Articles tagged “guidebooks”

Professionally created guides will always have a place in the traveler's toolkit, but they aren't going to be limited to paper any more and the next generation of guidebook brands will need to make the business work sooner rather than later.

The two travel wikis, one advertising free and one commercial, will battle it out for readers. But, for all of each wiki's collaborative writing and editing, there is still something very appealing to be said about an insightful, individually written travel guide that can enable you to smell the aroma of the baguette as it just starts to fill the village square.

There is no question about it: guidebook publishers should fear Wikivoyage, but travelers should rejoice. Though give it some time to build up into a useful resource.

Is this guide written by locals a stroke of genius or just plain strange? Either way, it highlights how the Internet has enabled travelers to read the suggestions of thousands of locals rather than just those of handpicked individuals.

BBC undoubtedly will put more resources into moderating the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree forum. It is an issue that confronts every Internet publisher, and in this instance, the BBC got stung.

Reading between the lines, Kaufer is saying that TripAdvisor will continue to be a great source of leads for travel advertisers despite Priceline's pending acquisition of Kayak, and that TripAdvisor's scale makes competitors interesting, but a relative non-issue.

The Michelin Guide has significant work to do to remain relevant in the digital sphere and to prove that content created by experts can trump mostly amateur user-generated content.

The launch of Wikivoyage is significant and an important victory for supporters of commercial-free destination content. But, while a challenge, rival guidebook publishers won't have to close up shop any time soon.

With the purchase of Frommer's and Zagat, and a push to elicit reviews from Google users, Google's travel strategy is multifaceted, although TripAdvisor's Stephen Kaufer chooses to focus on just the guidebook aspect for now.

A Wikipedia-like wiki travel guide could be a tremendous, free resource for information-hungry travelers. The current efforts have been starved for resources.