Clive Jacobs

In August 2009, Clive made his first media investment by acquiring Travel Weekly and its associated events and brands including the Globe Travel Awards, Travolution and Gazetteers, from Reed Business Information. He set about transforming the business from a failing traditional b2b trade magazine, to a multi-faceted media and events business with global reach.

In April 2020, Jacobs Media Group received a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in recognition of its international growth.

First published as Travel News in 1969, Travel Weekly boasts a 50-year heritage and is the undisputed market-leading travel trade media brand across all metrics. In addition to the flagship weekly print magazine which is published 51 times a year and reaches more than 45,000 readers, Travel Weekly’s multimedia portfolio includes print and digital publications, websites including travelweekly.co.uk, social channels, jobs boards, email, video, podcasts and more.

It also runs the most highly-regarded events in the travel industry, from dazzling showpiece ceremonies including the Globe Travel Awards and Agent Achievement Awards to full-day conferences and exclusive business breakfasts, dinners and lunches featuring the most sought-after speakers in travel and beyond.

Travel Weekly’s core readership ranges from frontline travel sellers and suppliers to the chief executives of the world’s leading travel firms, and it is the first choice for breaking news, award-winning features and the best analysis of the issues facing the industry at home and overseas.

The Travel Weekly editorial and commercial team boasts unrivalled experience and knowledge of the industry it serves.

The Travel Weekly Globe Travel Awards are widely acknowledged as the pinnacle of the UK travel industry, honouring companies and individuals in a range of sectors.

Established in 1976, the awards take place in front of more than 1,200 guests at the Grosvenor House hotel on London’s Park Lane every January and attract the cream of the UK and international travel industry.

In addition to awards recognising best-in-class brands in a range of categories, special awards recognise the industry’s outstanding achievers, innovators and unsung heroes.

The glittering gala ceremony is attended by the UK travel industry’s most senior figures, and since 2019 has been held in association with consumer media partner Hearst UK, the publisher of 25 brands including Esquire, ELLE, Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan and Good Housekeeping.

The Globes are also renowned for featuring some of the biggest names in entertainment, with previous hosts including James Corden, Michael McIntyre and David Walliams.

The Caterer is the leading multimedia brand for the UK hospitality industry, covering restaurants, hotels, foodservice and pubs & bars. Since 1878, The Caterer has inspired, connected and united the hospitality industry, and provides suppliers with a platform to showcase their most innovative products and services.

Its mission is to empower the leaders of today and aspiring leaders of tomorrow with tools, skills and networks to enable them to make better decisions to grow their businesses and careers.

These include a weekly magazine and 15 annual supplements, each reaching 30,000 readers; market-leading website thecaterer.com with more than 300,000 monthly unique users; a suite of email alerts, including the Breakfast Briefing sent to 30,000 industry leaders each weekday at 9.30am; and Caterer Insight market trend reports.

The Caterer’s portfolio of 35 annual events includes the Cateys, Hotel Cateys, Foodservice Cateys, Acorn Awards, UK Sommelier of the Year, Product Excellence Awards, Caterer Summit, People Summit and Chef Eats Out.

The Caterer editorial and commercial team have unrivalled reach in the hospitality industry.

In 2013 the prestigious Cateys Awards celebrated their 30th anniversary with the biggest event to date, they have continued to grow every year since. In 2014, the Foodservice Cateys was launched to recognise achievement and complete the Cateys portfolio along with the well-established Hotel Cateys.

Elsewhere, the events portfolio has experienced exponential growth with the re-birth of “Chef Eats Out” and “Best Places to Work in Hospitality”, the rollout of the hugely successful Foodservice and Hotel Forum concepts, and the launch of annual HR & Digital Forums. The Caterer also partners with other organisations, co-presenting The Shine Awards, Restaurant Manager of the Year and the UK Sommelier of the Year awards – which Clive acquired from the British Institute of Innkeeping in April 2017.

In 2021 Clive launched Connecting Travel in the Middle East and opened up an office in Media City.

Connecting Travel aims to bring together the global travel market with travel and hospitality professionals in the Middle East Region.

