Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks 9781845415648

Citation preview

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

TOURISM AND CULTURAL CHANGE Series Editors: Professor Mike Robinson, Ironbridge International Institute for Cultural Heritage, University of Birmingham, UK and Dr Alison Phipps, University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK TCC is a series of books that explores the complex and ever-changing relationship between tourism and culture(s). The series focuses on the ways that places, peoples, pasts, and ways of life are increasingly shaped/ transformed/ created/packaged for touristic purposes. The series examines the ways tourism utilises/makes and re-makes cultural capital in its various guises (visual and performing arts, crafts, festivals, built heritage, cuisine etc.) and the multifarious political, economic, social and ethical issues that are raised as a consequence. Understanding tourism’s relationships with culture(s) and vice versa, is of ever-increasing significance in a globalising world. This series will critically examine the dynamic inter-relationships between tourism and culture(s). Theoretical explorations, research-informed analyses, and detailed historical reviews from a variety of disciplinary perspectives are invited to consider such relationships. Full details of all the books in this series and of all our other publications can be found on http://www.channelviewpublications.com, or by writing to Channel View Publications, St Nicholas House, 31-34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK.

TOURISM AND CULTURAL CHANGE: 48

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

Victoria Peel and Anders Sørensen

CHANNEL VIEW PUBLICATIONS Bristol • Buffalo • Toronto

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

Peel, Victoria, author. | Sørensen, Anders, author. Exploring the use and impacts of travel guidebooks / Victoria Peel and Anders Sørensen. Bristol, UK; Tonawanda, NY: Channel View Publications, [2016] Tourism and Cultural Change: 48 | Includes bibliographical references and index. LCCN 2015034164| ISBN 9781845415631 (hbk : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781845415624 (pbk : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781845415648 (ebook) LCSH: Travel–Guidebooks. | Tourism. LCC G153.4 .P44 2016 | DDC 910–dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/ 2015034164 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN-13: 978-1-84541-563-1 (hbk) ISBN-13: 978-1-84541-562-4 (pbk) Channel View Publications UK: St Nicholas House, 31-34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK. USA: UTP, 2250 Military Road, Tonawanda, NY 14150, USA. Canada: UTP, 5201 Dufferin Street, North York, Ontario M3H 5T8, Canada.

Website: www.channelviewpublications.com

Twitter: Channel_View Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/channelviewpublications Blog: www.channelviewpublications.wordpress.com Copyright © 2016 Victoria Peel and Anders Sørensen. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. The policy of Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products, made from wood grown in sustainable forests. In the manufacturing process of our books, and to further support our policy, preference is given to printers that have FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody certification. The FSC and/ or PEFC logos will appear on those books where full certification has been granted to the printer concerned. Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services Limited. Printed and bound in Great Britain by Short Run Press Ltd.

This one is for our parents: Roma and John Peel, Bodil and Christian Sørensen In gratitude

Contents 1

Introduction: Travel Guidebooks and Tourism Discourse Introduction Guidebook Research Guidebook Research Lacunae Research Approach and Future Agenda

1 1 4 8 12

2

Conceptualising Travel Guidebooks Introduction Guidebook Terminology in Tourism Research Conceptions of Travel Guidebooks in the Research Literature Genre, Genre Theory and Guidebook Texts in Action Conceptualisation Discussion and Definition Conclusion

15 15 16 19 23 25 28 30

3

Guidebook Histories Introduction History, Tourism and the Guidebook Guidebooks in the Historical Narrative of Western Tourism A Guidebook is a Guidebook: Defining the Historical Text Conclusion

31 31 32 33 40 47

4

Travel Guidebooks as Text Introduction The Guidebook as Mediator of Understanding Text Analysis and Tourist Behaviour Conclusion

49 49 50 56 60

vii

viii

Contents

5

According to the Guidebook: Exploring Lonely Planet’s Australia Introduction Lonely Planet Readership and the Authorial Voice Structure and Design ‘Things to See’ ‘Getting There and Away’ and ‘Where to Stay’ Conclusion

6

‘Why I Love/Hate My Guidebook’: Perspectives from the Blogosphere Introduction The Guidebook in the Blogosphere Reliability of Guidebooks Guidebooks and Politics Guidebook Relevance and ‘Real Travellers’ Guidebooks Influencing Personal Interactions Guidebooks and Travel Experience Travel with Confidence Brand Loyalty Loving and Hating the Guidebook Conclusion

84 84 85 89 94 95 97 98 100 102 104 109

7

Slaves to the Guidebook? Exploring Guidebook Usage Introduction Guidebook Usage: Perspectives in the Literature Structure of Analysis Guidebook Usage in the Trip Cycle: ‘The When’ Guidebook Usage In Situ: ‘The How’ Guidebook Usage for Purpose: ‘The What’ Challenging Assumptions on Guidebook Usage Conclusion

110 110 111 115 117 119 122 128 130

8

Towards a Typology of Guidebook Users Introduction

131 131

61 61 62 65 71 77 78 82

Contents

Travel Guidebook Use and Users Methodology Guidebook Function: Information Sources and Information Retrieval Guidebook Consumption: Reading Mode and Reader Involvement Types of Guidebook Users Reflections Conclusion 9

Permission to Coast? Travel Guidebooks and Tourism Businesses Introduction Literature Review Case Study 1. Melbourne: Perceived Impact of Lonely Planet Guidebooks Among Tourism Operators in a Tourist Precinct Case Study 2. Copenhagen: Perceived Impact of Guidebooks Among Hoteliers and Other Service Providers Case Study 3. Bali: Perceived Importance of Guidebooks Among Quality Accommodation Providers Case Study 4. Fiji: Perceived Importance of Guidebooks Among Centrally and Peripherally Located Accommodation Providers Tourism Businesses in Guidebook Trusty Areas: Further Evidence Tourism Businesses and Travel Guidebooks: Discussion Conclusion

10 ‘Countdown to Doomsday’? Guidebook Agency in Destination Development Introduction Assumption 1: The Role of Guidebook Users in ‘Beating the Path’ Assumption 2: Guidebooks and Stages of Destination Development

ix

132 134 136 138 140 143 146 148 148 150

153

156 159

160 162 165 167 169 169 172 174

x

Contents

Assumption 3: Guidebooks as Agents of Destruction Conclusion

179 183

11 Transformations in the Age of e-Tourism: The End of the Guidebook As We Know It? Introduction The Guidebook: Internet Nexus in Information Search User Perspectives on Internet Resources and Printed Guidebooks Quality, Portability and Convenience: Incorporating Information Resources into Travel The Business of Guidebooks and e-Platforms Conclusion

199 202 204

12 The Stigma of Guidebooks: Causes and Questions Introduction Guidebooks and the Power of Stigma Stigma and Guidebook Continuity The Guidebook and the Tourism Researcher Conclusion: The Guidebook and Cultural Change

206 206 208 211 214 217

References

220

Index

240

185 185 187 190

1 Introduction: Travel Guidebooks and Tourism Discourse In Berlin, in the days before the First World War, legend tells us that precisely at the stroke of noon (…), Kaiser Wilhelm used to interrupt whatever he was doing inside the Palace. (…) He would say: “With your kind forbearance, gentlemen, I must excuse myself now, to appear in the window. You see, it says in the Baedeker that at this hour I always do.” Boorstin, 1964: 111 It was probably just a matter of time – as the world metamorphoses into a pre-digested Let’s Go/Lonely Planet theme park, the travel guidebook has attained a level of ubiquity crying out to have the piss taken. Jeffrey, 2003: 29

Introduction In this book, we explore the use and significance of the travel guidebook in tourism. Tourists with their travel guidebooks are a routine sight at locations of interest around the world. Examples include city visitors debating their next picking from a list of not-to-be-missed sights, sightseers consulting maps and descriptions in a guidebook, foreign package tourists checking the local tour guide’s advice against their nativelanguage guidebook, backpackers probing a much-thumbed Lonely Planet or Rough Guide for information on the cheapest and cleanest bed in town. And so on and so on. For at least a century and a half, travel guidebooks have routinely been ascribed a significant impact on the performance of tourism, and the congruent growth of international individual mass tourism and guidebook publication since the 1960s has only strengthened that impression. Yet, while popular representations of guidebook impacts regularly describe a massive and regrettable influence on tourists and destinations, neither the guidebook nor its critique has been subjected to significant academic interrogation. Indeed, scholarly understanding

1

2

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

of guidebooks seems often to obliquely buttress a condescending view of guidebooks rather than examining the critique. The overarching aim of this book is therefore to problematise thinking surrounding the guidebook and, by extending knowledge of this ubiquitous element of travel, to further understanding of the tourism system. We ask how guidebooks have been represented as influencing tourists and their tourism, both historically and in the contemporary scene, and their effect on the creation of tourism places in different contexts. Through critically deconstructing the framing of guidebooks in both popular and scientific writings, we expose and question a number of built-in assumptions about guidebooks and guidebook use. A pervasive component of travel paraphernalia, guidebooks are often mentioned but less scrutinised in the research literature. Yet, despite the lack of research – or perhaps precisely because of it – guidebooks and guidebook use are surrounded by a number of somewhat conflicting understandings. Chief among these are assumptions at the heart of the customary denouncing of the guidebook and their users as representative of all that is superficial in modern tourism. The fleeting, routine encounters with tourists’ guidebook usage described in the opening paragraph temptingly elicit in the mind cultural theorist Roland Barthes’ (1972: 76) notorious criticism of the Guide Bleu to Spain as ‘an agent of blindness’. Certainly, disdain, even mockery, of guidebooks, and those who carry them, has a long history (see Buzard in Gilbert, 1999: 282). In 1876, readers of the English satirical magazine, Punch (cited in Berghoff et al., 2002: 172), understood well the comedic derision of a rhyme describing a participant on one of Thomas Cook’s package tours as bereft of ideas other than those imparted by ‘the red book’, his Murray’s guide or handbook: Learns to like and to look By his Guide or his Book Now he likes his routes Cooked His opinion red-booked. Contesting this, however, guidebooks can also be seen as signposting the increasing individualisation of the tourist experience in recent time. From the mid-1950s until the mid-2000s, growth in the guidebook publishing industry suggests a developing influence of guidebooks on tourist decisionmaking and thus on tourism more broadly. The increasing diversity of guidebooks signifies growing demand differentiation and tourists can now acquire a variety of titles on a destination, including the most remote regions. In this way, the rapid growth of the guidebook industry in the last

Introduction: Travel Guidebooks and Tourism Discourse

3

half century enabled what Koshar (2000: x) describes as the ‘individuating functions of tourism’. According to Koshar (2000: 2), the travel guidebook, ‘in spite (or perhaps because) of its tightly woven itineraries, creates a space for significant individual practice’, a perspective shared by guidebook publishers who represent their series as a liberating rather than a regulating device in the pursuit of travel. A second common and largely unsupported assumption is that of the power of the guidebook as an arbiter of a destructive mass tourism. In mainstream English-speaking media, growth of the guidebook market over the last four decades is often illustrated by the success of publishers such as Lonely Planet and Rough Guide. As these publishers have a reputation as suppliers of guidebooks to less ‘touristed’ locations, it is frequently presumed that such guidebooks pave the way for destination development, tourism growth, and cultural change at the tourism periphery. However, there is little evidence to support this. Indeed, it might equally be argued that the causality is in fact the other way around and that the growth of guidebook publications is the result of increasing affluence which has in turn fuelled the expansion of international tourism. Following that train of argument, tourism growth in most locations would have happened with or without the guidebook, which cannot be entirely represented as spearheading such expansion. This, in turn, offers another angle to the understanding of those guidebooks most commonly associated with destination growth. A simple analysis of publishers’ websites indicates that the majority of publications from guidebook publishers, including those once routinely termed ‘alternative’, cover well-established tourist destinations. Here, guidebooks are but one source of information among a plethora of brochures, leaflets and booklets, oral information provided in tourist bureaux, internet promotion, travelogues, glossy picture books and various forms of social media presence. Thus, it can be argued that in many locations, the popularity of guidebooks is not derived from a need for place-specific information that cannot be found elsewhere. In such cases, guidebooks may be seen as fulfilling a need for guidance through the wealth of information about established tourist destinations. In flipping the coin once more, it may equally be argued that precisely the destinations that are inundated with information are also those where, in recent years, information search and dissemination have gone online. Indeed, change seems to be blowing through the guidebook industry as companies jostle to find purchasers in a crowded and diversifying marketplace. Guidebook publisher Frommer’s US sales declined from $34 million to $18 million between 2006 and 2012 with Lonely Planet

4

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

sales likewise declining from $25 million to $18 million concurrently (G.M., 2013). The travel guidebook as conventionally conceived is being transformed by the intersection of rapid technological development and trends in consumer demand. The effect of such changes on the place and practice of the guidebook in contemporary and future tourism is unknown, but commentators are variously divided on whether the guidebook is continuing or coming to a halt, is transforming into an e-platform entity with much of its original character intact, or is evolving into something as yet unknown. The very coexistence of such contradictory understandings surrounding the guidebook suggests to us a domain of culturally embedded knowledge where not only the use and influence of the guidebook in tourism but also the various meanings ascribed and attitudes towards it warrant a wide-ranging critical enquiry. Ours is not a defence of the guidebook, but a requalification of guidebook critique through peeling back the layers of truisms and discourse that have framed understandings of guidebooks and their influence on tourism. We contend that guidebooks are more than functional tools subject to elitist ridicule. They are cultural items, routinely present in tourism for two centuries, dynamic and interactive with tourism, moving, changing and reflecting cultural change in tourism itself. Our interest in the guidebook is therefore as an historical and contemporary artefact of tourism which is significantly more complex than is often identified, and whose meaning in a larger setting of tourism and cultural change deserves a multifaceted exploration.

