With the arrival of social media, that feedback became much more immediate. Today, we know far more precisely and quickly which stories resonate, which destinations spark curiosity and how travel habits are changing. This has allowed us to adapt while remaining true to our identity.

Almost twenty years ago, we knew we did not want to create just another conventional travel magazine. There were already major titles occupying that space, and we needed to find our own perspective. Over time, we have carved out a niche among readers looking for authentic travel stories grounded in experience, rather than promotion alone. One of our earliest slogans was: “QTRAVEL, because there are other ways to travel.” Although it has not appeared on our masthead for years, I believe it captures our philosophy even better today than when we first started.

How has the magazine evolved to respond to travellers’ changing habits while maintaining a rigorous, inspiring and useful editorial offering in an increasingly competitive digital landscape?

Markets change, and so do readers’ habits. For QTRAVEL, 2017 was a turning point: we discontinued the print edition sold at newsstands and switched to a digital format. The biggest change was not simply replacing paper with a screen, but what happened afterwards. We went from around 25,000 readers in our print days to approximately 70,500 today. We almost tripled our audience.

The way people read our features also changed. I have always enjoyed describing destinations in depth, trying to understand why things are the way they are and providing context. Yet over these years, we have had to reduce the amount of text per page by around 20%. In other words, our readers fifteen or twenty years ago read more text than they do today. The old saying that “a picture is worth a thousand words” carries even greater weight in the digital age, when images have become all the more essential.

This required us to adapt our storytelling without compromising the substance. We still publish in-depth features, with an increasingly prominent role for photography, and the magazine has evolved from a standalone publication into part of a wider mix encompassing video, social media, radio and television. Each medium has its own pace and calls for a different approach to storytelling.

Perhaps that is one of the biggest changes of the past two decades. We used to speak mainly about readers; today, we speak about users who may discover the same destination through very different media. The challenge is to tailor our language to each medium without losing the rigour, distinctive voice or firsthand experience behind the content.

As you mentioned, your work also extends to radio, with contributions to Miradas Viajeras on Capital Radio and RAC1manat on RAC1 in Catalonia. What does this medium bring to travel storytelling, and how do you spark listeners’ imaginations through words alone?

There is something about radio that I find particularly appealing: it is much more personal, direct and spontaneous. In a magazine, you can revise a sentence, change a word or find exactly the right way to express an idea. On radio, you cannot. What you say goes out in that moment, and that gives the storytelling a much greater sense of immediacy.

Anecdotes and personal experiences also work especially well. Listeners want to know what happened, how you reacted, what surprised you or what turned out differently from what you had expected. That human element makes a destination feel more relatable and the story much more engaging.

I also feel particularly comfortable on radio because some of the pressure that comes with being on camera disappears. On television, you are aware of the camera in front of you and, although you learn to forget about it over the years, a certain formality inevitably remains. Personally, I always try to be natural and talk about what I have actually experienced, whether there are a thousand, a hundred thousand or a million people tuning in.

On radio, all of this comes even more naturally. And because there are no images, words have to work much harder: you need to describe, create an atmosphere, convey sensations and help listeners picture the place in their minds. Perhaps that is why I enjoy it so much. Radio does not show you a destination; it challenges you to bring it to life through your voice.

Your experience also extends to television, first with Miradas Viajeras, broadcast on Negocios TV and Movistar+ for four seasons, and now as a destination presenter on Boarding Pass on Canal 4 TV. From your experience in front of the camera, what do you consider essential for an audiovisual feature to become a genuine invitation to travel, beyond simply showing attractive images of a destination?

Television presents a challenge that viewers often do not see: the destination itself does not always match the perfect image we all have in our minds. We might arrive at a time of year when the landscape is not at its best, the weather is uncooperative, or the scene we had imagined lasts only a few seconds, leaving us unable to capture the footage we need. When you are filming and know that you will later have to talk about that place on screen, I admit there are moments when panic can set in.

But that is also a particularly interesting part of the job. If the idyllic image you were hoping for fails to materialise, you have to find another way to tell the destination’s story. Often, you end up discovering an untold story, a lesser-known corner or someone who brings far more to the feature than the perfect shot you originally had in mind. In the end, almost everything falls into place.

That is precisely why I feel uncomfortable with a trend I see in some travel programmes on streaming platforms today. Everything looks a little too perfect. They film in places that ordinary travellers may not be able to access, stage situations specifically for a major production, or engineer a scene because the script requires it. Technically, the result may be spectacular, but sometimes it is far removed from what someone will actually encounter when they travel there.

We are talking about travel, and to me that means portraying what truly exists. At QTRAVEL, we have never wanted to sell a fantasy. Reality may be less visually perfect, but if we know how to tell its story, it can be far more interesting.