Focused on a readership which includes the chief executives of the region’s leading travel firms, senior hoteliers, frontline travel sellers and suppliers, Connecting Travel is a digital first product powered by a database of the key players in the Middle East tourism and hospitality markets. Editorial content is focused on thought leadership pieces and interviews with the biggest names in the Middle East travel and hospitality industries, plus destination content, and updates on all the latest routes, openings, and activities taking place throughout the Middle East. Connecting Travel’s aim is to bring the quality of journalism to the Middle East with which other Jacobs Media Group brands have seen such success, and to become the must-read source of travel and hospitality content in the region. The Connecting Travel website is available in both English and Arabic language sites, with all content available across both iterations. The weekly newsletters bring readers the top stories of the week for both the internal and external tourism markets in the Middle East, with bespoke in-market editorial written by the team based in Media City, Dubai, plus global news sourced from its UK sister titles.

In 2014, Clive launched a completely new events concept called “Connections”. Connections Luxury is the international private community for trusted decision-makers in luxury travel, with specialist sectors such as adventure, FIT, weddings, wellbeing, and meetings incentives supporting thousands of senior professionals. The Connections Luxury Community is an independent and inclusive network which connects senior travel agents, concierge, destination wedding planners, incentive houses, adventure, and wellness specialists with the finest hoteliers, DMCs and destinations from around the world.

Connections embody a unique and award-winning event format, which seeks to create meaningful and lasting relationships between senior travel buyers and sellers. Trusted by the world's leading destinations to deploy luxury events and campaigns.

Connections in numbers
5,000+ EXECUTIVES IN ATTENDANCE
50+ HIGHLY TARGETED, CURATED EVENTS
WITH A COMMUNITY GENERATING 4.2 BILLION IN SPEND

To support the recovery and resurgence of the travel industry, Jacobs Media Group launched the annual Global Travel Week powered by Connections in 2021 to offer unrivalled insight and connectivity through its worldwide portfolio.

The new annual travel trade event brings together decision-makers from across the global travel industry to network, do business, cooperate through tourism and expand opportunities with UK senior buyers. Travel sectors covered include luxury, meetings & incentives, wellbeing, adventure, weddings, mainstream travel and travel technology.

Designed in the pioneering ‘Connections’ networking format, Global Travel Week welcomes worldwide destinations and their private sector representatives to meet UK buyers through highly targeted one-to-one meetings, complemented by a variety of destination-inspired experiences. Connections Luxury also hosts a dedicated programme for its members, who represent leading luxury travel brands and agencies.

Travel leaders in attendance also benefit from insightful and focused content sessions delivered throughout by Jacobs Media Group’s market-leading travel brands including Travel Weekly UK; Aspire; Unity Through Tourism; the Global Travel & Tourism Resilience Council; the Association of Touring and Adventure Suppliers (ATAS) and Travolution.

In 2010 Aspire became the first Travel Weekly launch under new ownership. Aspire is the only luxury travel club that connects suppliers and agents selling high-end travel experiences. Aspire comprises a print magazine, a members-only website, an extensive events network and a consumer-facing digital magazine which is white-labelled by agent members. In 2018, the brand held its inaugural Leaders of Luxury conference, now an annual symposium attracting more than 250 senior executives on an invitation-only basis. It also created The Retreat, hosting 25 hand-picked luxury travel sellers and 15 suppliers overseas for four days of relationship building and education, as well as celebrating the cream of the luxury industry at the annual Aspire Awards.

In December 2016, Clive created the International Travel Crisis Management Summit to bring together public and private stakeholders in the travel industry to address challenges and response to crises and disasters, both man-made and environmental, and share best practice and information across destinations and industries. Following the success of the ITCMS, the concept evolved into The Resilience Council which works in partnership with leading industry figures and organisations and is supported by multiple governments around the world including Jordan, South Africa, Jamaica, Greece and Nepal. It is co-chaired by Jamaica’s tourism minister Edmund Bartlett and Dr Taleb Rifai, former secretary general of the UNWTO.

In April 2017 Jacobs Media Group launched the Association of Touring & Adventure Suppliers (ATAS), bringing together 30 leading companies to grow the awareness of the sector. In October of the same year the first ATAS exhibition took place at the Birmingham ICC, with over three hundred sellers of travel attending a day of conference sessions and market place activity.