Guidebook Research Despite criticism by Fussell (1980) and others who regard guidebooks as little more than the ephemeral and superficial ‘debasement of an earlier and more sophisticated travel literature from the Enlightenment’ (Koshar, 1998: 324), the guidebook has begun to receive more attention as an artefact of tourism. Yet, while tourism researchers have made extensive passing reference to travel guidebooks, focused analysis of guidebook agency and theory is limited and guidebook conceptualisation remains weak (Peel et al., 2012). We have identified four clusters of research activity referencing guidebooks. Together with seven areas of research lacunae which are described below, they frame the content of this book. Cluster 1: Guidebooks and tourism history. Guidebooks have received varied attention in accounts of the familiar narrative history of Western tourism focused on the European Grand Tour tradition and the evolution

Introduction: Travel Guidebooks and Tourism Discourse

5

of 19th-century mass tourism. Historians’ interest in the guidebook as a resource for deciphering Western consumer interests and the imperial project is particularly extensive (e.g. Buzard, 1993; Koshar, 2000; Michalski, 2004; Palmowski, 2002; Parsons, 2007; Scott, 1998; Vaughan, 1974; Withey, 1998). Yet, historians’ use and interpretation of the guidebook, in both the writing of tourism history and as a subject of historical inquiry in its own right, have advanced slowly. Broad assumptions regarding guidebook use, which Therkelsen and Sørensen (2005) observed in the literature on contemporary tourism, appear equally evident among those who would seek to understand tourism histories and who have based their analysis on the guidebook for this purpose. In addition, while referenced in much historical narrative, the guidebook frequently receives atheoretical treatment, diminishing insight into the guidebook in the conduct of tourism and its performative features. The content, character and omissions of research into guidebooks and tourism history are the subject of Chapter 3 in this book. Cluster 2: Guidebook texts and images. Scholars’ analyses of guidebook texts and images to elucidate how guidebooks represent place, culture and history have resulted in a reasonable body of research (e.g. Bhattacharyya, 1997; Gritti, 1967; Jacobsen & Dann, 2003; Jacobsen et al., 1998; Kelly, 1998; Lew, 1991; Lisle, 2008; Siegenthaler, 2002). Much of the research within this cluster is situated within sociological and cultural theory perspectives which perceive the textual and/or visual content of guidebooks as an encoded source of mediated messages directing the ‘tourist gaze’ (Urry, 1990). Research approaches range from empirically descriptive elucidation of content and appraisal of textual representation and its accuracy and truthfulness, to various forms of content or discourse analysis. However, there is a latent shortcoming in this approach which assumes that users of guidebooks necessarily perform according to script. We are also reminded of Franklin’s (2003: 97) caution about the limitations of the kind of textual approach influenced by the recent cultural turn in the social sciences in which ‘tourist things’ are rendered significant ‘only in what they represent; as a meaningful set of signs and metaphors’. In Chapter 4, we question how far findings based on textual/image analysis can take us in understanding the corporeal functioning of the guidebook in the tourism system. Cluster 3: Guidebooks as mediators of tourism practice. The research in this cluster refocuses on material culture and ‘the object’ in human action and is akin to other interrogation of tourism praxis involving materialities such as the camera (Robinson & Picard, 2009), photographs (Crang, 2006),

6

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

souvenirs (Morgan & Pritchard, 2005) and walking boots (Edensor, 2000). This agenda has provided a welcome addition to the focus on signs and metaphors in tourism by advocating for a ‘social life of things’ (Appadurai, 1986) perspective offering an understanding of guidebooks as mediators in touristic ‘worldmaking’ (Hollinshead, 2007, 2009). Such work has raised guidebooks to the status of ‘dynamic objects’ (McGregor, 2000) which offer a unique means through which to interpret the practical engagement of tourists within different cultural milieu. These approaches usefully signify the guidebook as an active agent in tourism experience facilitating the way ‘meanings are constructed, contested and circulated through discourse as tourism knowledge’ (Caruana & Crane, 2011: 1501). Generally, however, analysis of the guidebook as an object through which tourism is performed and which exerts a material influence in their use by tourists remains, like much guidebook research, sporadic (Beck, 2006; Caruana & Crane, 2011; Lisle, 2008; McGregor, 2000; Wilson et al., 2009; Young, 2009). Overall, the research within this cluster both benefits from, and contributes to, understanding how tourism texts influence tourist behaviour and experiences more broadly. Tourism texts in general, and travel guidebooks in particular, are not necessarily passively accepted by the user, but are met with varying levels of resistance and diverse interpretations. In particular, they are contested by the (anti-)tourism discourse that scaffolds the enduring traveller–tourist dichotomy. There is a need to investigate this mesh of anti-tourism one-upmanship further and guidebooks, which are a palpable symbol of this dichotomy in diverse ways, offer a prism for such research. Much textual analysis frames the reader – the tourist user – as predisposed towards unconditional acceptance of the messages conveyed in words or photographs unmediated by any personal understanding. This, however, is not supported by much empirical evidence on actual guidebook use, and such an approach harbours a latent risk that Barthes’ (1972) condescending view of the tourist is unquestioningly accepted rather than critically interrogated by the researcher. More simply, we can’t claim to understand the impact of the guidebook on the tourist without understanding the touristic usage of the guidebook and the tourist user, themes which recur throughout this book. We examine this further in Chapter 7. Descriptions of use are compiled from consumers’ online discussions about guidebooks and evidence of use is drawn from observation of and interviews with tourists. These data support an examination of fundamental issues of when and how tourists

Introduction: Travel Guidebooks and Tourism Discourse

7

use their guidebooks before, during and after travel, and even when travel is only vaguely anticipated. The intent of this discussion is to compare how published accounts of use accords with what is understood theoretically of guidebook usage as a means of problematising the way guidebooks are incorporated into the doing of tourism. Cluster 4: Tourists’ use of travel guidebooks. Much of the guidebookbased analysis in this cluster is firmly anchored in the tourist behaviour research domain with some theoretical and empirical groundwork undertaken in that context (Brown, 2007; Jack & Phipps, 2003; McGregor, 2000; Nishimura et al., 2006a, 2007; Osti et al., 2009; Therkelsen & Sørensen, 2005; Wearing & Whenman, 2009; Wong & Liu, 2011). Deeper understanding of tourists use of guidebooks has in particular occurred through Jack and Phipps’ (2003) interpretation of the didactic nature of guidebooks as apodemic literature in that they are both written and consumed with the full intention of affecting behaviour, and Seaton’s (2002) notion of the dual function of travel texts as stage directions (where to go, what to search out, what to see) and instructions on how to play the part of responding as a bone fide traveller/tourist. Brown’s (2007) exploration of how tourists ‘work’ their guidebooks in unfamiliar environments to problem-solve also focuses on the way guidebook prose is converted to activity in the field. However, while the quality of emerging research on guidebook use is acknowledged, much of the scientific discourse on the subject is equally informed by anecdotal evidence scattered throughout the tourism research domain. We assert that the continuing influence of anecdotal evidence in analysis is caused not only by the paucity of dedicated research but also by the dearth of structuring devices for the exploration of differences in the dynamics of tourists’ use of guidebooks. Extant research demonstrates a diversity of guidebook usage, yet most knowledge is on pre-trip use of guidebooks. Little has been published on tourists’ actual use of guidebooks in situ and, apart from Therkelsen and Sørensen’s (2005) exploratory classification of guidebook users, we are not aware of foundational typologies of guidebook usage. In Chapter 8, we therefore explore key variants of in situ guidebook use, by extending the discussion in Chapter 7 on guidebook usage to develop a typology of guidebook users. Evidence for this typology, building substantially on the work of Therkelsen and Sørensen (2005), derives from fieldwork data from Denmark, Australia, Indonesia and Fiji. Further support is offered by examples of guidebook usage in situ collected opportunistically in a number of countries in Asia, Europe and Africa.

8

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

Guidebook Research Lacunae While significant academic commentary has included the guidebook to a greater or lesser extent, extant research displays serious lacunae. As a means of contesting viewpoints and introducing fresh perspectives on guidebooks in the tourist system, we have identified seven such lacunae worth further exploration. Lacunae 1: Travel guidebook conceptualisation. For travel guidebooks, about which a small body of research has been built and which is so frequently mentioned in passing in the tourism research literature, it is striking that so little has been done by way of conceptual clarification. What is termed in this book as ‘travel guidebook’ or ‘guidebook’ is in the research literature described by a number of words, such as guide, handbook, travel guide, tourist guidebook or travel handbook. Several of these words also carry significantly different meanings or are easily confused with similar phrases leading to terminological misunderstanding. There exists little by way of conceptualisation of the guidebook, a consequence of which is a tendency to probe only those texts commonly recognised as guidebooks. The lack of conceptualisation in research leads to the actual breadth of travel guidebooks narrowing to a few ‘safe’ choices (books that are popularly identified as travel guidebooks), while in other research the term ‘guidebook’ is used indiscriminately. The need for conceptualisation is all the more pressing given the appearance of new technologies and platforms in the form of tablets, smartphones, e-books, hypertext, apps, user-generated content and so on. This and the accompanying challenges to conventional publishing and distribution further emphasise the benefit of fundamental conceptualisation and explicit definition of the guidebook to provide a foundation for analysis of ongoing change in travel information provision. Issues of definition and conceptualisation are explored in Chapter 2. Lacunae 2: Mutability and evolution in the travel guidebook. There is little extant analysis of the intrinsic structure of the guidebook, particularly in relation to change and consistency in the information provided. It may be expected that guidebooks are prone to sameness in structure, a trait exacerbated in the context of a guidebook series to a single destination. The supposed immutability of the text and structure supports popular conceptions of the guidebook as a rigid constraint on the more liberating aspects of travel. Yet, there is little analysis to support this notion. At the same time, guidebooks are products whose survival requires a response to the changing economic and sociocultural environment in which they operate.

Introduction: Travel Guidebooks and Tourism Discourse

9

In Chapter 5, we take a comparative content analysis approach in evaluating a series of guidebooks, Australia (Lonely Planet), with an aim to understand the guidebook diachronically and to identify the extent and nature of change in one guidebook series over more than three decades. Lacunae 3: Tourist attitudes to the travel guidebook. As identified in research Cluster 3, the guidebook as apodemic or instructional text designed to affect tourist behaviour is a nascent area of research. To date, however, there is little understanding of what users of guidebooks expect from the guidebooks they field. Chapter 6 advances a clearer understanding of consumer opinion regarding the value or otherwise of guidebooks, the reasons for the failures and strengths of guidebooks, and attitudes to particular brands. Analysis of the exchanges by a group of English-speaking online bloggers towards their guidebooks offers insight into the satisfaction and frustration of the guidebook among one group of consumers. Lacunae 4: Impact of guidebooks on businesses. There is an almost complete absence of empirical evidence of guidebooks ‘in action’ generally in relation to tourism businesses. What little evidence exists is generally fragmentary, collected and reported as part of other topics rather than as focused research on the subject of guidebooks. While the role of guidebook information on tourist motivation and choice factors remains largely unexplored, extant analysis indicates that guidebooks do play a part in the success of some tourist enterprises while having little impact on others. This would seem to have particular relevance for the sustainable development of small to medium enterprises in tourism with implications for developing tourism economies. For example, tourist guidebooks have been shown to influence the business of professional tour guiding (Salazar, 2006: 844). However, the absence of scholarly research on guidebooks and tourism businesses is overshadowed by predominant conventional wisdom on guidebooks’ alleged and seemingly obvious impact on businesses that are mentioned in them. Often, this relationship is argued in pejorative ways, as illustrated by the following extract from a travel blog by theseraphicrealm: [A guidebook’s] one saving grace is that when we see a restaurant with a big sign that says ‘Recommended by Lonely Planet’ we know to steer clear. What that sign really means is ‘we know Lonely Planet is sending a bunch of mindless zombies our way; time to jack up our prices, lower our quality, and give crap service’.

