Editor interview: Penny Walker, The Telegraph
Travel Features & Guides Editor at The Telegraph tells us about the team and their commissioning structure.
This week we’ve got intel on The Telegraph’s travel desk from Travel Features & Guides Editor, Penny Walker. Here’s the lowdown on how and what to pitch to The Telegraph.
Tell us a little about the structure of The Telegraph’s travel team.
We're a large desk and have a team of about 20 people. Ben Ross is our Head of Travel and Oliver Smith is Deputy Head of Travel. We’re essentially split into three teams. Hotels is managed by Rachel Cranshaw and Emma Beaumont is her deputy — they’re the main points of contact if pitching hotel-related content. Oliver commissions what we refer to as our ‘live’ features, along with Gemma Knight-Gilani, and I head up the evergreen side of things, aided by my wonderful team including Lucy Aspden-Kean, who knows more about ski than anyone else I know, and Kaye Holland, our cruise commissioning editor. We’ve also got a handful of excellent in-house writers.
What does your job title mean?
My job title is Travel Features & Guides Editor, and my role covers anything that could be classed as ‘evergreen’ content — beyond hotels. That means everything from our award-winning destination guides to our cruise roundups and our evergreen features, which tend to be things like ‘ultimate itineraries’, wide format, beautiful builds that are longer reads, or roundups, such as the 50 best family holidays for 2025. I look after a team of six talented editors.