there’s, you know, there’s, there’s gonna be an interesting, stuff still, still to come still to play out but, but again I don’t doubt that people will spend money on travel when, when they’re able to. 

Hanna (12:39) Yeah, I think also in the meantime I feel like a lot of people will be really traveling locally, they will explore their neighbor cities. 

Jacqui (12:46) Yeah!

Michael (12:47) Road trips. 

Jacqui (12:47) Yeah, I’m doing, you know, in New York City, we’re, you know, outdoor dining is open now and so my husband and I try to do a few nights out a week just to help our neighborhood and our neighborhood businesses cause we love them or the Botanical Garden is gonna open, okay well then why don’t we go up and see that and help that out or the museum. So people, they’re, they’re, they won’t be able to go as far afield but I don’t doubt that they’ll wanna support what they can in their local area. 

Hanna (13:14) Mhmm, yeah true. So, we wanna talk to you about storytelling. 

Jacqui (13:15) Mhmm. 

Hanna (13:17) So what makes a great Travel + Leisure story? And, if you can walk us through the process of bringing a story to life from start to finish? 

Jacqui (13:29) Sometimes it starts with our editors, and like, getting intel or information on the ground about news trends, and then we’ll say “hey, this writer might, you know, this writer lives in this area, why don’t we have them tell the story or same thing for the photographer, or most, probably most times, it’s a writer who comes up with an idea, um again, looking to trends, news, information, and then comes to us and says, “this is what I’d like to report,” and then when we a greenlight obviously we, we don’t want the story to have been told elsewhere, um, first, because then it doesn’t feel like it’s an exclusive experience or story and then we’ll move forward with getting, you know, getting the writer there, getting them, um, getting them into places if they need our help.

Oftentimes they don’t because they know, they have contacts on the ground, uhm, and then we, we end up shooting, shooting the story, you know, before this all happened a lot of times we would have the writer and photographer, if it made sense, travel together so if it was a particularly far-flung trip and we couldn’t get two separate individuals there we’d have them travel together, and often times the story could take almost a year, year and a half to develop between like doing the trip and then running it uhm, it just depends upon a variety of factors.

And, you know, we have various sections in the magazine and some, some are more news and informational pieces and some are the longer more, you know, narrative feature, feature-style stories that, that take a little bit more time to get off the ground. 

Hanna (14:52) How often do you have editorial meetings? I mean, do you Zoom with everybody?

Jacqui (14:56)  Yeah! Yeah, sure I mean now its, you know, we have meetings at least once or twice a week just to stay in touch with everybody and I do individual check-ins, I see my team on a weekly meeting, there’s all sorts of ways that we’re meeting and talking right now, it’s, you know, it’s, and, and that, it’s kind of the same as how it was in the office, it’s just virtually now. 

Hanna (15:15)  And you know what, it’s working fine!

Jacqui (15:17)  It is!

Michael (15:18) It’s effective. 

Hanna (15:18) It’s very productive. 

Jacqui (15:19) For the most part, yeah. 

Hanna (15:20) Yeah, haha. 

Michael (15:21) So quick question, what’s the best way for our listeners to pitch your writers and editors?

Jacqui (15:25) Um, I mean I always tell people to look at the masthead and, and study the masthead of T + L and then we have different sections in the book and at the top of each section there’s a section editor so people know who to reach out to uhm, that's you know the best information I can, I can give right now.

Um we’re trying to work on even like giving more uhm frank pitching guidelines in the future but I think the really, the best way forward is to look at the masthead cause you kind of know and if you’re a writer or photographer you sort of know based upon titles and what sections again, what each section - there’s discoveries, experiences, intelligent traveler and then the future well, you know the future well is edited by our features editor.  So most people who are in the business kind of know those, those rules. Sorry I don’t want to say rules but the sort of guidelines, the general guidelines for how to pitch a magazine.  

Michael (16:13) Speaking about guidelines, do you have like three do’s and three don’ts for making it into Travel + Leisure? 

Jacqui (16:18) Oh wow! Um, well I would just say the general rule, I think a good thing you know is why is it a good fit for our brand vs. there are so many, there are different travel outlets out there and so hopefully the writer or the photographer reads the magazine and, and our site and understands the kinds of stories we want to tell and then make sure that the angle feels fresh and exclusive to us. You know sometimes I feel like uhm, it doesn’t happen often but, you’d be surprised by how many times somebody will pitch you something and they’ve already pitched it to somebody else and or you’ve seen the story in another outlet so you can’t really run something that somebody else has done.

Hanna (16:54) Makes sense. Ok so we want to talk to you about “Let’s Go Together” the podcast.

Jacqui (16:59) Yeah! 

Hanna (17:00) I love the name. So how do you approach the story telling, could our listeners pitch with your story? 

Jacqui (17:07) Yeah, I mean we’re, you know we just had one season so far of the podcast so hopefully there will be a second season so, uhm we understand there’s been a great response because there’s you know it’s very relevant to the times. It’s something we’ve been working on for quite, for actually a long time but we just got the official green light to record it in January and we’re hoping, we’re hoping there’s a season two but we haven’t gotten there yet so we’re not taking pitches yet but I think in general you know we’re, I just really want to encourage more people to listen to it first. And just understand who the guests are and their stories and just listen. That’s really the thing, the thing that I’m most concerned about right now.

Hanna (17:43) Great. Ok.