10

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

While we are unaware of any empirical research which investigates the assumptions behind such pillorying, the challenge deepens given that there are no simple tools for guidebook description and classification. It would seem to be self-evident that various types of guidebooks used in different destinations may entail disparate business impacts, and that different types of trip organisation entail varied ways of using (or not using) a guidebook with consequences for an individual destination business. Yet we don’t know and we lack the conceptual tools necessary for exploring this further. Whether expressed neutrally or pejoratively, the predominant view of guidebook influence on businesses is almost uncontested in popular discourse and is so prevalent as to deserve to be examined empirically. We do so in Chapter 9, with the dual purpose of checking popular wisdom as well as laying the groundwork for a more systematic exploration of the nexus between the travel guidebook and tourism businesses. Lacunae 5: Impact of travel guidebooks on destinations. Guidebooks play a significant role in the development of popular geographical knowledge and the development of the modern guidebook is generally perceived as concomitant with the growth of mass tourism (Gilbert, 1999). However, despite the pivotal role of the guidebook in the contemporary tourism system, the genre has received little interpretative analysis regarding its impact on destination change. Gilbert (1999: 281) asserts that this is the result of the guidebook’s essentially ephemeral nature in the context of ‘deeper accounts of place’, causing its importance ‘as transcultural texts’ to be vastly underestimated. Following on from analysis of guidebook intersection with the success of individual businesses in a tourist destination, Chapter 10 analyses the interplay between destination development and the guidebooks that promote it. In addition, the chapter focuses on a popular perception of the power of guidebooks to change tourist destinations, usually described as for the worse. The unspecified yearning for an idealised and ahistorical ‘undiscovered destination’ which, once included in a guidebook is then irrevocably lost, assumes a commonplace reading of the agency of guidebooks in destination development. Is this borne out in fact and how is it realised in differing geographical and socio-economic contexts? Lacunae 6: The future of the guidebook. Like many sections of print publishing, guidebooks have been changed by the move from print to digital, with a concomitant reduction in book sales. Western media commentary on the recent turbulence in the guidebook publishing industry frequently heralds its rapid demise. Journalist musings on the future of

Introduction: Travel Guidebooks and Tourism Discourse

11

guidebooks contrast their performance and relevance against travel-related internet sites, smartphone apps and social media platforms offering usergenerated travel information content. Inevitably, the traditional book text is found wanting in terms of its currency, inclusiveness, portability and user-friendliness. Yet, little or nothing by way of serious analysis can be found to support the contention that the death of the guidebook is imminent. Such projections are hampered by the lack of fundamental conceptualisation of the guidebook without which it is left to the implicit discretion of a writer whether to view, for example a travel app from a guidebook publisher as something that expands the concept of guidebook, or something that transcends it and calls for another concept. In Chapter 11, we explore the future of guidebooks in the context of Web 2.0 and the growth of user-generated digital information. Can these innovations replace the guidebook, and where do they succeed or fall short in the eyes of information seekers? By throwing light on such questions, it is possible to add substance to the discussion and deepen understanding of the ongoing transformation of print travel information in the digital environment. Lacunae 7: The cultural stigma of the guidebook. In the final chapter, we specifically address the lack of deconstruction of the cultural stigma routinely associated with guidebooks and their use. As observed in the introduction to this chapter, rather than being seen as a critical agent in the democratising of modern independent travel, the guidebook is often popularly framed as regulating the practical, subjective and intellectual freedom which has been defined as the aim of the seasoned independent tourist. Scientific discourse on guidebooks also emits similar disparaging signals. This is less (albeit still discernible) in research where guidebooks are the explicit subject of investigations, but noticeable in the frequent casual references to guidebooks scattered throughout tourism research. We confront this outlook – not for the illusory purpose of correction, but for elucidation and to propound a reflexive and more self-critical foundation for further research on the interplay of guidebooks, tourism and culture. Tourism research is riddled with schematics, typologies and taxonomies, but even the simplest and most descriptive and empiricist structures have yet to be made for clarifying the intersection of guidebooks, guidebook usage, tourism businesses and tourism destinations. In destabilising established but unarticulated perspectives on the guidebook, we aim to problematise its role in the practice of tourism and to emphasise the guidebook as worthy of focused research.

12

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

Research Approach and Future Agenda In the context of the research lacunae identified here and in the pursuit of our multilayered ambitions, there is no singular approach to be had. This book harnesses what little empirical analysis exists regarding the role of guidebooks in the performance of tourism, drawing together threads of discussion on guidebooks across disciplinary boundaries. Ours is a determinedly interdisciplinary stance. In centralising the guidebook in the performance of tourism and extrapolating its possible future, we draw on the ideas of sociologists, historians, geographers and literary theorists as well as tourism researchers of diverse disciplinary backgrounds. We also contribute fresh evidence concerning the role of the guidebook in tourism from a range of empirical sources. This is a wide-ranging exploration, both conceptually and empirically, and to that end, the sources of evidence used in argument are unashamedly eclectic. Our empirical research on guidebook usage has been ongoing for the last 15 years and comprises the ethnographic practice of observation and immersion, textual content analysis through commentary on guidebooks in the English-speaking media and online blogs and more positivist empirical techniques including surveys and standardised interviews. In Chapter 5, a content analysis approach is used to evaluate the information provided in each edition of a guidebook series over more than three decades, while Chapters 6, 7 and 11 draw especially from online blog commentary to identify elements of preference and use of guidebooks. Chapters 8 to 10 rely more heavily on observation and interview data to explore guidebook user typology, and guidebook impact on businesses and destinations, respectively. Where particular methodologies are applied, these are addressed in detail in the appropriate chapters. Most of the online sources are secondary data, and in only a few of these cases have individuals been contacted with requests for further information. The online sources have thus enriched the data corpus but have not shaped its main structures. Fieldwork data have been both purposely collected in Denmark, Australia, Indonesia and Fiji and opportunistically while engaged in fieldwork on other topics in other parts of Asia, Africa or Europe whenever guidebook users have been encountered in situ. At the time of writing, we have conducted more than a hundred lengthy interviews. Data and impressions from several hundred conversations have provided additional substance, and the online data collection has further enriched the body of research.

Introduction: Travel Guidebooks and Tourism Discourse

13

In order to broaden the coverage, we attempted to ensure data from consumers who used guidebooks other than those in English or Scandinavian languages. This approach was fairly successful regarding users from Western countries (mainly European), but less successful in the context of guidebook consumers from Asian countries who fielded guidebooks in their native languages. The problem was not only one of a language barrier but it was also something as simple as the difficulty to visually identify whether a publication was a guidebook in our sense of the term. In many cases, the design and visual appearance did not correspond with what we realised was our preconceived ideas about the design of a guidebook. Furthermore, when asking the potential informant about the publication, language barriers were often encountered. When such barriers were overcome by the informants’ ability to speak English (or, if need be, the languages in which we can manage a broken conversation), we often found that the publication which the informant identified as a guidebook had been provided by a tour operator as part of a package. These publications did not meet the definition of a guidebook that we outline in Chapter 2, since they were not commercially distributed as an entity and often did not have a comprehensive content. Our primary data (interviews, observations, conversations), therefore, are still uncomfortably Westerncentric. Lee’s (2001) critique of the Eurocentrism prevalent in tourism theories in general, and guidebook research in particular, is therefore also relevant for the present study. Undeniably, the composite character of the data corpus, combined with the opportunistically collected data in which locations were selected with studies of other subjects in mind, challenges the overall consistency of the amassed evidence. The data collection process has been somewhat irregular and opportunistic and the data collected are therefore not qualified for quantitative analysis or comprehensive generalisations. However, constancy was upheld in the type of knowledge that was secured through interviews and, at most locations, the insights were substantiated by means of ethnographic participant observation. Additionally, given that the present study is exploratory with the aim of identifying patterns of guidebook usage, the authors find that the use of the composite dataset is justifiable. The need for ‘multisited’ studies of social and cultural phenomena has been discussed and recognised in social science disciplines in the last two decades (Appadurai, 1996; Augé, 1995; Marcus, 1998; Urry, 2000), laying the groundwork for the mobilities perspective in social science in general (Creswell, 2010; Hannam et al., 2006) including tourism studies specifically (Cohen & Cohen, 2012, Coles, 2015). These

14

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

discussions have produced insights as regards potentials and challenges to the explanatory value of multisited or mobile data collection, which are useful for the present study. In short, working inductively rather than deductively is appropriate for what is exploratory research aiming to deliver a deeper understanding of the guidebook phenomenon at the start of an era of mass media convergence.

2 Conceptualising Travel Guidebooks The problem is not only that the variability and constantly increasing number of guidebooks frustrate the researcher’s attempt to grasp the genre as a conceptual whole. (…) the guidebook’s elusiveness stems from its nature as a complex ‘intertext’ marked by traces of the travelogue, atlas, geographical survey, art-history guide, restaurant and hotel guide, tourist brochure, address book, and civic primer. Koshar, 2000: 15–16

Introduction Tourism research has a tradition for conceptualisation. While the quality of this work at times may be criticised as overly empiricist and lacking relevance beyond the confines of the tourism academy, it has served the indispensable function of improving communication across the disciplinary boundaries which contribute to the tourism research domain. Conceptual clarifications and challenges have been central in the problematisation and exploration of issues that at first glance seem straightforward, yet are inherently more complex. Travel guidebooks, however, have not been subjected to much conceptual groundwork despite receiving frequent, passing mention in the research literature. As argued in Chapter 1, this lack of critique or conceptualisation contributes to perpetuating conventional wisdoms about guidebooks and their influence, which may indeed be flawed or at least deserving of closer scrutiny. In this chapter, we therefore lay the conceptual groundwork to demarcate the travel guidebook through identifying key features and characteristics. We view conceptualisation to be both a matter of distinction between guidebooks and other types of related material, and a matter of elucidating the breadth of the genre. Our understanding of travel guidebooks necessitates that both text and use be taken into account, requiring that conceptualisation moves beyond the physical artefact and includes practise. Thus, the conceptualisation necessarily incorporates heuristic contemplation, literary analysis, textual comparison and inductive insights. This approach is also intended to circumvent the apparent distinction between the printed book and the digitally stored text 15

16

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

(smartphones, tablets, apps, etc.) in order to develop a conceptualisation that is platform independent.

Guidebook Terminology in Tourism Research Lack of terminological clarity impedes something as seemingly simple as gauging how often guidebooks are mentioned in the tourism research literature. An impression of how frequently the term ‘guidebook’ is mentioned in the tourism research literature can be attained by means of a simple text scan of published tourism research. At the same time, however, such scans also reveal resounding ambiguities in terminology. Analysis of a database of approximately 13,200 journal articles (full papers and research notes) from 22 peer-reviewed international English-language tourism journals, mostly published after 2000 (see list of journals and volumes at the end of the chapter), yielded 1048 papers in which the word ‘guidebook’ appears one or more times. A further scan of articles from Annals of Tourism Research, a leading journal in the field, extending from the journal’s fourth volume in 1976 until and including volume 52 in 2015, yielded 212 out of 1983 papers in which the word ‘guidebook’ appears one or more times. Put simply, 1 out of every 13 of the papers scanned, and 1 out of every 9 papers in Annals of Tourism Research contains the word ‘guidebook’. Obviously, all sorts of caveats surround these findings. However, while limited and barely systematic, they offer a starting point in identifying traits in the representation of guidebooks in the research literature which require closer scrutiny. At first sight, the findings signal that the term ‘guidebook’ is widely used, which suggests a commonly accepted understanding of the term. Yet, a closer reading of a large portion of the papers indicates that ‘guidebook’ is used to refer to a varied range of texts. While often taken to mean the types of purchasable commercial publications that are conventionally denoted as ‘travel guidebooks’, the term is also occasionally used to denote promotional publications from tourism organisations, lists of camp sites, restaurants or attractions and the like. For instance, in separate studies of marketing activities in Taiwanese and American bed and breakfasts (Chen et al., 2013; Lee et al., 2003), the term ‘guidebook’ is used to cover listings and compilations of accommodation where bed and breakfasts in Taiwan and the USA can be listed for a fee. In other papers, the term is used as an answer option in questionnaires (e.g. Kim et al., 2011; Okazaki & Hirose, 2009; Shoemaker, 2000). Depending on the data collection technique, this may leave respondents

Conceptualising Travel Guidebooks

17

with the task of determining meaning and researchers with data which reflect a diversity of interpretations. In addition, the word ‘guidebook’ is also used to describe various writings not connected to tourism such as instruction manuals and field guides. At the same time, the travel guidebook, in the sense of a purchasable commercial publication, is denoted by a number of terms in the research literature. Many of these are also used to represent other types of texts, causing terminological confusion and misunderstanding. Using the same database of literature as above for a simple count of terms frequently interchanged with ‘guidebook’, such as ‘guide’, ‘travel guide’, ‘traveller’s guide’, ‘handbook’ and ‘travel handbook’, yielded substantial counts and an even wider field of denotations for each word. Conversely, searches in the collection for ostensibly more precise phrases such as ‘tourist guidebook’, ‘tourism guidebook’ or ‘travel guidebook’ elicited significantly fewer hits. Thus, simple indexing by means of words or phrases lacks precision unless each result is individually assessed and even then there is much terminological ambiguity. Nevertheless, travel guidebooks, in the sense of a purchasable commercial publication used in tourism, are undoubtedly often referred to in the tourism research literature. Frequently, this is in the shape of a remark, an aside, an example or an exemplification. Exemplifications, at the same time, can also be in the shape of a referral to a specific guidebook or guidebook publisher. A scan of the same database as used above for specific mentions of 10 leading English-language guidebook publishers elicits some interesting findings, as evidenced in Table 2.1. Table 2.1 Number of articles mentioning 10 leading English language guidebook publishers from a database of 13,200 academic tourism journal papers Publisher Lonely Planet Rough Guide Michelin Fodor Baedeker Frommer Blue Guide +Guide Bleu Moon Footprint Eyewitness

