Lonely Planet: the publisher that shrank the world is now itself shrinking

If you own a Lonely Planet guide, you probably know the story. As the last page of each book relates: “A beat-up old car, a few dollars in the pocket and a sense of adventure. In 1972, that’s all Tony and Maureen Wheeler needed for the trip of a lifetime – across Europe and Asia overland to Australia.

“It took several months, and at the end – broke but inspired – they sat at the kitchen table writing and stapling together their first travel guide.”

The Wheelers sold Lonely Planet to the BBC in 2007. In 2013, the broadcaster sold it on to an American tobacco billionaire, Brad Kelley. And on Maundy Thursday 2020, a spokesperson for what has become the world’s leading travel guide publisher told me: “Due to the impact of Covid-19 on demand and sales, Lonely Planet has made the difficult decision to reduce its publishing operations for the foreseeable future.”

Quite rightly, the main focus of the coronavirus crisis is on the lives that have been lost and those that can still be saved.

Yet the shutdown of global travel is proving devastating for many great businesses and the people who work for them.

I was fearing bad news about a big travel firm this week: perhaps an airline, holiday company or cruise line. But I never expected to hear that the world’s leading travel-guide firm is proposing to shut its two main hubs: the original HQ in Melbourne, and the London office where much Lonely Planet content, including the magazine, is created.

They will “close almost entirely”, with only the Dublin and Tennessee operations continuing, albeit with some job cuts.

The publisher that shrank the world is now itself shrinking.

Lonely Planet will not disappear from the bookshelves and online retailers: “The travel media brand will continue to publish guidebooks and phrase books,” said the spokesperson, but added: “After completing its list for 2020, it proposes that it will not commission any new inspirational titles, and that it will no longer publish the Lonely Planet magazine.”

Back to basics, then, returning the business to where it began: providing essential advice on how to make travel dreams come true. But the planet will be lonelier without the inspiration that the publisher generated with its magazine and titles such as Amazing Boat Journeys and Dark Skies: A Practical Guide to Astrotourism.

Meanwhile, the brilliant people working for Lonely Planet as writers, editors or cartographers in London or Melbourne will move on, dissipating the knowledge and experience that is so critical in travel.

I have no access to the harsh realities of profit and loss in travel publishing, an industry eroded by the ready availability of online information. But I sense the commercial decision may be too hasty.

When this wretched crisis is over, we may begin a new era where travellers will be hungry for resources they can trust, in particular guides researched and written by professionals, which don’t require batteries or an internet connection, and which feed our sense of adventure.