Mobile App Content Strategy

Led content strategy for Lonely Planet’s January 2026 mobile app launch. I worked closely with Product and Engineering to deliver POI-based travel planning experiences across launch destinations in key markets.

Strategic Vision

The core insight driving this project: Points of Interest shouldn’t just be standalone listings. In our architecture, a single restaurant can surface in a neighborhood guide, appear in multiple itineraries, and connect to related experiences. This makes the content work harder and sets us up for personalized recommendations down the road.

I pushed hard for content and product teams to work together from the start. Too often, editorial gets handed a finished product and told to fill it with content. Here, we shaped the content model alongside the app features, which saved us from painful retrofitting later.

Scope & Scale

• 100+ destinations at launch covering key markets
• 15-person editorial team across 10+ time zones contributing content
• Close collaboration with Product, Engineering, and Design throughout
• Iterative content model sessions with stakeholders to refine the architecture

What I Did

Content Architecture: I designed the content models in Contentful that let us create content once and use it across print, web, and mobile. The contentful-cms project covers the technical details, but the mobile app was the first real test of whether our architecture could scale.

Stakeholder Management: I advocated for sprint prioritization to keep strategic content types on track. This meant constant negotiation between editorial quality standards and product deadlines.

Team Leadership: I managed the global editorial team delivering app-ready content while we kept guidebook and web operations running. The app content team handled editing and preparing destination content, and I made sure we hit deadlines without sacrificing quality.

Release Planning: I developed the content release schedule, mapping destination launches to key moments like SXSW and summer travel season to maximize impact.

Impact

This was Lonely Planet’s first major product launch using modern content architecture. More importantly, it changed how editorial works with product. We’re now partners in product development, not just content suppliers filling templates.