No. of articles 367 81 78 51 33 36 23 20 10 9

18

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

A number of limitations have to be invoked when interpreting these numbers. Firstly, several of the publishers’ names consist of commonly used English words or phrases, meaning that each result of the scan had to be confirmed manually. Secondly, there is a chance that other guidebook publishers might have yielded higher numbers than those at the lower end of the scores. What is of interest in these limited findings is not the exact numbers but the broad trends in academic interest, in particular guidebook publishers. The publisher Lonely Planet is referenced in more than four times as many papers as any other single guidebook publication and appears in more papers than the other nine combined. Indeed, since many references to these nine publishers occur conjointly, with two or more of them mentioned (most often together with Lonely Planet), it can be assumed that Lonely Planet appears in twice as many papers as the other nine publishers combined. At the very least, the numbers attest to the propensity in the research community to use, illustrate or denote travel guidebooks and their publishers chiefly by way of Lonely Planet publications. Outside the tourism research domain, it is perhaps surprising that Lonely Planet is preferred as the exemplification of the contemporary guidebook genre. Longer established, more characteristically conventional publications from the Michelin, Fodor or Baedeker publishing houses, rather than the leading example of what used to be called ‘alternative guidebooks’, might seem more appropriate. However, as will be demonstrated in Chapter 5, Lonely Planet guidebooks have in the last decade moved away from a foundation approach exuding counterculture and anti-tourism distancing from the masses. According to Iaquinto (2011: 718), Lonely Planet is now not just the world’s largest publisher of guidebooks, but has also been ‘mainstreamed’ in terms of content, style, retail approach, language range and in a targeted online strategy. It is therefore perhaps the appropriate exemplification of a contemporary Western guidebook. In addition, it might also be argued that the prevalence of and preference for Lonely Planet in tourism research lies in the sociocultural experience of researchers themselves, many of whom are part of the generation most imprinted by the Lonely Planet oeuvre. Certainly, the growth of Lonely Planet and of Western academic tourism research shows simultaneous development histories with both emerging strongly in the late 1970s and becoming institutionalised from the 1990s. It is therefore tempting to speculate that the academy’s tendency to invoke Lonely Planet as a representation of guidebooks in general, and to critically distance and differentiate the researcher from that symbol of guidebooks and what it represents in tourism, are confirmations of the Western middle-class foundation of academia in general and tourism academia in particular.

Conceptualising Travel Guidebooks

19

As tourism researchers, we have ourselves frequently wrestled with allowing our work on guidebook research to be curbed by our personal histories of Lonely Planet guidebook use. In summary, the word ‘guidebook’ is used to denote a broad variety of texts reaching far beyond the term’s routine use, and travel guidebooks are themselves denoted by means of a number of synonymic terms. In addition, analysis of travel guidebooks in the academic sphere is not framed by a conceptualisation but through definition by means of exemplification. The publications by Lonely Planet dominate in this respect, suggesting that this might reveal more about the researchers than about the research.

Conceptions of Travel Guidebooks in the Research Literature The many cases of definition by means of Lonely Planet exemplification demonstrate the tenuous conceptual foundation of travel guidebooks in tourism research. The term ‘guidebook’ is most often used without much clarification as a seemingly self-evident notion which overlooks the breadth of travel guidebook variation. Since Jacobsen (1999) highlighted the near absence of definitions or conceptualisations of the travel guidebook, a substantial body of tourism research has been published, including some on guidebooks. Yet, there remains little sign of delimiting the phenomenon. It is a challenging task as summed up by Koshar in the quote which opens this chapter. He further argues that ‘Even so, it is possible to select a number of guidebooks to illustrate broader themes’ (Koshar, 2000: 16). With the appearance of online mobile platforms, Web 2.0 and social media, guidebook conceptualisation has not become any easier since Jacobsen (1999) and Koshar (2000). However, precisely because of that challenge, it has become all the more important to explicate conceptualisations and delimitations to provide a less ambiguous framework for exploration and comparison. In some cases, guidebooks are tentatively identified, although this is frequently by means of a description of what they are not for the sake of excluding them from the subject to be analysed. Thus, in Fussell’s (1980: back cover) ‘Elegy for the lost art of travel’, he eliminates the guidebook from analysis of the travel book by claiming that it is not autobiographical and it is ‘not sustained by a narrative exploiting the devices of fiction’ (Fussell, 1980: 203). More scientifically, Dann (1992: 59) distinguishes the guidebook from the travelogue by identifying the latter as ‘an impressionistic and evaluative post-trip published account of one or more destination areas authored for

20

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

purposes of promotion, information and entertainment’, while pointing to the supposedly low entertainment value of the guidebook (Dann, 1992: 60). In the same vein, Robinson (2004) nuances yet reaffirms the distinction about what travel writing is by what it is not: Travel books are not guidebooks. While we can identify a shift to more playful and elaborate textual infilling such as that found within the Rough Guide and the Lonely Planet Series, guides more or less as repositories of ‘factual’ (albeit value-laden) information that the tourist can reliably use to navigate him- or herself to, and around, spaces generally already designated as having touristic interest. (Robinson, 2004: 305) The exclusion of the travel guidebook from the analysis of travel books, negative as it may seem, is nevertheless useful for our attempts at conceptualisation, by providing input for delimitation. Lack of explicit definitions has not deterred research from being conducted in which guidebooks are examined extensively. For example, Garrod and Kosowska’s (2012) comparison of the representation of Goa in brochures and in guidebooks found that the image of Goa differs between the two types of printed media while advising that destination managers attempt to streamline the image representation. However, no bibliographic information on brochures or guidebooks can be found in Garrod and Kosowska’s paper, and the reader thus cannot assess the representativeness of the selected material. Furthermore, no definition of a guidebook (or brochure for that matter) can be found beyond the authors’ assurances that they acquired the brochures from British travel agent shops and purchased English language guidebooks with Goa in the title. Thus, while the analysis is interesting and seems credible, the findings are inevitably incomplete. In most analysis of guidebook texts there is an unstated assumption that a ‘guidebook’ is a universally understood term. This supposition is present in Andsager and Drzewiecka’s (2002) exploration of readers’ reception of images from guidebooks for South Africa and New York. The research offers new thinking on destination familiarity and desirability, although this is achieved without either clarifying the term or specifying which guidebooks were used in the research. McGregor (2000) also challenges the assumption that tourists automatically accept the claims made in guidebooks when he investigates the effects of guidebooks upon users in Tana Toraja, Indonesia. McGregor (2000: 28) argues that ‘texts have no intrinsic meaning independent of the process of conscious interpretation; in other words, meaning is (re)created at the point of

Conceptualising Travel Guidebooks

21

reception’, highlighting the existence of a dynamic relationship between guidebook and consumer. The study avoids any need to specify the term ‘guidebook’ since only two published titles were found in use in Tana Toraja. In passing, however, McGregor (2000: 37) mentions that ‘many travellers shunned the locally-produced guidebooks’ leaving the meaning of the term unexplained and a conceptual ambiguity unresolved. While the analyses undertaken in these examples suggest that, despite the lack of conceptual explication, the guidebooks addressed fall within a common understanding of the term, in other cases this is less certain. For instance, when Edelheim et al. (2011) investigate the concept of awardwinning restaurants utilising so-called ‘food guidebooks’, it is unclear whether these can also be perceived as travel guidebooks. A similar ambiguity is evinced in Mackensie’s (2005) book chapter addressing guidebooks in the British Empire from 1860 to 1939. Mackensie (2005) notes that many of these texts were by-products of other travel business such as that of travel agent Thomas Cook or of shipping lines, leaving unclear whether these books are independent from, or integrated with, other travel products such as tours or packages. Peres et al. (2011) suggest that most published analyses on tourist information searching address that undertaken during the pre-departure phase of travel and that there is little addressing when a tourist is at the destination. At the same time, the paper titled ‘The indicators of intention to adopt mobile electronic tourist guides’ by Peres et al. (2011) itself harbours terminological ambiguity since the term ‘mobile electronic tourist guide’ is left largely unspecified. The reader can only assume that the findings include such mobile electronic guides as Google maps, electronic guidebooks (e-guidebooks), museum guides and various peerto-peer apps such as TripAdvisor. Thus, as regards grasping at least some of the consequences of technological change on information provision for tourists in situ, some sort of conceptual clarification is necessary, not least in order to locate travel guidebooks (printed or electronic) in that larger context. In several publications with an explicit focus on guidebook research there are at least some pronounced components of delineation which serve to deepen understanding of travel guidebooks. Indeed, Michalski (2004: 190) goes so far as to argue that, in recent years, historians have begun to describe a typology of guidebooks. However, the studies cited by Michalski are part of the relatively extensive body of historical research on guidebooks and, as will be argued in the next chapter, historical studies of travel guidebooks are almost exclusively based on analysis of guidebook text and images. We have not found evidence of extensive

22

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

historical analysis of guidebook use, for example, pre-trip, in the field or post-trip. The few tourism scholars who have investigated guidebook delineation rely on two components with which to demarcate the guidebook: specific purpose and as a description of characteristics or criteria which might be readily identified as belonging in a guidebook text. A quote from Dann (1999) demonstrates the first of these components while also showing how categorisation of the guidebook is interlaced with evaluations: [A guidebook] is there to rationalize and bring together the disparities of the tourism infrastructure, to help, advise and warn tourists, to steer them through the morass of alien lifeways (…). Indeed, successors to Murray and Baedeker, such as Le Guide Bleu or Michelin, through their borrowed systems of asterisking and textual ‘marking’ of vivenda, can be considered as linguistic agents of touristic social control (…). Even more recent and diversified guides, such as Lonely Planet and Rough Guides, although targeted at the adventuresome, independent tourist, do not entirely escape this criticism, since the authoritative textual ‘recommendations’ of compilers and fellow wanderers as implicit narrators can also be considered semiotically constraining (…). (Dann, 1999: 163) Lew (1991) offers an illustration of the second component in a characterisation of guidebooks as a type of travel literature distinct from promotional material: Like brochures and advertisements, guidebooks serve both functional and symbolic objectives. Guidebooks, however, are usually more comprehensive and attempt a more accurate assessment of places. Because they are purchased, instead of being obtained free of charge, their utilitarian value and reliability are perceived to be higher. (Lew, 1991: 126) Lew (1991) thus highlights some important characteristics that a proper conceptualisation ought to take into account: Guidebooks serve both functional and symbolic objectives, are ‘comprehensive’ and are purchased and by this are attributed with higher reliability than the mass of destination marketing material available free from public and private providers. Most recently, Antonescu and Stock (2014) make an interesting attempt at developing a methodology for the use of guidebooks to trace

Conceptualising Travel Guidebooks

23

the historical development of the globalisation of tourism. While the very attempt of such research points to the need for a stringent system of in/ exclusion of source material, it also points to the need for a conceptualisation that can include two centuries of changes in text and tourism. Looking forward, it thus also points to the necessity of a conceptualisation that is open enough to anticipate and incorporate ongoing developments. However, Antonescu and Stock (2014), while establishing some interesting criteria for inclusion in the guidebook category, are less interested in the expansion of scholarly knowledge about guidebooks or their use. Rather, their purpose is to utilise guidebooks as a data source for mapping tourism globalisation. In this context, guidebooks are the means rather than the end and the actual usage of travel guidebooks does not have a prominent place in their criteria for inclusion. A consequence of the near absence of conceptualisations of the guidebook is the prevailing empiricist approach to analysis. Thus, the materials most frequently analysed as guidebook texts are those commonly recognised as guidebooks with particularly extensive reference to the publications of Lonely Planet. While providing insight into mainstream guidebooks, the consequent focus on such texts is constantly in danger of producing tautological knowledge by which preconceptions are reproduced through repeated apparent confirmation. Moreover, the limited knowledge on actual guidebook usage, as suggested in Chapter 1, does not redress this hazard.

Genre, Genre Theory and Guidebook Texts in Action Even when disregarding explicit marketing material, the variation and volume of travel-related writings are vast. These include, but are not limited to, such diverse items as travelogues and travel narratives, glossy souvenir picture books, in-depth ethnographic accounts, travel blogs, wikis and online reviews. To some degree, all these writings can and do function as sources of information for visitors to a destination and can be used in ways similar to that of the conventional travel guidebook. Similarly, other writings without an overt travel dimension can serve as guides to practical or factual information and advice. These include handbook-like writings on specific subjects, for instance culinary guides, architectural reference books, museum catalogues and others. Likewise, writings that convey deep insight into the social, cultural, political, economic and historical aspects of a destination can supplement or replace the information offered on such matters by conventional guidebooks. And yet, guidebooks differ from these writings.

