Travelwriters UK

Travelwriters UK is an informal membership organisation for professional working travel journalists and authors of guide books, including editors, photographers and broadcasters, whose work is intended for a UK audience. The group, with about 100 members, has no physical address and exists through its website and its presence on social media, with Travelwriters UK groups on Facebook and Twitter and a private group on LinkedIn.
Influence
The journalists listed on Travelwriters UK’s website between them provide travel content for almost all of the UK’s national newspapers, major news-stand magazines, leading travel trade publications and travel websites, as well as all the UK’s principal guidebook publishers. They also provide travel content for similar travel media throughout the English-speaking world, and also in other languages, including Spanish, French and Chinese. Several have won awards for their work. Most members are also members of other writers' organisations, especially the British Guild of Travel Writers.
Membership and mission
Travelwriters UK states its purpose as “to give travel media professionals a 'shop window' that can be seen free of charge by editors anywhere in the world.”. The group has occasionally been involved in campaigning to protect writers' rights, for example copyright.
To be accepted for membership of Travelwriters UK, applicants are required to show several pieces of recent travel journalism or other travel writing which must have been paid for at typical professional journalists’ rates and published in mainstream UK media (or by a leading guidebook publisher). Members are permitted to self-publish, blog or work without pay, but in order to join the group - and remain in it - a proportion of their work must be paid for at full professional rates. A fee is also payable to join Travelwriters UK.
Despite the name, members of Travelwriters UK are not required to be British or even live in the United Kingdom. The website’s “Local Knowledge” page shows that in addition to the UK, Travelwriters UK members are based all around the world including in Australia, China, Japan, South America and the USA.
Topics covered
The Travelwriters UK membership taken as a whole covers all aspects of travel, transport and tourism, including such issues as ecotourism and consumer protection, across the range of UK media from newspapers and guidebooks, specialist publications and popular magazines, to e-books, blogs, websites and apps.
Travelwriters UK webpages
The bulk of the Travelwriters UK website consists of listings of members’ brief CVs and contact details with links to their social media accounts, websites and examples of their work. Some members have separate personal webpages on the site, with longer CVs including examples of their published travel writing and photography. Also on the site is a diary of forthcoming travel trade and travel media events, as well as a travel bookshop selling travel books and e-books.
History
Travelwriters UK was set up in October 1999 by British travel writer Andrew Sanger.

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