Lonely Planet Sold to BBC (So Now What?)
Author: admin
There is some surprising news in the travel industry. Omnipotent guidebook publisher Lonely Planet has been bought by BBC Worldwide. Tony and Maureen Wheeler founded lonely Planet thirty-five years ago. Their first book was a guide to budget travel in Asia. Today, the company publishes nearly 500 guides and has an expansive website. The Wheelers proved to be colorful characters, according to a profile of them published in the New Yorker Magazine. Lonely Planet guides are virtually holy books amongst the backpacker set. The BBC did not disclose the amount it paid for L.P., but stated,
"the deal would strengthen Lonely Planet's visibility and growth potential. It would also allow Lonely Planet users to access BBC content – such as Michael Palin's New Europe."
I'm sure numerous Lonely Planet users are taken aback by the sale. Their brand of budget travel has been defined by the guidebooks for so long. We'll have to wait and see if the BBC changes the mystique that makes L.P. so attractive. Perhaps there will be little change.
Still, though, it is the end of an era. What would backpacker meccas like Khao San Road (below) have become with Lonely Planet?
October 8th, 2007 at 5:30 pm
The sale is mostly an admission of defeat and that the Wheelers don’t get the online world.
There’s two fundamental problems with the guidebook industry in the Internet age.
First, about 80% of people use search engines to research their destinations before traveling. LP and others have all their content locked up inside of the books, so if someone is looking for info on a remote destination, they’re not going to find it on lonelyplanet.com and they’re not going to make a cent off of their content.
Second, the job of maintaining every destination on the planet updated is a job too big for the old fashioned model of sending a writer out into the field every few years. This is a job for a social network, a la wikipedia.
BBC seems to be mimicking the model of http://www.vivatravelguides.com who have these two issues solved. Other guidebook companies would be wise to read the writing on the wall that the BBC has written for them.
May 12th, 2009 at 7:48 am
Wow! I only came to know about it today! Quite shocking! I’m a big-time Lonely Planet fan.Now on my way to Alaska…got a good deal off trackle ( ( http://www.trackle.com/catalog/travel )