24

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

Given the extensive range of contemporary guidebooks, attempts of definition should be approached cautiously. Any demarcation must encompass the popular use of the term ‘guidebook’ while maintaining a degree of analytical detachment that moves beyond everyday usage of the term in order to facilitate exploration. It is therefore essential to impose a conceptually devised depiction on a subject area which hitherto has been delineated in a predominantly empiricist manner. Some research (Koshar, 2000; Marine-Roig, 2011) uses the term ‘genre’ in the depiction of guidebook texts, albeit without specifying the term further. We concur that it is useful to conceive of guidebooks as a distinct literary genre. Genre theory and genre analysis are a complex field with a number of conflicting views, contesting theories and analyses and the diversity is further exacerbated by the growing diversity of subjects where a concept of genre is employed analytically. Traditionally used in literary studies and later in film and media studies, the concept of genre is now utilised in varied fields of analyses including social science research (Lewin et al., 2000). It is beyond the scope of this chapter to investigate the complex field of genre theory, yet even at an elementary level, the concept of genre yields insights on conceptions of travel guidebooks. In particular, Duff’s (2000: xiii) depiction of genre as ‘a recurring type or category of text, as defined by structural, thematic and/or functional criteria’ identifies a concept that can be used readily in the analysis of travel guidebooks. We contend, however, that some of the characteristics of guidebooks only come into being through actual use. When viewed purely as a literary entity, the complex interaction of certain essential dimensions of the object routinely identified as a guidebook, such as representation, place and user, are omitted. Simultaneously, the guidebook producer’s assumption that there are individuals who use the guidebook in the field is a necessary foundation for any conceptualisation. Therefore, the identification of travel guidebooks as genre presupposes that certain elements of both content and use are taken into account. This assumes a genre concept that is not limited to prescriptive classificatory use by means of predefined literary criteria, but instead has a primary ambition to minimise classification and maximise clarification and interpretation (Cohen, 2000: 296). On that basis, the concept of genre as applied here identifies properties and characteristics of the genre of guidebooks as text while at the same time introducing the trans-textual property of usage. Pursuing Duff’s depiction and Cohen’s ambition as above, we find strong inspiration in Seaton (2002) and Jack and Phipps (2003) for the

Conceptualising Travel Guidebooks

25

outer framing of travel guidebooks as genre. Jack and Phipps (2003) use the term ‘apodemic literature’ or ‘instructional literature’ in the context of the guidebook. They explain the term this way: ‘Apodemic literature is a didactic, instructional literature which exerts a significant performative role upon the reader’ (Jack & Phipps, 2003: 283). When used in combination with Seaton’s (2002) elucidations on belle lettres and vade mecum in travel texts, a fitting anchorage for the comprehension of travel guidebooks is delivered. Seaton (2002) argues that the twin needs of the tourist are fulfilled by two kinds of travel text; ‘stage directions’ indicating where to go and what to see and, less obviously, ‘how to play the part of responding as a bone fide traveller/tourist’. These two roles are met by the vade mecum text and the belles lettres travel text: The vade mecum text directs attention through the senses to objects in the external world for the tourist gaze, by objectively inventorying places, sites, routes and their features (…). Belles lettres texts, in contrast, are a more diverse category, which encompasses travel memoirs and diaries, poetry, novels and the how-to-do-it texts (…) that, implicitly or explicitly, offer discursive modes of apprehension of, and response to, travel and place (…). If the vade mecum text inventories the external world, the belles lettres text inculcates mind sets for apprehending it. (Seaton, 2002: 148) Seaton’s insightful understanding not only assists in conceptualising travel guidebooks but also further distinguishes between the different styles of guidebook. Travel guidebooks will necessarily have to be conceived as vade mecum texts to some extent, but we clearly find that in conceptualising guidebooks, the belles lettres dimension of ‘educating’ the user to have the ‘proper’ gaze and approach is also clearly required. Thus, while the vade mecum is conspicuously and instrumentally present in the text, the belles lettres, while more subtly, is no less present, and may be more enduring (explored further in Chapter 11). The balance between these two to a large extent determines the character of the guidebook as apodemic text.

Conceptualisation Any exploratory conceptualisation is necessarily heuristic in nature and the overall notion of genre does not in itself direct the conceptualisation towards any specific factors that need to be incorporated. However, the review and contemplations above point to a concept of guidebooks that

26

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

transcends the boundary between literature and usage, text and actual tourism. Through a distillation of our research into the guidebook phenomenon, including observations, interviews and blog analysis in addition to extensive reading of the extant secondary data, we argue that any conceptualisation must take into account the following five constituents with complementary features: • • • • •

Utility: The fielding of the guidebook. Substance: The properties of the textual substance. Ephemerality: The ephemeral convergence of user, description and place. Authority: The construction of textual authority. Assistance: The facilitating function of the guidebook.

Each of these five constituents can be conveyed by means of two complementary features which express both distinguishing factors and characteristics pertaining to the travel guidebook. These 10 features essential to the conceptualisation of the guidebook are presented and discussed. Utility: Enactment and entity. The necessity to include actual guidebook usage in the conceptualisation is illustrated at the outset since a first feature is the practical enactment. A travel guidebook can be utilised in the field; in the actual experience of the represented object, place or experience. From a production side, this entails that guidebooks are made to be used in the field and that these instrumental intentions are related to the areas or attractions covered in the guidebook. A second feature, however, is that while guidebooks need not necessarily be printed text, they share a basic attribute with the printed book in that they are discrete entities. Thus, while a collection of downloads from various websites can provide on-site usable information and thereby substitute for a guidebook, this substitution is not a guidebook since it is not a predefined entity. Similarly, a travel essay in a magazine may provide destination information, travel advice and facility suggestions which may supplant the guidebook. However, it cannot itself be termed a ‘guidebook’ if the magazine entity includes matters unrelated to travel. Substance: Place representation and comprehensiveness. A third feature of the guidebook is place representation. In one way or another, the coverage of a guidebook is expressed in geographical terms and, within the geographical area in question, the guidebook communicates selected aspects related to the site, region or route. By nature, guidebooks are selective, not exhaustive. A textual analysis of various guidebooks would be able to induce some sort of typology of curatorial criteria offering an opinionated selection rather than an indifferent listing. However, while

Conceptualising Travel Guidebooks

27

a guidebook is selective, at the same time it contains a diverse range of information. Thus, a fourth feature is the matter of comprehensiveness. While the focus may be on special interests such as golf, trekking or cycling, guidebooks are distinguished from special interest literature in that they contain instrumental and/or place representing information that goes beyond the special interest in question. Ephemerality: Distance and transience. A fifth feature is the intended nonlocal audience of the guidebook. Guidebooks can be used by locals both for the ‘view from afar’ that the guidebook expresses, and for the instrumental or informational content – indeed, non-locally made guidebooks may be considered superior by locals – but providing new knowledge for a local audience is not the raison d’etre of the guidebook. A corresponding sixth feature is the focus on the transitory visit to the area in question. In this way, the guidebook differs both from the pathfinders for residents with directory-like inclusions on businesses, institutions and authorities, and from the manual or handbook for expatriates or migrants focused on guiding the semi-permanent resident. Locals, immigrants or expatriates may use the guidebook, but its principle target is the transient visitor. Authority: Identity and contention. A seventh feature is the sender identity. Contrary to commercial place promotion or tourism marketing where distinct authorship or sender identity is often lacking (Dann, 1996: 62–63), travel guidebooks display clear sender identity, usually in the shape of recognised authorship or publisher. Indeed, part of guidebook authority comes from non-anonymity. Authority is also part of the eighth feature, which identifies the guidebook as containing elements of contention. While a guidebook need not necessarily be independent of external commercial interests (e.g. advertisements or payment for listings), its assemblage of information and advice is distinct from ‘official’ information or marketing listings, and to some degree contests the authority of such information. Assistance: Facilitation and evaluation. In continuation of the above, a ninth feature is the facilitation of selection, as opposed to a description of progression. The guidebook is different from a tour description with its structured progression. A guidebook may suggest tours, programmes and itineraries, but while the usage of a guidebook may take the appearance of a pursuit of a scripted experience, the guidebook transcends the linearity of a script since it can be used capriciously. Finally, a tenth feature is the presence of evaluation in that guidebooks appraise elements of the tourism experience of a destination area. The evaluation does not necessarily purport to be neutral or objective. Like the eighth feature identified here, the evaluation is designed to assist the guidebook user to distinguish the guidebook from

28

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

promotional material or informative listings distributed by promotional organisations.

Discussion and Definition Clearly, much in the conceptualisation above is an explicit articulation of common, tacit understanding of the concept of the travel guidebook. Simultaneously, however, the 5 constituents and the 10 features also serve to demarcate the guidebook as a subject area by providing a framework for the reasoned assessment of a given text. Thus, while the inclusion or exclusion of various texts from the guidebook genre is noted in these features as outlined, a combination of them excludes an additional number of borderline texts from the genre of guidebooks. This is the case for a vast number of apodemic or instructional travel ‘handbooks’, whether they are for pre-departure (e.g. Hasbrouck, 2007; Lansky, 2013), travel health (e.g. Wilson-Howarth, 2009), practical details such as packing or toilets (e.g. Gilford, 2006; Newman, 2000) or travel dangers (e.g. Pelton, 2003; Piven & Borgenicht, 2001). Conversely, the guidebook genre would include a volume such as the ubiquitous ‘South American Handbook’ (Box, 2014), despite its similarity in title. As regards empirical investigations of guidebooks in action, this conceptual groundwork allows for reasonably coherent frames of reference for analyses and comparison of usage by excluding the use of a variety of texts such as ornithological field guides, glossy souvenir books, culinary-only guides, architectural reference books and museum catalogues. In some ways, the usage of these texts might resemble that of guidebooks as defined but, while providing insight into tourists’ information acquisition, their inclusion in this study would provide little insight into the usage of texts conventionally known as guidebooks. Thus, the presence of an explicit conceptualisation allows for reasoned inclusion or exclusion of text, and the genre-based approach enables both text and usage to be included in a conceptualisation. In our view, the above also enables a comprehensive inclusion of much of the knowledge from the various ways that guidebooks are covered in both the research literature and in broader communications. It enables us not only to investigate guidebooks, guidebook use and guidebook impacts, but within the same conceptualisation to investigate the characteristics of guidebook presence in public discourses. This aim takes inspiration from MacCannell’s (1976: 10) argument that ‘The modern critique of tourists is not an analytical reflection on the problem of tourism – it is part of the problem’. As stressed in Chapter 1, we find that in order to reach a more comprehensive understanding of travel guidebooks, it is indispensable to include the critique of guidebooks in the investigation.

Conceptualising Travel Guidebooks

29

Drawing together the deliberations above, the following therefore offers a distillation of these factors and in this volume serves as a definition of the guidebook: A travel guidebook is a commercially distributed entity, made for transient non-locals to be used in the field. It contains place representations and is comprehensive as it includes practical information beyond that of a special interest subject. Yet, it is selective, and by evaluating more than just listing it facilitates a selection process. Authority is asserted through sender identity and through the potential to contend ‘official’ information.

Conclusion In this chapter, we have conceptualised the travel guidebook. While somewhat challenging work, we find the exercise necessary since basic and reflected conceptualisation is remarkably absent in the published research on travel guidebooks. Consequently, it was found necessary to conceptualise the guidebook in a way that moves beyond a purely literary representation. The conceptualisation suggested in this chapter is not intended to provide a clear, unambiguous and operational definition to be used in, for example, quantitative surveying. Instead, the purpose has been to probe and demarcate in order to suggest and outline boundaries to be considered when devising operational definitions. In the chapters that follow, this conceptualisation and consequent definition has been employed by us, both in the collection of primary data and in the identification of apposite secondary data such as blogs and other online postings, so as to enhance subject consistency. The creation of a conceptual perspective that combines the literary representation and facets of usage elucidates certain characteristics of the guidebook as a genre. This, in turn, facilitates analysis of actual tourist usage of guidebooks by enabling the analysis to move beyond the simplistic causal view of tourist practice as simply produced by the guidebook. Instead, this perspective suggests that the guidebook and guidebook usage be viewed as a complex and varied totality. Only in this way is it possible to come to terms with a number of apparent contradictions without renouncing the general level in the analysis of guidebook usage. These apparent contradictions include tourists using the same guidebook differently, varied representation of the same place in diverse guidebooks which are apparently consumed by tourists in a similar manner, and the varying degree of supplementation of guidebook information with other tourist resources.

