Travel Journalism: The road to nowhere

Travel specialist Moss reveals the home truths about travel journalism: how it has become swamped by celebrities and freeloading staff members and pays specialist writers poorly. Moss writes: "More overpaid amateur-celebrity stories and the grim proliferation of under-valued professional material through random media is worst of all worlds. The very best travel stories are a model of journalism. They entertain, they educate, (occasionally) they illuminate. The main contemporary issues - the environment, the cultural impact of travel, the economics of the tourist dollar, the horrors of globetrotting and the terror of airport and airplanes - should all command space among the upbeat copy on boutique hotels, delicious food, beautiful landscapes and unique cultures. This, I reckon, could be the model for television, too, and then there would be no more...celebrity pointlessness. Travel is, after defence, the second biggest industry on the planet. Does it really have to be the smallest kind of journalism?"