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After Billion Dollar Informa Deal, CEO Bets on Jacobs Media

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By: Kari McMahon

Doug Emslie, former CEO of B2B events and media firm Tarsus Group, is ready to take on the industry, this time as an investor.

The executive had a front-row seat to one of the biggest acquisition deals within the events industry when Tarsus sold to Informa for almost $1 billion in 2023. He quickly set up an investment vehicle, Cuil Bay Capital, and acquired Raccoon Media Group, a media business that focuses on health, wellbeing and fitness.

Emslie and Mike Seaman, founder and CEO of Raccoon, are working together to build out those businesses and expand geographically and further into events — particularly to the U.S. where events are outstripping media outlets in the post-pandemic world.

And now he wants to execute the same strategy again. Last month, he acquired a minority stake in UK travel and hospitality media company Jacobs Media.

Jacobs Media is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, having quietly grown from one media title in 2009 to a portfolio of nine travel and hospitality brands. Travel Weekly, which was Jacobs Media’s first acquisition, remains one of its best known properties. However, Emslie notes that the firm has gone through a “classic migration of a print business” and is increasingly becoming an events company.

“Print is less than 10% of the business, media is predominantly digital, and then they launched an events business,” Emslie said. “The events business has become the majority of revenues, over 50% is coming from events.”

For the 2023 financial year, Travel Weekly’s financial statements echo this, noting that “the company’s strategy to be a major global events business is reflected in the events portfolio representing 59% of the company’s turnover.” The firm’s revenues were £13 million ($16.5 million) and its profit was £1.4 million ($1.8 million), up 17% and 67% respectively from the prior year. Print advertising is responsible for around 24% of its revenues, while digital advertising drove 14% of the revenues.

Jacobs Media Group is the UK holding company though only one of its five listed subsidiaries, Travel Weekly, publishes financial statements. These figures do not reflect all of Jacobs Media Group’s revenues, as there is also a separate holding company in Dubai, which is not included.

“The digital and events revenues have grown strongly in 2024 and continue to do so for our forward bookings into 2025,” Emslie said. “Print has remained flat while digital and events have grown.”

“We’re seeing lots of opportunities to grow within the travel sector and the luxury side is something that’s growing really fast and it’s something that the current portfolio has a good position in,” Emslie said. “We’re definitely looking at doing more in the Middle East, doing more in luxury travel, and continuing to expand internationally as well.”

Emslie expects the luxury travel market to experience strong growth because people value travel more coming out of the pandemic and are willing to spend more on top-tier experiences. While there was a massive spike in spending on digital media during the pandemic, that’s now flipped with people valuing face-to-face contact again, he said. Jacobs Media has succeeded in the luxury market by bringing together buyers and sellers to do unique experiences in intimate environments, which builds longer term business relationships, Emslie said.

The Middle East is one region he expects will capture this trend because it's already a luxury market. Alongside Clive Jacobs, who is the CEO of Jacobs Media, he is positioning the firm, which has a headquarters in Dubai, to be at the forefront of this development.

Travel and events are within the strategic plans of all major countries in the region, he said, which is driving growth. And more companies are spending in the Middle East because it’s growing relative to Europe, which is “at best flat” and “not very exciting.”

“I've been going there for 17 years and it's dramatically different today to it was then,” Emslie said. “If I move forward, you're going to see undoubtedly — whether it’s a good thing or bad thing — there's going to be a casino in the UAE … you're going to undoubtedly see Saudi approve alcohol. It's just a question of time.”

“You're beginning to see a change in patterns which are more normal in terms of what we would expect when we travel, stay in hotels, and when we interact,” Emslie said. “But you're in a different culture, it is different, we've got to respect that, but there are serious changes going on.”

Despite conflict in the Middle East, more and more events, particularly sporting events, are being hosted in the region. The WTA Finals took place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, earlier this month though it was criticized for failing to pull crowds. Emslie said this highlights the significant opportunity for the travel industry in the Middle East.

“Sports is a good example of that,” Emslie said. “They put on these major things, but actually it's quite difficult to execute because they haven’t got the infrastructure to support it.”

“They're building more hotels, but they haven't got the network of the normal travel agents putting together packages, the normal sort of structure you would to travel. That is in its infancy and therefore that's the opportunity, that actually they need to build that out,” he added.

To achieve this expansion into the Middle East and the US, Jacobs Media will focus on organic growth and on luxury in the short term and then on acquisitions in a year or two's time, Emslie said. This year, across its nine brands, Jacobs Media will run 160 global events and exhibitions in addition to producing its print and digital products, according to a recent press release.

“It's about concentrating on some of the bigger opportunities,” Emslie said. “Maybe that nine might shrink a little bit because there might be a little bit of housekeeping.”

As part of the “housekeeping,” Jacobs Media will be looking at launching a few bigger events versus lots of smaller ones as well as co-locating smaller events, Emslie said.