Happy New Year! The first edition of Leisure Management in 2013 marks the beginning of a new chapter in the magazine's development as it enters its 31st year and we hope you enjoy our new format, which will be more focused on the amazing people who make things happen in our industry.

We'll still be covering the same new openings, great research and debating the major issues of the day, but our focus from now on will be to tell these stories far more through the eyes of the people who are doing the work, dreaming the dreams and making things happen, rather than reporting in our more traditional business style, as has been the case up to this point.

It's become increasingly clear to me in recent years that this industry is blessed with incredible individuals who bring energy, pride and passion to their work and in many cases have devoted their lives to creating operations which enhance the quality of life of others. Indeed that seems to be the purpose which draws many people to want to build careers and businesses in these markets.

So our aim is to tell their stories and to give them the opportunity to share their experiences and advice with other professionals.

We'll continue to examine all aspects of the industry, from sport to health and fitness, from theme parks and attractions to arts and culture and from spa and wellness to hospitality and tourism, with special additional attention being paid to architecture, design, property, technology and innovation.

We'll also ensure you're kept up to date with the latest legislation.

Leisure Management is the only business to business publication in the world to be documenting and analysing this market and we're finding our international readership is growing steadily. This gives us the opportunity to look widely for examples of best practice and to interview the industry innovators we meet throughout the year.

The Leisure Media team travels extensively these days, on the hunt for new business, stories and content. Our mission is to scour the globe for the best content and ideas to bring to you wherever they are.

We embraced the web early and have been online 20 years now. Our passion for technology has continued unabated since and our content is now available via seven different channels – print, PDF, digital turning pages, web, ezine, social media and RSS, so you can decide where and how you consume it.

We hope you enjoy our new look and new focus on the people who make our industry great and that you'll let us know if you're working on anything exciting or ground-breaking – we'd love to hear from you.

Liz Terry, Editor Twitter @elizterry