By Michael Shapiro
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, February 17, 2008
In 2001, Tom Hall, a software project manager laid off during the dot-com implosion, embarked on a round-the-world trip across three continents. He couldn't carry all the travel guidebooks he needed and ended up scouring Kathmandu for a guide to his next destination, Tanzania.
"I couldn't find a thing and landed in Africa empty-handed and frustrated," he said. Today, Hall is a senior digital product manager at Lonely Planet's headquarters in Melbourne, Australia, and has spearheaded an effort to ensure that fellow travelers don't have to face the frustration he encountered six years ago -- or tear out pages from guidebooks when they only want a single chapter.
Lonely Planet has recently unveiled a solution to this issue, joining other online guidebooks in rolling out more advanced or comprehensive tools for travelers. Call it Online Guides 2.0 if you will. From Frommers.com to the Rick Steves Web site, you'll find new ways to access guidebook advice, more content and more online communities of user-generated comments.
* Lonely Planet. Lonely Planet recently launched Pick & Mix, which enables globe-trotters to go to a section of the Lonely Planet Web site ( http://shop.lonelyplanet.com), select the country or region to which they're traveling and download the chapter for the place they're visiting.
Chapter prices range from about $2 to $7, with most costing $4.50 or less. If you buy several chapters, a discount kicks in. For example, buying three chapters from the Mexico book -- Mexico City ($5), Yucatan Peninsula ($6) and Oaxaca State ($4.50) -- costs $12.40, a 20 percent discount compared with purchasing each chapter individually. Though Lonely Planet charges for Pick & Mix, all other content on LonelyPlanet.com is free.
Rather than carry loose pages, chapters -- served as PDF files -- can be downloaded into a hand-held device or e-book reader. (Note: PDF conversion to Amazon's new e-book reader, Kindle, is experimental, Amazon says, but most files should be readable.) "The traveler reaction has been great so far," says Piers Pickard, Lonely Planet's head of digital content.
"We've found that it's really popular with travelers doing longer trips, the kind where it's impractical to lug three or four guidebooks around for four months," he said. "And some travelers have welcomed Pick & Mix for its green credentials -- they are pleased to be buying a virtual product rather than a paper one."
Lonely Planet is rolling out the feature slowly, he said. Latin America -- including the Caribbean, Central America, Mexico and South America -- was the first to be released. In December, Lonely Planet added the United States and Canada. Lonely Planet doesn't disclose sales figures, but Hall says they've exceeded expectations, so the company would "like to roll out more regions as quickly as possible."
Each guidebook's introductory chapter of tips -- which includes such planning info as when to go, costs, sample itineraries, etc. -- is free to browse or download, and the site allows travelers to browse a few pages from each chapter to help them decide whether they want to purchase it.
Asked if Lonely Planet is concerned that Pick & Mix could cannibalize print sales, Pickard said: "The reason we've started slowly with just one region has been precisely because of this concern. But our findings in the first months have been very encouraging: We've found that offering Pick & Mix has increased our market."
* Frommer's. The Web site for Frommer's travel guides ( http://www.frommers.com) has put online all the print content of Frommer's guides and augmented this content with free e-mail newsletters on topics including deals, cruise news and family travel.
Arthur Frommer, the founder of the guidebook series, remains a voice on Frommers.com, with a blog on the site in which he shares vociferous opinions and decades of hard-won travel wisdom. One of his recent blog posts blasted corporate jets for clogging airports and the skies.
Since Frommer's put all its content online in 2004 (a four-year process that started in 2000 and requires constant updating), the company's market share has grown, sayd editorial director David Lytle. In 2004, its market share was 17.75 percent; last year it was 19.8 percent. "The Internet and travel were made for one another," he adds.
Lytle says enabling travelers to counsel one another on message boards is a key element. "It's about letting the story take place with multiple voices," he says, "rather than having just one expert."
* Rick Steves' Europe Through the Back Door. Steves, the charismatic voice behind the Europe Through the Back Door guidebook series and host of popular PBS shows about Europe, has carved out a niche online. Beyond posting guidebook advice on the site, Steves has a monthly travel newsletter, guidebook updates and archived radio shows. A forum called Graffiti Wall allows travelers to share tips with one another.
In "Blog Gone Europe," Steves engages in spirited discussions with his readers: At press time one of his top posts was a response to those who said they'd never buy another one of his guidebooks because of Steves's liberal political outlook. Travelers who want free info sent to them can sign up for the monthly newsletter, a guide to Eurail passes or the 64-page Best Destinations brochure that's sent by postal mail.
Steves says his Web site ( http://www.ricksteves.com) has become popular because of its connections with the books and his PBS television series. None of these elements would be as successful on their own, he says. The TV show, and now a radio show, drive traffic to the Web site and help sell books, and the site gives Steves an immediate two-way connection with his followers.
* Moon Travel Guides. Rather than place the entire content of its print guides online, Moon, a guidebook series targeting independent travelers interested in history and culture, puts highlights from its guidebooks online at http://www.moon.com.
From the home page you can click on "Grand Canyon" and get advice and itineraries with such titles as "If You Only Have One Day" and "2-3 Days."
Moon's site also connects readers with authors; for instance, in the Q&A box on the home page there's a conversation with Moon's Guatemala author Al Argueta. He has answered questions about his favorite festival, the best places to shop for indigenous crafts and what he considers the country's best street snacks. This feature is available only online.
Perhaps Moon.com's best feature is its Travel Planner. Click this link to access free advice from 19 of Moon's top-selling handbooks. Use the clickable map to zoom in on your destination for must-sees such as Argentina's Parque Nacional Los Arrayanes in Patagonia.
* Rough Guides. Rough Guides, best known for its guides to European destinations, started out as a rough-and-ready reference for intrepid travelers but now targets a more mainstream audience and publishes guides on worldwide destinations.
Today, the series concentrates more on getting the best value and less on dirt-cheap deals, and provides abundant background on the arts, a valuable asset for destinations such as Italy. A worthwhile feature found in the online intro to some country guides is "things not to miss," which for Italy ranges from the Vatican Museum to truffles. Each entry has a couple of descriptive sentences; for more information, click the entry's link. In some ways the online guidebook is almost easier to navigate than the print tomes, as you can use the contents bar in the left column of each country guide to home in on your destination. For example, in the Italy guide, under "Contexts," you'll find a section on the vernacular architecture of the hill towns.
Publishing director Martin Dunford says the London-based guidebook company places the full text of about a third of its guidebook titles on its Web site ( http://www.roughguides.com).
The abundance of guidebook advice online "paradoxically works in our favor, because I think people gravitate toward a tried-and-trusted brand," Dunford says. The one thing that hasn't changed, he says, is that "no one is ready to pay for online content."
Yet if Lonely Planet's Pick & Mix model of buying single chapters for download takes off, Dunford and his colleagues may see a new way to cash in by providing guidebook content online.
Michael Shapiro last wrote for Travel about Web sites worth bookmarking.
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