A good feature should do more than make viewers think, “How beautiful.” It should make them want to discover the place, confident that when they arrive, they will find something that reflects what we have shown and told them.

QTRAVEL combines information, inspiration and experiences. How do you strike a balance between the aspirational nature of travel content and the need to provide practical information that genuinely helps travellers plan their visits?

For many years, we placed great emphasis on practical information. It made sense: readers needed to know how to get there, how much a flight might cost, a museum’s opening hours or what services they could expect on arrival. Today, much of that information becomes outdated far too quickly.

Quoting the price of an airline ticket, for example, makes increasingly little sense. It might cost €1,000 today and €750 or €1,300 a week later. The same applies to opening hours, access arrangements and certain visiting requirements, which change constantly. Even some seasonal recommendations have become less predictable; phenomena such as the Northern Lights and certain seasonal events in nature no longer always follow the patterns we took for granted years ago.

The internet has completely transformed that role. Travellers can gather a vast amount of practical information in just a few minutes and keep it updated almost in real time. Our work has therefore gradually shifted towards what we believe offers greater value: providing context, firsthand experience and enough compelling reasons for someone to develop a real interest in a destination.

Today, our main goal is to inspire. Not by idealising a place, but by awakening curiosity. We want readers to finish a feature feeling that they want to discover that place, understand it and experience it for themselves. Practical information remains necessary, but it is no longer at the heart of the story. What matters most is sparking the desire to travel.

Credibility is fundamental to travel journalism. How do you preserve the editorial independence of QTRAVEL and your television and radio work when the tourism sector is built on ongoing relationships with brands and destinations?

Credibility is built over years and through experience, but there is something I think is important: you do not decide whether you are credible. Other people do. If you work consistently, maintain a clear editorial approach and what you describe matches what travellers subsequently find, that trust develops naturally.

At QTRAVEL, we draw a clear distinction between advertising and editorial content. A media outlet needs revenue to survive, and advertising is part of that business model, but that does not mean it should dictate the story. The same applies to press trips and invitations. In all these years, no destination has ever told me what I should discuss or what I should conceal. And I think doing so would be a huge mistake, even for whoever tried to impose those conditions. If you need to control what a journalist is going to say, it probably means you do not have much confidence in what you are offering.

A separate issue is what we currently see on certain social media accounts. I know of cases where a weekend stay at a good hotel, complete with a spa experience, seems enough to make absolutely everything wonderful. Everyone decides how they work, but time ultimately puts that content into perspective. When you follow particular accounts for years, it becomes relatively easy to distinguish between an independent point of view and content that depends almost entirely on who is hosting or paying.

I prefer a much simpler approach: if something is worthwhile, I write or talk about it and recommend it; if it does not convince me, I am under no obligation to do so. And if I need to offer a negative assessment, I explain my reasons.

I remember only one occasion when a hotel, in Switzerland, asked me to remove a negative review I had posted on Google. My response was precisely the opposite: I added further details explaining the reasons for my assessment and included a postscript stating that the hotel had asked me to take it down. I think that neatly sums up my understanding of independence: you can accept an invitation, collaborate with the industry and maintain a good professional relationship, but your opinion is not part of the deal.

How has technology transformed the production, distribution and consumption of travel content, and which tools do you believe will matter most to specialist media in the years ahead?

Technology has profoundly changed the way we work. Years ago, when we travelled to produce content, you could almost tell what we did for a living simply by looking at the equipment we carried: backpacks full of cameras, lenses, accessories and technical gear. Today, much of what we need to produce magazine and television content fits into a bag much like any other traveller’s.

That has an enormous advantage: you attract far less attention. You blend into your surroundings, observe things differently, and people behave more naturally around you. Perhaps taking out microphones for an interview makes it more obvious that you are working, but even that happens less and less often.

With artificial intelligence, I try to apply one very simple rule: common sense. It is an extraordinary tool for gathering information, organising and analysing data, proofreading text and spotting errors. The familiar instruction to “run it through Word’s spellchecker when you’re finished” has almost become a thing of the past. But using a tool for support is one thing; relying on it for knowledge you do not possess is quite another. I would not use AI to research an unfamiliar destination without subsequently checking that information against reliable sources and the reality on the ground.

With images and video, I find something even more intriguing. I have tested highly advanced audiovisual generation tools by recreating places I know and have visited. The results are technically spectacular, but my reaction is often to laugh because they are so perfect that they no longer look real. We have reached a point where visual perfection can actually undermine credibility.

I would rather use a photograph of Paris showing the Eiffel Tower beneath a grey sky in a light drizzle—a fairly common sight for much of autumn and winter—than an impossible sunset under a perfectly blue sky that bears little resemblance to what travellers will usually encounter.

