that it was dead—or, if it wasn’t dead yet, it soon would be. The cause of the malady was viral: first blogs, then influencers onand TikTok. Yet, for all journalists’ poor prognoses, the printed travel guide is still in fine fettle. Sales in Britain were mostly flat in 2014-19, a period when smartphones became both ubiquitous and powerful.
That is not to say there have not been spells of ill health. Frommer’s, the grandfather of American guidebooks, was sold in 2012 for $22m to Google, which reportedly planned to end the series’ print run. Lonely Planet, the best-known publisher, has been through several owners at ever-lower valuations. In 2020 the company ended up in the hands of Red Ventures, a media company funded by private equity.
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