New Owners for World of Cruising Magazine!

 Publishing and Database company Real Response Media (RRM) have announced the acquisition of Europe’s leading cruise publication, World of Cruisingmagazine, from independent operator Robin Maclear of Sussex-based The Cruise Line Ltd. The change of hands follows a prolonged steady growth period for the magazine, which is Europe’s leading cruise publication, having been founded in 1998. Maclear has sold the controlling interest to RRM, and they will continue to develop the magazine’s growth along international lines.

Managing Director Chris Pitchford says: “This is an opportunity to take an existing, well-established niche publication and take it to the next level. There continues to be huge and consistent growth in the cruise market, and no publication has yet fully captured that readership and growth potential. We have significant plans to take the magazine’s existing

high-quality style and extend it to that market in a number of different ways that should be very exciting both for our current readers and the world of cruising in general.”

Pitchford will be partnered by RRM Director Matthew Underhill, who is also Managing Director of Event Live Media, which effectively gives the company both a contract and exhibition publishing arm as well as a magazine publishing business. 

In the past 15 years, World of Cruising has become a major authority on all cruise-related matters, including helping to launch new lines such as Oceania Cruises in the UK and introduce a variety of niche luxury and adventure cruise companies. The magazine has reviewed hundreds of ships and explored destinations from the Amazon to the Zambezi. Columns such as The Admiral have achieved a cult following, while those of Captain Greybeard, The Cruise Guy and Cruise Radio have found a following in the US as well as Britain. The popular online version of the magazine is read from the US to Australia and it has also been published in China, the first cruise publication there.

Says Robin Maclear: “The sale to Real Response Media comes at an opportune time in cruise development and will allow World of Cruising to become the fully independent voice

of cruising worldwide. It has been a pleasure to work with our editor, Simon Veness, and an excellent team of journalists. All of us will continue to play our part in the magazine’s future growth as well.”

The Autumn edition of the magazine has just been published (www.worldofcruising.co.uk) and the first edition under RRM’s leadership will be the Winter issue, publishing in January.

Contacts: For Real Response Media, contact Chris Pitchford on 020 8444 6045 or email chris.pitchford@realresponsemedia.com. For Robin Maclear, call 0870 442 6933 or email robin@cruiseline.co.uk.