• March 1, 2001

On March 4, the first redesigned issue of The Sophisticated Traveler, a second section of The New York Times Sunday magazine, will appear with additional pages that accommodate extra advertising. The redesign, the first since the magazine was launched in 1983, features cover photography and a wealth of new editorial content that will lend itself to new advertising.

Articles on individual cities, streets, food and style, which hadn’t appeared before, will enable the Times to sell the magazine to new advertisers. "It allows us to cross sell," says Alexis Buryk, the Times group VP of advertising. "We’re starting to get advertising outside of the travel arena." Buryk notes that in the past, almost 90% of the advertising in Sophisticated Traveler came from travel and transportation advertisers. But the first redesigned issue features more general advertisers, including Prada, Merrill Lynch and Land Rover.

The advertising will appear with related editorial. The "niche editorial opens up opportunities for other advertisers," she says. The redesign expands Sophisticated Traveler to 108 pages from 92, with some of those pages for extra advertising. The Times says the magazine has been expanded by 12%.

Sophisticated Traveler is distributed in every issue of the Sunday Times, which has a circulation of 1.7 million. It appears four times a year and is one of a series of second sections of the Sunday magazine. The others are Fashion, Men’s Fashion, Style and Entertaining and Home Design.

- Ken Liebeskind