30

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

Table 2.2 Journals scanned for the word ‘guidebook’ and for specific guidebook title series Journal name Anatolia Annals of Tourism Research Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research Current Issues in Tourism International Journal of Tourism Research Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research Journal of Sustainable Tourism Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing Journal of Travel Research Journal of Vacation Marketing Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Tourism and Hospitality Research Tourism Analysis Tourism, Culture & Communication Tourism Geographies Tourism Management Tourism Management Perspectives Tourism Recreation Research Tourism Review Tourism Review International Tourist Studies Papers scanned

Period scanned (year/ vol/iss–year/vol/iss)

No. of papers scanned

1997/08/3–2015/26/2 1976/04/1–2015/52 1997/02/2–2015/20/5 1998/01/1–2015/18/1 1999/01/1–2015/17/1 1999/23/1–2015/39/1 1996/04/1–2015/23/3 2003/01/1–2015/13/1 1997/05/4–2015/32/3 1994/32/4–2015/54/2 1994/01/1–2015/21/2 2001/01/1–2014/14/4

382 1,983 531 557 616 400 725 190 829 948 570 277

2001/03/1–2015/15/1 2001/06/1–2015/20/1 2001/03/1–2015/14/3 1999/01/1–2015/17/1 1991/12/1–2015/49 2012/01–2015/13 1997/22/1–2015/40/1 2000/55/1–2015/70/1 2006/10/1–2015/18/4 2001/01/1–2015/15/1

303 675 187 443 2,100 130 617 304 215 217 13,199

3 Guidebook Histories Write from the spot and trust nothing to memory. Mariana Starke, 1820: v

Introduction In an early polemic on the importance of history in the study of tourism, historian John Towner drew attention to the guidebook as an invaluable primary source for scholars. Together with personal documents such as the letters and journals of travellers, guidebooks were described as offering a window onto tourism practice in a ‘pre-statistics era’ (Towner, 1988: 49). In this chapter, we examine how historians have both used and represented the guidebook in their study of tourism history. Guidebooks have attracted routine mention in numerous published histories of Western tourism, frequently as part of a vast array of literary resources underpinning observations about the conditions of travel and the preferences of tourists (Black, 2003; Borsay, 2005; Cocks, 2001; Davidson & Spearritt, 2000; Durie, 2003; Löfgren, 1999; Mullen & Munson, 2009; Sweet, 2012; Towner, 1996; Walton, 2000). The guidebook has also attracted the attention of historians as a topic in its own right, in the form of chronological narrative histories (Parsons, 2007; Sillitoe, 1997; Vaughan, 1974), and as the centrepiece for more theorised accounts of tourism in a particular historical period (Espelt & Benito, 2005; Gilbert, 1999; Hanley & Walton, 2010; Koshar, 2000; Looker, 2002; MacKenzie, 2005; Michalski, 2008; Palmowski, 2002). The first two sections of this chapter summarise dominant themes in the historicising of the guidebook to date. Firstly, we offer an overview of the way guidebooks are incorporated into historical writing and addressed as historical artefacts and, secondly, their incorporation into the narrative arc of tourism history. We find that the historiography of the guidebook is inevitably tied to broader trends in how tourism is addressed within the discipline of history and the still nascent integration in tourism studies of historical perspectives and methodologies. The latter half of the chapter addresses four omissions in the current historiography of the guidebook based on the preceding analysis. These present a number of opportunities for understanding the role of guidebooks in the history of tourism. 31

32

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

History, Tourism and the Guidebook Historical perspectives are increasingly, although sporadically, integrated with the broader domain of tourism research. Campaigning over several decades for recognition of the importance of history to the study of tourism (and of tourism to the study of history), Walton (2005: 1) attributes the ‘innate conservatism’ of the discipline of history as relegating tourism ‘to the margins of the allegedly inconsequential’. Conversely, tourism scholarship grounded in the social sciences is drawn to contemporary behaviours, trends and practices in which history plays a minor role. Historical perspectives, including the ‘allusive, indirect and cross referential’ use of sources by historians have often been viewed by tourism researchers as perplexing and irrelevant (Walton, 2005: 2). Historical analysis of the guidebook must therefore be seen as reflective of the limited focus both of historians on tourism and of tourism researchers’ integration of historical resources in their analysis. As a seemingly ephemeral object in the conduct of tourism, the guidebook has generally failed to attract much close scrutiny as a topic in its own right. In terms of extended treatment, there are few volumes in chronological style recounting guidebook history (Parsons, 2007; Sillitoe, 1997; Vaughan, 1974). Sillitoe (1997) takes a fanciful look at guidebooks in the century leading to the start of the First World War posing as an imaginary 19th-century tourist. Both Vaughan (1974), and more recently Parsons (2007), take a significantly longer historical perspective. Parsons’ (2007: xiv) endeavour is the more significant in aiming to shed light on ‘the cultural and social influences that moulded the development of guidebooks, the motives of those who wrote them, and the influence they had on their consumers’. Parsons’ (2007) extensive history of the guidebook from antiquity until recent times is, however, limited by omitting to conceptualise the guidebook or to problematise any broad history of the guidebook. Like Sillitoe (1997) and Vaughan (1974), Parsons’ (2007) work offers an historical narrative of the nature and role of certain kinds of popular guidebooks in aspects of a purely Western tourism history. The ephemerality of the guidebook also manifests in the casual way in which it is customarily incorporated in general social and geographical histories of tourism. Guidebooks are mentioned relatively frequently in broad social histories of Western tourism (e.g. Black, 2003; Borsay, 2005; Cocks, 2001; Davidson & Spearritt, 2000; Durie, 2003; Löfgren, 1999; Mullen & Munson, 2009; Sweet, 2012; Towner, 1996; Walton, 2000). Durie’s (2003) Scotland for the Holidays: Tourism in Scotland c1780–1939, for example, deploys guidebook resources sporadically throughout the analysis as part of a vast

Guidebook Histories

33

array of ephemeral and routinely generated literature from which to draw observations about the conditions of travel and the preferences of tourists. In Towner’s (1996: 136) extensive history covering 400 years of European travel, guidebooks likewise receive numerous brief mentions in keeping with the expansive sweep of the work’s focus. What is also evident in Towner’s approach is how the guidebook is used as an indicator of the institutionalisation of commercial tourism. The reader is signposted to understand the spread of premodern tourism, for example, through assertions such as ‘[B]y 1700 most Italian towns had guidebooks and by 1800 town guides were common throughout Europe’. Similarly, Löfgren’s (1999: 38) impressive work on the history of European tourism contains an explicit reference to the commercialising role of the guidebook in tourism: ‘There was also a rapid growth in the guidebook trade which further helped to institutionalise travel’. Although on a smaller geographic scale, Brodie’s (2011) interpretation of the development of seaside holidays in 18th-century Margate in England also repeats the presence of a guidebook as symbolic of entrenched tourism in the destination: Sea bathing had been taking place there at least since the 1730s, and by the 1760s the town’s popularity had led to the creation of the first purpose-built entertainment facilities, the establishment of the first large square in a seaside resort, purpose-built for residents and visitors, and the publication of its first guidebook. (Brodie, 2011: 2) In these examples, the appearance of a published guidebook is accepted as a clear sign of consumer demand. This connection is never problematised however, and there is to date no deep analysis of the role of guidebooks in destination development in the historical context. Instead, the guidebook is referenced in general histories of tourism as evidence of the modernising arc of Western consumerism and industrialisation, a theme explored in more detail in the next section.

Guidebooks in the Historical Narrative of Western Tourism The guidebook and the Grand Tour The perpetuation of historical investigation of Western tourism following a particular grand narrative has been described by Jamal and Robinson (2009) as the ‘chronological banding of histories of tourism’.

34

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

This chronological banding can be divided into three broad narrative arcs: the extensively described transcontinental travel undertaken in the 18th and 19th centuries known as the ‘Grand Tour’; the democratising of tourism from the mid-19th century to the post-Second World War era led by English entrepreneur Thomas Cook who is credited as the inventor of the package tour; and the emergence of international tourism destinations from the early 20th century until the present day founded on sun and sea attractions (Walton, 2009). Given the still developing field of tourism history, it is hardly surprising that the historiography of the guidebook is largely bound by the chronological banding implicit in the familiar narrative of the history of Western tourism. Described by Towner (1996: 23) as those ‘certain historical perspectives’, the guidebook is frequently cast as both a product of, and an agent in, the routinising of tourism in Western developed economies. In the case of the Grand Tour, that rite of passage serving ostensibly to expose young elites to fashionable European society and the tangible legacies of antiquity and the Renaissance, 18th-century guidebooks have routinely featured both as a focus of interest and as a documentary resource (Black, 2003; Dolan, 2001; Towner, 1996). To aid grand tourists on their journey, specialist guidebooks such as Thomas Nugent’s (1749) four-volume The Grand Tour and Thomas Martyn’s (1787) The Gentleman’s Guide in His Tour through Italy provided advice to the novice along with the manuscript diaries of experienced tourists which had long served this purpose. Towner (2003: 228) claims that, while published diaries and journals conveyed the experiences and opinions of the travelled to a wide British audience, such ‘guidebooks conveyed the practical information on how and where to travel, which places to visit and where to stay’. The mass-produced guidebook generated a form of cultural convenience in describing the ‘network of safe routes with inns and a change of horses along the way’, guides to show the sights and sculptors to make copies of the grand classical buildings seen en route and taken home as souvenirs (Calarescu in Elsner & Rubies, 1999: 141). Guidebook evidence has thus underpinned historians’ interpretations of the preferences and attitudes of educated predominantly English travellers, their routes, transport, accommodation choices and length of visit during this period. There is significant analysis of the structure and intent of guidebooks, including the early inclusion of maps. Sweet (2012) identifies the maps in guidebooks of the latter 18th century as indicative of an expectation that more tourists would travel without the accompaniment of a cicerone or tutor. This altered the way in which a city like Rome might be understood, making the spatial relationships

Guidebook Histories

35

between sites more explicit and the routes to be taken ‘more significant and memorable than if one was simply riding with a guide in a carriage, or following the cicerone on foot’ (Sweet, 2012: 107). The variable inclusions in guidebooks are assumed to be indicative of changes to the direct experience of tourists during this era.

Guidebooks in the ‘first age of mass tourism’ The second substantial phase in the grand narrative of Western tourism typically extends from the late 18th to the early 20th century, covering a period frequently identified by historians as one of the democratisation of leisure travel underscored by rapid technological and social change. During this period, the idea of mass tourism and of the tourist has been envisioned by historians as gaining root in Western popular consciousness. The guidebook is frequently framed as both product of, and contributor to, the linear progression of ‘early modern tourism’ via the expansion of tourism on an industrial scale. The appearance of a ‘modern’ guidebook, guidebook entrepreneurs, guidebooks in imperialist or post-imperialist contexts and the guidebook in nationalist agendas are themes which have attracted the recent interest of historians analysing this period. In writing about the emergence of a ‘modern’ guidebook as distinct from the travel writing of an earlier period, historians have observed that from the mid-19th century, guidebooks took on what are frequently identified (although rarely critiqued) as contemporary traits. These traits include the navigational and non-linear style of travel text which includes the vade mecum (Seaton, 2002) elements of accommodation, eating options, sites to visit and itineraries to follow aided by attached maps and illustrations. According to Looker (2002:4), such ‘methodical and orderly codification of the city’ evidenced in guidebooks of the modern era marks a transition from the earlier accounts of personal travel experience, texts that fall within the range of belles lettres text (Seaton, 2002). Hanley and Walton (2010: 27) observe that these early guidebooks catered to the new middle-class trade in British tourism which was then chiefly domestic but increasingly transcontinental. Rapid growth in mass transport occasioned first by the steamship, which reduced a 14-hour trip from Rotterdam to Cologne to just over five hours for example, and then by the railway provided unparalleled physical access for more Europeans to travel abroad independently at cheaper cost (Lekan, 2004). The guidebook has thus been envisaged as assisting the expansion of international middle-class travel during this period. Indeed, Baranowski and Furlough (2001: 11) describe the guidebook as helping to define the middle-class ‘principles

36

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

of self-improvement, time discipline, privacy and predictability’ and ‘modifying the hedonistic pleasure-seeking that the bourgeoisie attributed to the aristocracy’. Another focus for historians writing in this so-called early modern period of Western tourism is the growth of the guidebook publishing industry, particularly the activities of leading publishing entrepreneurs of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Much attention is given to the massproduced handbooks of German publisher Karl Baedeker, Englishman John Murray and, to a lesser extent, Scots Charles and Adam Black (Bruce, 2010; Buzard, 1993; Parsons, 2007). This research focuses on the business rivalries and differences in publication style between these leading European publishers as they competed for the attention of a growing audience of middle-class traveller. According to Bruce (2010: 95), Baedeker challenged Murray on ‘price, conciseness and internationalism’ coming to dominate the guidebook industry while Murray led in more general publishing. Baedeker led, however, in offering independent travel via transcultural text. Easily identified red handbooks with gold lettering on the cover were produced in German, French and English. Bruce (2010: 94) asserts that, such was their influence among middle-class Northern Europeans from 1832 until 1914, that Baedeker’s handbooks ‘came to symbolize the guidebook as the authority for travel behaviour and even the arbiter of artistic taste’. Historians have compared past travel guide formats to the present shape of the guidebook, determining that it was not until the early 19th century that the guidebook came into being as a recognised genre distinct from the travel writing which had preceded it for millennia (Gilbert, 1999: 281). Rather than dividing a destination along regional lines common among modern guidebooks, both Baedeker and Murray offered the reader connected itineraries following rail and steamship routes. These linking itineraries were generally, although not always, linear and interconnecting (Bruce, 2010: 97). Regional-level maps, plans of towns or floor plans of museums or palaces, and occasionally panoramas taken from a mountain top or a city view were a feature of the handbooks. By the late 1850s, the structure of the Baedeker guidebook including destination and railway maps as opposed to the illustrative lithographs included in earlier versions, translations in German, English and French, and the standard red cover, also used for Murray handbooks, was established. Other structural features of the handbooks comprised a preface, introduction, commentary on the art and high culture of the destination, maps of railway networks and geographical areas and a substantial index. Illustrations in the guidebooks are few, although some editions of Baedeker have in-text black-and-white

