Why travel guidebooks are not going anywhere

They declared that it was dead—or, if it wasn’t dead yet, it soon would be. The cause of the malady was viral: first blogs, then influencers on Instagram and TikTok. Yet, for all journalists’ poor prognoses, the printed travel guide is still in fine fettle. Sales in Britain were mostly flat in 2014-19, a period when smartphones became both ubiquitous and powerful.

That is not to say there have not been spells of ill health. Frommer’s, the grandfather of American guidebooks, was sold in 2012 for $22m to Google, which reportedly planned to end the series’ print run. (The following year Arthur Frommer, its founder, bought the company back.) Lonely Planet, the best-known publisher, has been through several owners at ever-lower valuations. In 2020 the company ended up in the hands of Red Ventures, a media company funded by private equity.

The one virus that did come close to killing guides off was covid-19. Guidebook publishers saw 95-99% of revenues evaporate when lockdowns hit. Yet in both America and Britain, the biggest markets for English-language guides, sales are approaching pre-pandemic levels. Last year Americans bought 5.8m guidebooks and maps—down from 6.9m before the pandemic, but up from 4m in 2020.

Any obituaries, then, are premature. But why do guidebooks still roll off the presses when all the information you could need is in your pocket? One answer is that print is a useful medium for information on the go. Books can be scribbled on and dog-eared; they need no charging or internet access. They can be easier to browse than social media, websites or e-books (and attract less attention from pickpockets).

Another is that guidebooks have changed with the times. Rick Steves, the author of America’s bestselling guides to European destinations, published his first guidebook 44 years ago. He still personally researches many of his books, which offer a lot of information in small type. His publishers, being more business-minded, also produce pocket guides, which take those tips and enliven them with photographs. Double-dipping is one way to boost profits; many other publishers do it.

A more dramatic adaptation is visible in the newest editions of Lonely Planet’s flagship guides, which look like someone printed out an Instagram account. The books relegate restaurant and hotel listings to the margins. Nitya Chambers, Lonely Planet’s executive editor, says the overhaul was driven by market research that showed that readers “have more information than ever before” on eating and stays, but are looking for things to do.

Sales data support Lonely Planet’s claim. Guides that focus on food and accommodation are falling out of favour in Britain according to Stephen Mesquita, the author of the Nielsen Bookscan Travel Publishing Yearbook, an industry bible. Between 2019 and 2023, sales of such guides for domestic destinations were down by 49% and by 20% for overseas ones.

If print books are no longer selling comprehensiveness, then what is it they are selling? One answer is authenticity. “I can’t help people that just want to do what everybody else does,” Mr Steves says. Another is curation. “The more content out there, the better for guide publishers,” says René Frey, who publishes Rough Guides and Insight Guides.

Trust—or, rather, brand—is important. Mr Frommer, Mr Steves and Lonely Planet’s founders, Tony and Maureen Wheeler, all produced their first guides decades ago, in an era when both international travel and self-publishing were expensive and rare. That allowed them to stand out and build businesses. Now, thanks to cheap air fares and social media, anyone can opine on eateries on the other side of the world. But wannabe travel writers will find that it is hard to gain traction online.

One market in which guidebooks have struggled is China, the world’s biggest spender on outbound tourism. Lonely Planet shut its China operations in 2022. Many Chinese travel as part of organised tours, so see no need for guides; younger travellers are more likely to organise their own itineraries, but rely on digital resources rather than books. The most popular app for tourists is Xiaohongshu, which Rest of World, a digital news outlet, describes as “a cross between a niche subreddit, a Tripadvisor page and a video game”. Gaode, a map app, offers user-generated lists of “must-visit sites”.

Perhaps, in time, similar apps may take off in the West. Artificial intelligence is another incipient challenge. Like a good guide, AI’s promise is that it can do the tedious research and produce a precis. Frommer’s, for its part, experimented with using ai to offer tailor-made answers to travellers’ questions, but found that it was making things up too often to be useful. Nothing makes a traveller reach for their trusty guidebook more than a bogus tip.

Correction (July 3rd 2024): An earlier version of this piece said that Lonely Planet announced in June that it was closing its China branch after ten years. The company says it did not issue the statement and clarified that it shut down in 2022. This has been updated.

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