Lonely Planet Publications
Type	Private (subsidiary of BBC Worldwide)
Genre	Travel guides
Founded	1972
Founder	Tony Wheeler Maureen Wheeler
Headquarters	Footscray, Victoria, Australia
Area served	Worldwide
Industry	Publications
Employees	360
Parent	BBC Worldwide
Website	http://www.lonelyplanet.com/

Maureen Wheeler (left) and Tony Wheeler (right), Co-founders of Lonely Planet.

Lonely Planet Publications (usually known as Lonely Planet or LP) claims to be the largest independently-owned travel guidebook publisher in the world. It was the first popular series of travel books aimed at backpackers and other low-cost travelers. As of 2004, it published about 650 titles in 118 countries with annual sales of more than six million guidebooks.

Lonely Planet also has a television production company (Lonely Planet Television), which has produced and developed four series: Lonely Planet Six Degrees, The Sport Traveller, Going Bush and Vintage New Zealand. Another, Bluelist Australia, is on its way. Lonely Planet is headquartered in Footscray, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia.

History

A recent edition of Lonely Planet's guide to Australia.

Lonely Planet's first book, Across Asia on the Cheap, was written and published by Englishman Tony Wheeler, a former engineer at Chrysler Corp. and Warwick University and London Business School graduate, and his wife Maureen Wheeler in Sydney in 1973, following a lengthy jaunt across the continent from Turkey, through Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan before ending up in India or Nepal.^{citation needed} The popularity of the overland route declined when Iran's borders closed in 1979. ^{[1] [2]} Written with panache and full of strong opinions, it sold well enough in Australia that it allowed the couple to expand it into South-East Asia on a shoestring, which remains one of the company's biggest sellers.

The company name comes from a misheard line in "Space Captain," a song by Joe Cocker and Leon Russell. The actual words are "lovely planet" but Tony Wheeler heard "lonely planet" and liked it.

Lonely Planet's first books catered to young people from Australia and Europe (mainly the UK) undertaking the overland hippie trail between Australia and Europe, via South-East Asia, the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East. This was becoming something of a rite of passage for young travellers, especially Australians and New Zealanders, who spent many months (or years) on the journey.

Tourist facilities were limited in most of the countries en route, and low-budget tourism was unheard of. This was the first (relatively) large-scale influx of first-worlders who took local buses in Thailand, ate at street stalls in India, or stayed with villagers in Afghanistan. The tips were not the first for the region - however by the late twentieth century they were a dominant feature of the market.

The Lonely Planet clientele developed a word-of-mouth affection for the company and its products. Reader feedback played an important part in keeping most of the guide books updated, Lonely Planet benefited from the Wheelers' skills as writers, publishers and businesspeople.

At the early stages of the Indonesia (Guidebook) produced by Lonely Planet the later dominance of the publisher was by no means obvious. Bill Dalton's Indonesia Handbook had achieved comprehensiveness by the late 1980s while Eric Oey's Insight Guides and Periplus editions (Singapore and Hong Kong based) were higher quality with colour photos and less compacted design than Daltons in the 1980s and 1990s. It was only by the end of the century and the demise of publishers or running out of print runs from the other publishers that Lonely Planet was able to dominate the Indonesian market.

Lonely Planet headquarters in Footscray

In September 2007, Lonely Planet was purchased by BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the British Broadcasting Corporation, with the Wheelers retaining a 25% stake in the company.^[3]

Recent changes

The Lonely Planet guidebooks' voice has changed over the years as it has entered different markets, such as Western Europe, where many guidebooks exist. As of 2007, the Wheelers announced that they planned to sell the majority share (75%) in the company to BBC Worldwide, in order to spend more time travelling.^[4] BBC Worldwide acquired majority control of the company on October 1, 2007.^[5]

Lonely Planet's initial strength has caused some problems. In certain contexts many people equate Lonely Planet with backpackers. The 30th anniversary relaunch of its various series was intended to make clearer the split between the backpacker-only products and those (now the majority) aimed at more affluent travellers and tourists. The increasing professionalism of the management and the attempt to break into the massive United States market (which is relatively conservative and prone to litigation) have meant that the quirky, amateurish (in the best sense) tone of the books has diminished. For example, an early edition of Africa on a shoestring has the heading 'Drugs', which includes information on purchasing drugs (mainly marijuana), while the May 1980 edition of South-East Asia on a Shoestring includes information on how to purchase fake student ID cards. This would not be permitted in a Lonely Planet guidebook today. Other quirks included apparently hand-drawn maps and strong opinions (one book called the apartheid government in South Africa 'cretins' and 'narrow-minded psychotics'). The maps are now more professionally drawn. Some strong opinions remain - for example, in the 2003 edition of its guide of Brazil, São Paulo, one of the largest cities in the world, is served by only a few pages and heavily criticized as if it were not worth visiting.

Lonely Planet has also recognised the usefulness of the world wide web, and its free Thorn Tree web forum is used to trade tips and advice. Usefulness did not however translate into profit growth. In world awash with free travel information Lonely Planet failed to develop a strategy to combat the pincer movement of margin erosion from retail giants (Amazon, Wal Mart, Borders, B&N) and slowed growth in their core business. Experiments with 'buy by the chapter' and download to mobile/PDA never gained momentum. Their current focus is the expansion of their range of smaller city 'encounter' guides and other niche guide book opportunities. It remains to be seen how the BBC will recoup their A$250 million dollar investment.

Official history

The founders, Tony and Maureen Wheeler, have written a book titled Once While Travelling: The Lonely Planet Story telling how they met and married, how they travelled from London to Australia overland and how Lonely Planet was formed.

Controversies

In April, 2008, Thomas Kohnstamm, a writer for Lonely Planet, who says he has worked on more than a dozen books for the publisher, claimed that he plagiarized and made up large sections of his books. In the case of a guide to Colombia, he said he did not even travel to the country (although he had only been commissioned to write the history section^[6]). After an emergency review of Kohnstamm's books, publisher Piers Pickard said that no inaccuracies had been found.^[7]

See also

• Globe Trekker – television series (also known as Pilot Guides) inspired by and originally broadcast under the name Lonely Planet

Notes

External links

• Official Lonely Planet website
• "The Parachute Artist" - profile of Lonely Planet and the Wheelers from The New Yorker magazine (April 2005)
• LPG action: a copy/paste/distribute art project that criticises Lonely Planet
• King of the Planet, Tony Wheeler's interview with Venkatesan Vembu, Daily News & Analysis
• Wheelers' comment on their sale to BBC Worldwide