Atlas Obscura redefines ‘exploration’ after pandemic upturned coverage areas

Travel, to no surprise, was one of the largest industries impacted by the pandemic and publishers like Atlas Obscura that cover exploration, wanderlust and gastronomy had to quickly adapt and figure out both what content output and brand deals would like in this new reality.

Luckily for Atlas Obscura, the concept of exploration meant more than its tourism and trip-planning business, which accounted for about half of the company’s revenue in 2019. In the latest episode of the Digiday Podcast, CEO Warren Webster talked about how his team adapted exploration to mean everything from learning about new subjects or trying out new skills from experts online in a new courses business, as well as leaning into the road trip model for discovering a new place.

And while some travel-related advertisers had to pull back on spending, others in the auto and food categories filled the gaps and Atlas Obscura walked away from 2020 in a strong position, Webster said, though he did not provide exact figures. Now as travel is slowly returning, the company is bringing back some of its paused 2019 revenue streams and adding its successful 2020 innovations to build toward a successful year.

Of course, some hesitations still loom around the coronavirus variants, but Webster said that both his team and advertisers are optimistic and eager to get back into in-person experiential events and programming.