“Is this the end of the guidebook?” I’ve seen this headline, or versions of
it, for at least five years. The threat comes not only from the internet,
with its endless supply of free information, but also from technology that
allows mobile phones to disgorge all the travel information you need. Or
think you need.
To compete, larger publishers are cutting down on text in favour of
photographs. An article by a guidebook author in Writers’ News complained:
“In the past decade guides have evolved from reference books to glorified
brochures.”
But I don’t share the gloom about the future of guidebooks. The iPod
generation may flirt with electronic travel guides and their parents will
book flights and hotels on the internet, but as long as there are travellers
there will be books. Material on the internet is generally unedited and
undated; it can’t replace the authority of the printed page. We need
guidebooks to read before we travel and on the plane. And when we arrive,
would we really want to be fiddling with our hand-held gizmo under the
watchful eyes of a score of street children?
So how about quality? Are authors less meticulous about research these days?
In general I think not. If the quality of the information drops, word will
get around and travellers will switch publishers. And with the internet,
this can happen quickly. Anyone buying online through Amazon has the chance
to check readers’ reviews.
In the past, publishers could get away with sloppy editing. I know.
Bradt has just issued the ninth edition of my guide to Madagascar, which was
first published in 1988. That 208-page first edition had a few hand-drawn
maps and some rather startling information. One reader gently informed me
that my description of the route up a hill following the Stations of the
Cross was misleading. “I’m Jewish, but my Christian friends assure me that
Jesus never went to Canada.” I had written Calgary instead of Calvary. All
publishers employ good proofreaders and checkers these days.
A few years ago Lonely Planet’s Tony Wheeler said to me: “We can’t publish
first editions any more.” I knew what he meant. In the old days publishers
and readers accepted that a first edition would have gaps in its
information. These would be filled in for the second edition. Not now:
another publisher will see the chance to jump in with a better guide.
And there are lots of other publishers. Andrew Steed, general manager of the
travel bookshop Stanfords, says: “The influx of new guides from new
publishers is unrelenting.” In the 1980s and early 1990s there was a handful
of publishers and little overlap on regional coverage. Now Stanfords has
more than 40 guides to Thailand. Check out the Paris shelf and you’ll find
double this number.
Guidebooks aren’t just about holidays. Some of Bradt’s most rewarding books
have arisen from the author’s desire to help a much-loved country to recover
from war. A few years ago we published a city guide to Kabul. An
extraordinary decision on the face of it, but it was sold in Afghanistan by
street children who helped to support their families. And a Rwandan told us:
“Your guide made a tremendous difference, helping people to see
post-genocide Rwanda in a different light.” Useful in a less reassuring way
was our 2002 guide to Iraq. We had inquiries from the Pentagon, and at the
outbreak of the war 3,000 copies were sold to the US Army.
Bradt Travel Guides came into being without a business plan because I wanted
to share hard-found information on the best places to hike in South America.
Passion is a vital ingredient for a travel guide, and I’m not convinced that
you’ll find it on the internet. Unedited, passion tends to turn into a rant.
So how does the future look for guidebook publishing? Pretty good, actually.
Travellers want in-depth information, so they tell us, and they want to
travel ethically. This is the great change that has taken place in the past
three decades. In my early days of writing and publishing, the favourite
topic among backpackers was where to crash free, and how to sneak into
national parks without paying. Mine was a lone voice when I wrote about
responsible travel in the Eighties and Nineties. Now travellers are more
likely to ask where they can work as volunteers or whether any local
charities need their help. We can provide this information; other travel
publishers serve other needs.
Maybe there is something over the horizon; something that will shake the
industry to the core. But as Andrew Steed says: “Whatever the future is, we
haven’t yet seen it.”