Guidebook Histories

37

sketches referred to as ‘vignettes’. Historians rethinking the status of the guidebook in the history of tourism have defined them as part of the ‘new technology of leisure’, which mediated cultural expansion for the growing 19th-century leisure class (Lekan, 2009: 836). Baedeker and Murray’s publications have also been recently identified as a significant prism through which to view the imperialist agenda and postcolonialist settings of 19th- and early 20th-century European powers (Gilbert, 1999; Koshar, 2000; MacKenzie, 2005; Michalski, 2004; Palmowski, 2002; Parsons, 2007; Scott, 1998). Guidebooks have been framed as offering insights into imagined communities of travellers such as the ‘Anglo-phone supra-nationality’ extending globally through Murray’s handbooks into the early decades of the 20th century (MacKenzie, 2005: 21). Looker (2002: 3) describes the urban guidebook in particular as vital to the imperialist task of enshrining the capital in ‘making the heterogeneous city navigable and knowable to the visitor’. This view is shared by Gilbert (1999: 279) whose survey of London guidebooks argued that they reveal changing representations ‘from mid-Victorian triumphalism to the city’s re-invention at the end of the twentieth century as a post imperial spectacle’. The guidebook is thus conceived as reproducing historical geopolitical hegemonies and aiding in the construction of national identity building. Koshar’s (2000) work is particularly exemplary as an exploration of the guidebook as integral to communicating the active reimagining of a nation through a case study of the German context and production of national identity in the first half of the 20th century. The various travel cultures (Reisekultur) addressed in the analysis are understood within ‘the changing horizon of knowledge and expectations’ orienting individual tourists over time as they travelled and interacted with new places and people (Koshar, 2000: 9). In part, Koshar’s work is influenced by recent trends in social theory, anthropology and cultural studies, which aim at privileging ephemeral objects as important cultural signifiers. Historians have drawn from the semiotic approaches in tourism advanced by MacCannell’s (1976) and Urry’s (1990) thinking about the tourist and the tourist gaze, respectively, to offer new understandings of the guidebook in historical context. These readings offer a significantly more complex interpretation of the guidebook in the history of tourism than it has received at the hands of literary historians such as Paul Fussell. Both Gilbert (1999) and Koshar (2000) directly challenge Fussell’s (1980: 39) perception of guidebooks as a superficial debasement of an earlier more sophisticated travel literature in serving ‘pure cliché’ to the guileless reader. Through what he describes as the ‘optics of tourism’, Koshar (2000: 9) inverts the guidebook as an instrument of the passive

38

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

tourist gaze showing how tourists actively pursued knowledge in what was a dynamic relationship between guidebook, user and site. In this way, Koshar (2000) uniquely engages with the agency of the guidebook chiefly in how it reflected and reinforced changing individual and collective national identities among German travellers. As Koshar (1998: 325) argues, the search for ‘knowledge and an “authentic” identity beyond the marketplace characterises even some of the most mindless and commodified forms of touristic behaviour’. In a similar vein, the connections between tourism, memory and consumer culture are explored in Semmens’ (2005) account of leisure travel during Nazi Germany. Semmens (2005: 6) observes how the ‘tourist guidebook and the travel agency merit special attention in this narrative’ before continuing to account for the emergence of Baedeker as a ‘synonym for guidebook’. As part of an ‘ideologised tourist literature’, guidebooks played a seminal role in the encoding of sites significant to the Nazi nationalist agenda (Semmens, 2005: 48). Thus, German publisher Grieben’s guidebooks to updated Nazi monuments located in central Nazi power bases, Berlin, Weimar, Nuremberg and Munich, placed them at ‘the very core of a developing Nazi tourist culture’ (Semmens, 2005: 48). Offering an unusual perspective on the role of Baedeker handbooks, Semmens (2005: 51) argues that they reoriented the 20th-century German tourist gaze to look ‘backwards outwards and forward in time’ as illustrated by Baedeker’s admission that ‘the diffusion of the historical aspect must not be allowed to overwhelm what is living and new’.

Guidebooks in the 20th century The third historical band evident in the routine representations of Western tourism history is the emergence of modern mass tourism; a period extending from the inter-war years of the 20th century to the current day. Here, the traditional historical narrative turns to the growth of travel markets and the travelling public through the automobile in the early 20th century and jet aircraft in the 1970s. Walton (2009: 785) warns of the distortions inherent in this concept of ‘mass tourism’ not least in undermining the ‘recognition of agency and diversity among its customers’. In this period, which is closest to the current day, the guidebook is only sporadically present in historical analysis. The limited focus of post-war 20th-century guidebooks and the guidebook industry is decidedly on the influence of the Lonely Planet publishing house and the small independent publications which emerged from the 1950s in the United States and Europe. Parsons’ (2007) history of the guidebook

Guidebook Histories

39

extends analysis up to recent decades and the changing fortunes of the dominant publishing house, Lonely Planet. Yet, this section reads almost as an afterthought, a necessary addition to any history but barely connected to the extensive treatment of the guidebook in the less recent past. Nonetheless, there are some scattered insights. Kopper (2009: 81) describes the soothing properties of the guidebook for British budget tourists of the 1960s whose lack of language skills and cultural sensibilities ‘reveal powerful experiences of strangeness’ when encountering unaccustomed food and lifestyle in the burgeoning Mediterranean coastal resorts for the first time. Laderman’s (2009) history of North American tourism to South Vietnam in the post-war era demonstrates how the power of United States political ideology is incorporated into the experience and remembering of Vietnam. Tourism, through the central role of the guidebook, also ‘plays a role in the ongoing efforts of Germany to take account of its past’ according to Semmens (2005: 193) who notes that the most recent Lonely Planet Germany lists the concentration camp at Dachau as a key attraction around Munich. The dearth of focused attention on the recent history of the guidebook presents as an opportunity to explore the significance of the guidebook in tourism as a nuanced continuum. Generally, there are few accounts which overtly draw an historical thread between guidebooks of the past and the present. MacKenzie (2005: 21) is notable in observing that ‘the contrasts, or in some cases similarities between [early guidebooks] and the modern Lonely Planet, Moon or Rough Guide are intriguing and reflect the dramatic changes and also continuities that are characteristic of the final decades of the twentieth century’. These modern guidebooks ‘represent not so much a revolution but a neo-colonial continuity’ perpetuating the cultural expansionism of the West (MacKenzie, 2005: 36). In the remainder of this chapter, we identify three additional omissions in the historiography of the guidebook within the context of the overview given above. These comprise defining the historical guidebook under scrutiny, the guidebook as a dynamic text both in terms of use by readers of the past and as an agent of change in the geography of tourism destinations and, finally, guidebooks in the near past. We argue that, rather than a matter of simply completing undone research on the guidebook, these gaps are indeed a consequence of the general approach to the guidebook in much historical research. Primarily, these arise from inadequate definitions of the guidebook as a platform for investigation, in addition to a reliance on a number of untested assumptions about the use and impact of the guidebook in the historical context.

40

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

A Guidebook is a Guidebook: Defining the Historical Text Historical writing on guidebooks has a demonstrated interest in determining which text or series can be identified as the ‘first guidebook’. Usually this is understood in the context of a preceding phase of narrative travel writing or the appearance in publications of features which the reader might identify with the modern guidebook. There remains, however, a distinct lack of definition of the guidebook under scrutiny in much generalist tourism history. Where the guidebook is used in an historical analysis to give weight to an observation of the growth of tourism in a destination, or the presumed attitudes of its readership, the guidebook in use is never defined. Instead, there is a tendency within historical scholarship to employ all written texts containing information about a destination to be termed ‘a guidebook’. This might include destination promotional material which, as Lew (1991) suggests, may be viewed by consumers as more akin to advertising in lacking the authoritative voice of the guidebook. In Chapter 2, we identified how a lack of delineation of the guidebook in the academic literature has influenced understanding of its place in the tourism system. The lack of delimiters and conceptualisation of the guidebook as a primary source in historical writing has implications for source selectivity and the extent of the generalisability of observations made from these texts. As we observed, the texts most frequently cited as guidebooks are those commonly recognised as guidebooks. In the historical context, this frequently confirms use of those most commonly identified as guidebook texts, such as Murray and Baedeker, which run the risk of recurring preconceptions about the effect and nature of guidebooks. This is not to suggest that the leading guidebook publishers of an age are not worthy of detailed interrogation. However, their constant referencing, as also occurs with Lonely Planet in discussion of late 20th-century guidebooks, means that they have almost come to define the guidebook. These publications thus continue to fill the conceptual void. The recounting of the business and personal histories of Baedeker and Murray, framed as ‘giants of tourism’ (Bruce, 2010), has also not strengthened acknowledgement of alternative agents in the history of the guidebook. One voice which is significantly less frequently heard, for example, is English dramatist and writer Mariana Starke. Starke held to the literary conventions of the 18th century conceiving her two volume Letters from Italy, Between the Years 1792 and 1798 Containing a View of the

Guidebook Histories

41

Revolutions in that Country (1800) as a series of letters written in the first person redolent of narrative travel literature of the period. Yet, Starke’s maps contained in an appendix to these publications and her series of exclamation marks used to rank significant sights heralded features of the guidebook form which purposefully insinuates the values of the author into the text. As travel guides which contain both selective and authoritative elements, Starke’s work coalesces with the definition of the guidebook we posit in Chapter 2 of this book. Inglis (2000: 56), for example, claims that Baedeker ‘devised the neat system of marking the best sights to see with a star or two’, ignoring Starke’s role. Drawing from Starke’s model in the German guide to Switzerland published in 1844, Baedeker first employed asterisks ‘as marks of commendation’ for the best sites in a destination and later extended the asterisks to accommodation and restaurants. A further example of an alternative voice in the history of tourism is that of the influential 19th-century writer and art critic, John Ruskin. Ruskin viewed the European guidebook publishers of his day as part of a general ‘ruinous trend of anti-aesthetic tourism’ which he urged his followers to avoid (Hanley & Walton, 2010: 52). From 1878, Ruskin produced his own guides to the architectural and fine art of Italy. The belles lettres aesthetic of Ruskin’s guidebooks was part of a self-described ‘planned attack on Mr Murray’s guides’ (Hanley & Walton, 2010: 79) whose inevitably brief interpretations of the great art works and buildings of Europe, he believed, eroded the travellers’ cultural enrichment. Ruskin’s ‘alternative values of his methods of sightseeing’ were also reflected in the rich lettering and binding of his works in contrast with the spare massproduced style of German Karl Baedeker and Englishman John Murray’s popular handbooks (Hanley & Walton, 2010: 52). Hanley and Walton’s (2010: 29) instructive treatment of Ruskin’s ‘radical antagonism’ to what he understood as the superficiality of package tourism promulgated by the likes of Cook and guided by Murray challenges the conventional narrative of British tourism in the 19th century. Not least, the study draws attention to the influence of those who acted against travel as a manifestation of capitalist production but whose voice is frequently subdued by the ‘predominance of the market as the defining motor of tourism’ (Hanley & Walton, 2010: 2). Hanley and Walton highlight the individuating role of Ruskin’s cultural tourism. Ruskin’s guidebooks shared his own ‘individual interiority’ so that readers might understand what was possible to experience when encountering the great artistic works of the continent (Hanley & Walton, 2010: 6). Ruskin’s belles lettres approach contrasted with the more practical vade mecum slant of Baedeker and Murray, challenging what a guidebook was becoming.

42

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

Perhaps the leading lacuna in defining the guidebook in the historical context is the void in understanding a more culturally diverse and distinctive experience of the guidebook. The history of the guidebook as currently written is a Western, predominantly anglophone story, reflecting the origins of much published research on tourism history. In this regard, little has changed since Towner (1988) decried the lack of tourism history research more broadly in countries other than Britain, Western Europe and North America. There is to date significantly less on the history of tourism outside these regions and inevitably fewer representations of the guidebook in that history. In this way, spatial, temporal and cultural boundaries exist in approaches to the study of tourism history curtailing a fuller understanding of the phenomenon on a global scale and leaving significant parts of the world’s tourism history largely unmapped. Thus, in understanding the guidebook within the broader scope of tourism history beyond that of the Western world, we possess only a few varied fragments of the whole with inevitable impact on the veracity of generalisations to be drawn.