Anyone can create content today, and I think that is fantastic. People share their holidays on social media from the very first moment, sometimes producing remarkably original content. But turning a personal experience into balanced coverage is something quite different. It means being able to distinguish your own experience from the broader reality of a destination while making the content genuinely useful to someone considering a visit. That is something you learn over the years, and it brings us back to a point we have already discussed: credibility.

From your professional perspective, what responsibilities do specialist media have when reporting on destinations facing challenges such as overcrowding, heritage preservation, environmental sustainability and relations with local communities?

The industry took far too long to accept that overcrowding was a problem. For many years, everything revolved around growth: more visitors, higher occupancy, more flights, more spending. Everyone likes making money, but some destinations now face an uncomfortable reality: they do not know how to accommodate so many people. In some cases, that pressure is beginning to damage the very things that have sustained their tourism economy for years. It is a rather sad paradox.

Virtually all of us have shared in that responsibility: tourism boards, public authorities, businesses, hoteliers, tour operators and much of the wider ecosystem that depends on attracting travellers. Then social media came along and accelerated the phenomenon enormously, turning certain places from well-known destinations into viral attractions.

Not all forms of communication have the same effect, either. I do not believe someone who takes the time to read twenty or thirty pages about a destination arrives with the same outlook as someone whose sole aim is to recreate a photograph they have seen hundreds of times. Reading and context do not guarantee perfect behaviour, but they do help us understand that the place we are visiting has a history, limits and, above all, people who live there.

We now constantly hear destinations saying they want less quantity and more “quality”. It sounds good, but we need to ask what it actually means. If the answer is simply to raise prices to determine who can afford to travel, I think we are making another mistake. A wealthier tourist is not necessarily a better tourist. They may spend more while being just as disrespectful towards their surroundings.

To me, quality should be measured differently: by respect for the place, a genuine interest in getting to know it, how spending is distributed across the area, how long visitors stay and the relationships they build with the people who live there.

Specialist media also have a responsibility. We must explain when a place is overcrowded, offer alternatives, help spread attention more evenly and stop treating every corner of the world as a backdrop waiting for our cameras. The problem is not that people travel; it arises when too many people are directed to the same place, at the same time, looking for exactly the same thing. Unless we address that, we are sacrificing the future for short-term gain.

After conducting interviews, exploring and reporting on numerous destinations, what human or cultural qualities do you most often find in places that leave a lasting impression and make visitors want to return?

Many places impress you, but over the years you realise that what truly stays with you is how they made you feel and, above all, the people.

I have arrived in places as a complete stranger and, within minutes, found myself sitting with a family as though we had known one another for years. I have also visited communities where the roles suddenly reverse: you arrive thinking you are going to learn about them, only to discover that you are the one who sparks their curiosity. They want to know where you come from, how you live, what you do and what you think. That open, spontaneous curiosity still exists in many places, and it remains one of the things that surprises me most when I travel.

That is why I always say the same thing, and I will never tire of repeating it: even if your time or budget is limited, travel. Travel as much as you can. Discovering other places and meeting other people is one of the best ways to open your mind, challenge prejudices and put many of your own insecurities into perspective.

Ultimately, after encountering different cultures, religions, ways of life and people of different skin colours, you discover something quite simple: we are not as different from one another as we sometimes imagine. And perhaps that is one of the greatest gifts travel can offer.

Looking ahead to the future of QTRAVEL and your work in television and radio, what projects, formats or regions would you like to explore to continue bringing travel to increasingly discerning and diverse audiences?

If there is one thing I have learned, particularly over the past four years, it is that storytelling, formats and audiovisual language are constantly changing. Sometimes I say, half jokingly, that we work magic every day.

Take a single destination. We might devote an entire eighty-page issue of QTRAVEL to it, with photography, context, history, gastronomy, accommodation and experiences. I then have to convey its essence in a twenty-minute radio programme. Later, on television, I need to condense it further and tell the story in just ten minutes, although thankfully we have images working in our favour. Finally, we reach social media, where that same destination has to be presented in under a minute and a half, knowing that, by the one-minute mark, a sizeable proportion of those who started watching will probably have swiped on to the next piece of content. If that is not working a little magic with every destination, I do not know what is.

What I do know is that we will have to keep adapting. The magazine will probably continue to feature less text and place greater emphasis on images, because the reality is that people are reading less and less. Radio, on the other hand, still has considerable potential, I believe, because it retains something that is difficult to replace: a sense of closeness and the ability to tell stories through voice alone.

And we can no longer even call social media a new format. It has been part of how we communicate for years, although it is now changing at a pace that is difficult to predict. What works today may be completely outdated before long.

Where is all this heading?

I have my own theory, but we would probably need another, much longer interview to explain it... (laughs). What matters most to me will remain the same: adapting the format without losing the essence of travel, the firsthand experience or our own way of telling the story.