Michael (17:44) And now it’s time for the listener question segment of the show uh we have a question from Tetsuro Miyazaki's, General Manager of iichiko USA, which is one of Japan’s leading Shochu producers. So with the Tokyo Olympics coming up next summer, when will Travel + Leisure begin coverage? And will the coverage include dining and drinking? 

Jacqui (18:06) That’s a good question. We just so, we did a whole uhm Tokyo shopping package which ran in April cause that was sort of in advance of the Olympics and so giving people a whole idea on where to shop and there were some dining recommendations there too. Uhm, we are looking to do more Japan edit uh, I can’t tell you what that looks like right at the moment but don’t get me wrong, like we love Japan and our readers love Japan so we’re going to start to think, to think about now that things there are a little more stable, what sorts of stories that we’re going to tell for the future. But we’ve got, I mean we’ve got a little bit of time so that’s the good thing.

Uhm and you know we’re, we’re still continuing to cover restaurants, spirits, any sort of you know, food. I know it looks different than what it did before but again we’re just watching and as the situation’s evolving we’re, we’re making tweaks to our calendar. But Japan is always on our radar because our readers really love it. 

Michael (18:54) And you were born in Japan right? 

Jacqui (18:56) I was, yes I was born in Yokohama, I was born there uhm and lived there for two years then I moved away and then I moved back there for another two years and uh when I was a teenager.

Hanna (19:07) Do you speak Japanese? 

Jacqui (19:09) I don’t sadly, uh we didn’t live there long enough so that I could kind of get in a consistent groove with it but uhm, who knows maybe look with all this time on my hands, I shouldn’t say that “time on my hands” we’ve never been working harder but maybe uhm, I can try and take some language lessons at home. 

Hanna (19:25) Yeah! Are you planning to attend the olympics next year?

Jacqui (19:27)  Gosh, I would love to. It would have been a dream. It has been a dream for me to stay at the Hoshinoya in Tokyo which won for our World’s Best Awards this year. I had friends stay there and they raved about it and we were hoping to get a crew to the Olympics staying at Hoshinoya, I was hoping I could go but obviously things changed. So the world had other plans for us.

Michael (19:49) But something to look forward to.

Jacqui (19:50) Yeah.

Michael (19:51) So we call our podcast, Hospitality Forward because we’re optimistic about the industry. So what, what kind of innovations are you seeing or hearing about that you think travel destinations or people in the hotel and travel industry should be adopting to help move hospitality forward? 

Jacqui (20:09) I think you know we’ll, we’ll have to see there’s still so much that’s, that’s changing and happening on the ground but I think everything from the simple things right from the plexiglass at check-in to you know, thermal scanning to uhm, you know perhaps rapid blood tests, who knows. I feel like I, I haven’t, I mean I read about, so I guess the interesting question is that I read about all of these things but I, it’s still so new frankly that nobody’s tested it out on a regular enough basis to sort of know what the real impact is and whether or not it’s meaningful yet.

Um you know, like I know for example Bermuda is a destination right you have to, you do a COVID test, uhm you submit your paperwork I believe it’s seven days in advance the when you’re on the ground you do an instant test, you quarantine in your room for, your hotel room for eight hours until you get the results back. Then if you’re, depending on how long you’re staying, they will come back and make you do a, you have to do another COVID test. It's three, seven and fourteen days.

That to me seems pretty comprehensive in terms of like a destination expecting follow up from the visitor so it’s not just like one and done when you walk in, that you continue, they continue to monitor - that seems like a fairly comprehensive plan. Uhm but who, again like it’s like I haven’t done that yet personally so I think we just have to watch and monitor carefully and then you know everything from again like Emirates Airlines started doing that uhm you know they were doing the blood test right?

You know I just, I again I haven’t done it, no one has done it enough to know what's gonna really hold and what’s going to really stick. I mean every hotel has gone through and every airline is going through rigorous cleaning processes. I think that is something our readers just expect coming out of this. Uh and for most for, for many properties I guess it seems to be working. And maybe like look, when it comes to restaurants, maybe we should think about in the winter time doing heat lamps all throughout New York City.

And doing more outdoor dining, I don’t know that, that could work. Uhm do more, do more outdoor events in a socially distanced way like if eventually when we all want to go back to stadiums, is there, is there a rapid blood test that you could execute and do on, at scale. A Lot of this I think is really about what will really be scalable. 

Hanna (22:31) True.

Jacqui (22:32) If you’re looking at for, for large groups and things of that sort.

Michael (22:35) And hopefully we’ll have the vaccine sometime soon.

Jacqui (22:37) Or we’ll have the vaccine and then, and then maybe you know some of these changes or behaviors may go back to a more normal way. I just don’t, none of us really know sadly, I wish I did, I wish I had all the answers. 

Hanna (22:50) I know. So if you had to choose one oversea’s destination for your first travel after the pandemic, where would that be?

Jacqui (22:59) Well I have to say, you know, I mentioned Bermuda before, I would do Bermuda, because it’s close but also because we have friends there and the beaches are beautiful. I think I’d rather, I’d like to sit on a beach for a little bit uhm, so I just haven’t, my son’s passport is sadly expired so I can’t, we’re grounded really but uhm but, but that would probably be my first choice. 

Hanna (23:20) Ah, sounds like a dream.

Jacqui (23:21) Yeah.

Hanna (23:22) So let's keep dreaming.

Jacqui (23:22) Keep dreaming.