The historical guidebook in practice The leading mid-19th-century publishers, according to Parsons (2007: xvii), ‘stand accused of doing what indeed they did best, namely reflecting the cultural aspirations and preoccupations of their largely middle-class target readership’. But how were those published reflections made manifest in the actions of consumers? Narrow historical focus on the guidebook as a marker of the broader institutionalisation of tourism, particularly during the 18th to 20th centuries, has generally failed to take account of the guidebook in action, both in terms of its use by the consumer and as contributing to the changing morphology of tourism in a destination. This gap is frequently in evidence in many textual readings of the guidebook as we also discuss in Chapter 4. Pushing the boundaries of that relationship where text is assumed to dictate behaviour is both explicit and implicit in much historical analysis. Writing on early 20th-century guidebooks for San Francisco, Michalski (2008: 189) expresses the hope of ‘grasping on to the guidebook...as a means to analyse the city, its multiple meanings and interpretations, and the reader (our italics) moving through both city and guide’. Michalski (2004: 187) described guidebooks as ‘an important lens through which to view the play of images and human geographies’ in the past. Tentatively, he suggests that guidebooks ‘inform “how to see” or “how not to see”, and in doing so, they hint as to how geography is imagined’. Likewise,

Guidebook Histories

43

Gilbert (1999: 283) identifies ‘a complicated and circular relationship between the changing expectations of the readers and the account of place in guidebooks’ which was privileged ‘not least because of [the guidebook’s] influence on popular perceptions of places and on the practices of millions of tourists’. Certainly, historians have identified evidence of guidebook publishers’ intention of use. It is recognised that the design of the Murray and Baedeker handbooks emphasised their portability and intended employment as a frequent reference tool both prior to and during travel. Following the industrialisation of bookmaking in the early decades of the 19th century, the physical characteristics of the modern guidebook as a small, light handbook came into shape (Bruce, 2010). To reduce their weight, handbooks were published in small print on thin paper such as that used in bibles. Baedeker’s (1898: v) English edition of Egypt and the Sudan: A Handbook for Travellers was intended to be quickly consumed in the field with the salient points of interest exacerbated by large type so that ‘those who have time and inclination for a more thorough examination’ could do so in the smaller print. They were also structured so that time spent at a site or in a region was frequently determined by the timetable of the railway or shore-time permitted by tourist steamers. Thus, for the tourist in Egypt, a ‘first visit to the Temple of Dendera, for example, may in this manner be accomplished in about an hour, which is approximately the time allowed to passengers by mail steamer’ (Baedeker, 1898: v). Beyond the details of production and form, however, there is still much to uncover about the use of these new books in the field, and before and after travel, by the diversity of consumers who purchased them. It is our contention that one of the most significant challenges for historians engaged in interpreting the historical influence of the guidebook on tourism is the untested assumption of tourist behaviour in response to text. This is not to deny rational grounds for assuming that guidebook judgements affected readers in terms of what they thought and the choices they made. Yet, guidebook historiography has yielded little acknowledgement of the complexities of that connection to date. There is instead a tendency to generalise on the relationship between guidebook text and audience without critically examining the nuances of guidebook markets and the idiosyncrasies of use; the when, where and how tourists of diverse persuasions incorporated their guidebooks in the doing of tourism. A few notable exceptions include Sweet (2012) and Black (2003) whose respective works on the Grand Tour aim to uncover the truth of the experience through the use of diary accounts and letters. Black (2003) is particularly mindful to juxtapose these personal interpretations with

44

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

the specifics of guidebook advice and other third-party assertions as to what should be seen and why, to determine something of the reality of the Grand Tour experience. Black (2003) attributes real agency to the tourists as counterpoint to the unmediated following of the advice of others in this way: If tourists, naturally independent, ended their journeys with different experiences, this diversity increasingly accorded with a stress on personal, intellectual and emotional responses to travel...The standard itinerary, the guidebook or the bearleader had never shaped the perception of Italy as closely or as rigidly as is sometimes suggested. (Black, 2003: 67) Black’s observation gives voice to the possibility of a diversity of use of the guidebook in tourism history and a range of tourist experiences generated from that use, a theme which forms the basis of Chapter 7 in the contemporary setting. Our contention is that an assumption that guidebook directions equate with patterns of use draws from the unwitting perpetuation of the tourist/traveller dichotomy (see McCabe, 2001). In the context of the guidebook, this is expressed in Roland Barthes’ (1972) essay in which he famously described the Blue Guide as an ‘agent of blindness’ reducing the geography of Spain to ‘an uninhabited world of monuments’ and Fussell’s (1980: 39) understanding of the tourist as an innocent abroad who seeks ‘the security of pure cliché’ in a place ‘discovered by entrepreneurship and prepared for him by the arts of mass publicity’. Gilbert (1999: 283) also suggests that historians of tourism have paid greater attention to literary travel writing ‘than to the prosaic details of the guidebook’ because of their unwitting acceptance of the tourist stereotype. This perception has led to much stereotyping of the guidebook’s standardising of culture and place, and its complicity in the ‘tourist gaze’ rather than its significance in enabling ‘an autonomous mode of travelling grounded in literacy’ (Cronin, 2000, cited in Jack & Phipps, 2005: 161). As Buzard (1993) and others have demonstrated, the anti-tourism agenda is widely evident in the historical record where scorn is also heaped on the accoutrements of the tourist including his or her guidebooks. Certainly, the published anxieties of the travelling elite determined to segregate from the experience of guidebook-carrying ‘excursionists’ on a packaged tour with Thomas Cook’s company are plentiful (Gilbert, 1999: 282). Parsons (2007) notes how 19th-century guidebooks adopted a studiedly authoritative voice

Guidebook Histories

45

drawn from the scientific discourse of the Enlightenment to convey an impression of reliable information drawn from the best sources. Guidebook users colluded with this artifice which dispelled the tension between the user’s scholarly pretensions and claims to such by the guidebook author. For the user, this cooperative relationship was essential to the ultimate goal of independence from the guidebook itself, as author Aldous Huxley acknowledged in Along the Road: ‘It is only after having scrupulously done what Baedeker commands, after having discovered the Baron’s lapse in taste, his artistic prejudices and antiquarian snobberies, that the tourist can compile the personal guide which is the only guide for him’ (Huxley, 1925, in Parsons, 2007: xvi). In urging researchers to discard the tourist–traveller dichotomy as unhelpful in understanding the complexity of tourism, Buzard (1993) has argued that the emergence of ‘anti-tourism’ and modern tourism in the West should be envisaged as a single cultural impulse. Berghoff (2002) concurs with Buzard’s (1993) concern, arguing against relying on 19th-century judgements of tourists and tourism, replete with the social pretensions of the time, to circumscribe any history of European tourism. As Berghoff (2002: 173) describes, such constructions are no more than the ‘propaganda from a war for contested social territory’. We would also suggest that perhaps middle-class scholarship has felt powerless to resist its own anxieties in awarding deeper treatment of that popular insignia of the tourist; the guidebook.

Guidebook history and destination morphology Koshar (2000: ix) identifies a key question for historians of the guidebook in any geographical context when he asks ‘what is it that travel guidebooks have done in the history of modern tourism?’ This question highlights once again the agency of the guidebook, a central theme in this book which we explore here in the context of the guidebook’s contribution to the physical transformation of tourism places. As noted above, general tourism histories frequently refer to guidebooks more or less overtly as contributing to tourism development. Some claim that guidebooks are of critical importance in the actual transition of a place into a tourism destination. Lekan (2009) and others have observed how Baedeker fashioned the tourism landscape of the Rhine Valley after 1828. Boorstin (1964) notes that the ‘existence of guidebooks’, together with enhanced transportation and facilities and the creation of attractions, are key forces contributing to the transition of a place as a tourist destination.

46

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

Of course, none of this enhances the experience of visitors according to Boorstin (1964: 137): ‘The tourist who arrives at his destination, where tourist facilities have been ‘‘improved’’, remains almost as insulated as he was en route’. The anti-tourism agenda is implicit in such assumptions about the impact of guidebooks in creating the historical geography of tourism although empirical evidence of this cause and effect is rare. Some research has applied a more analytical eye to the guidebook’s impact on destination development, such as Hanley and Walton’s (2010) investigation of the writings of John Ruskin in creating European cultural tourism. They find that Ruskin’s work and influence on a growing audience ‘made a difference to the hierarchy of preferred journeys, halting points and objects of the tourist gaze’ but that his writings did not generate new destinations (Hanley & Walton, 2010: 134). Another example is that of Espelt and Benito (2005) whose examination of tourism history in Girona in Spain attempts to measure physical change over time through guidebook representations, although more emphasis is placed on changes in image than on the physical structure of tourism. Similarly, in attempting to develop a geo-historical profile of world tourism development, Antonescu and Stock (2014) employed guidebooks as a dating tool on the basis that the existence of a guidebook for a place offers incontrovertible evidence that it is a tourism destination. The role of guidebooks in building tourism to a destination is therefore widely and not unreasonably assumed. As we argue in Chapter 10, guidebooks can be shown to have demonstrable effects on the physical manifestation of tourism in particular places. Haldrup and Larsen (2010: 74) wrote of the tourist researcher’s blindness to the ‘materialities and technologies’ of ‘hybrid performances’ such as sightseeing. These performances can be shown to have ‘important material effects on how places and landscapes become physically structured’ (Haldrup & Larsen, 2010: 74). Yet, there has been no attempt to problematise this conclusion. Our knowledge of this cause-and-effect process is fragmentary and localised with little observable generality. This applies to both the historical and contemporary context where researchers have relied on untested assumptions regarding the role of guidebooks in putting places ‘on the map’ as tourism destinations. A number of research possibilities present in this field. MacKenzie (2005) notes that the quantity of prefaced information at the beginning of the Murray and Baedeker handbooks is ‘often the most interesting material of all for the historian’. We would argue that these extensive detailed descriptions of the touring route offer a framework for exploring

Guidebook Histories

47

the impact of guidebooks on destination change. There is also little attention given to the ways in which guidebooks are used in the context of tourism services existing at various stages in the tourism development of a destination. For example, Morgan (2008: 32) identifies how in 1880 a Canadian traveller on a Rhine riverboat reported that his guidebook was indispensable given the embryonic nature of the tourism service available: ‘for if you ask any of the officers or men belonging to the boat they have not the slightest idea of the name of the place alluded to and pointed out although they pass it every day’. Knowledge of the role of the guidebook standing in for the human guide when mass Rhine tourism was still embryonic, for example, also remains largely unexplored. In addition to the ‘great sights’ identified as worthy of the traveller’s time, the railbased structure of the itineraries which comprised the main content of the books ensured that towns attached to almost every railway station were mentioned in varying detail including population, industrial activity and major institutions. How did these mentions build tourism in some destinations while other destinations failed to evolve? Concomitantly, while we know much about the routes taken by visitors, and the methods they used to travel, the success or otherwise of businesses named by guidebooks has attracted little scrutiny. This poses a significant lack of recognition of tourist response to the guidebook as a dynamic promotional text historically.

Conclusion This chapter has addressed how historians of tourism have customarily used guidebooks as historical resources in their work. We have found that the guidebook is sporadically used throughout broad histories of Western tourism with little focused interrogation of the guidebook as a dynamic influence in these histories. There is also little deep analysis of the guidebook as an object of tourism in its own right. More broadly, guidebook history is constrained by the routinely chronological banding of Western historical approaches which overlooks other contexts and cultures. The unsystematic use of the guidebook in the writing of tourism history is an indication of the still early evolution of the field of tourism history as a whole. Walton (2009: 117) observed that the grand narrative approach to the writing of tourism history encourages oversimplification and distortion of the past, ‘not least because it promotes misleading assumptions about the uniformity of tourist experiences and the lack of agency and choice ascribed to tourists themselves’. As yet, there has been little problematising

48

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

of the historical agency of guidebooks in moderating the experience of tourists and in developing tourism destinations. This results in limiting the extent to which individual use and destination impact can be deduced despite the rational probability of these assumptions. A failure to adequately conceptualise the historical guidebook has only compounded this challenge.

4 Travel Guidebooks as Text Generally speaking, the Blue Guide testifies to the futility of all analytical descriptions, those which reject both explanations and phenomenology: it answers in fact none of the questions which a modern traveller can ask himself while crossing a countryside which is real and which exists in time. Barthes, 1972: 75

Introduction This chapter addresses perhaps the most prolific site of scholarly engagement with the guidebook, which is as a text open to interpretation. Together with photographs, tourism marketing brochures and internet sites, guidebooks have proved a rich resource for exploring the way tourism texts mediate destinations, cultures and experiences for the tourist (Barthes, 1957; Beck, 2006; Buckley, 2008; Culler, 1981; Dann, 1996; Espelt & Benito; 2005; Frew, 2009; Jacobsen & Dann, 2003; Lew & Wong, 2003; MetroRolland, 2011; Pritchard, 2001; Pritchard & Morgan, 2001; Young, 2009). A survey of extant research across the interdisciplinary fields of tourism and cultural, communication and literary studies approaches shows two methodologies most in evidence. Cultural theory and sociological perspectives have commonly viewed the guidebook as texts which can be mined for elucidatory content, often with the intent to indicate political contestation and power relationships. Discourse and semiotic approaches such as these suggest that guidebooks normalise specific sights for the consumer who, according to Dann (1996: 83), proceed to confirm ‘tautologically by experience what they have been told to see’. The tourist actively seeks sites of interest as coded by the visual and informational paraphernalia of tourism such as postcards, signs, advertising, souvenirs and guidebooks. The second approach is the kind of content analysis most often found in the literature on the business of tourism. Guidebook texts have been subjected to enumerative coding and categorisation of text on the assumption that various references or features indicate relevance or significance according to the subject of inquiry (Stepchenkova, 2012). An extensive body of work drawing on these two approaches has developed thought-provoking insights into how the guidebook works as 49

50

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

a text affecting the cognition and behaviour of tourists. Yet, we observe there are considerable limitations to the generalisability of research based on textual readings alone which have proliferated in the era of tourism academe’s ‘critical turn’. From the perspective of understanding the guidebook, we find that the central question of how text directly informs the twin themes of tourist understanding and behaviour is only superficially addressed in much research. We also identify a tendency for contemporary textual analysis of guidebooks to perpetuate the traditional framing of the guidebook as a purveyor of superficial experiences for the gullible tourist, further undermining the validity of findings. Building on Jack and Phipps’ (2003: 289) suggestion that the workings of the guidebook in tourism cannot be achieved solely through literary deconstruction, we therefore invite a more nuanced approach to exploring guidebook text and its connections with tourist use and understanding.

The Guidebook as Mediator of Understanding One of the most well-known examples of an interrogation of guidebook text is that of cultural theorist Roland Barthes (1972) in his famous essay on the guidebook published in Mythologies, which opens this chapter. The Blue Guide series of French language guidebooks published by Hachette Livre from 1917 to 1933 were promoted to tourists desiring ‘discovery in depth’. However, Barthes’ contention is that, rather than enhancing a traveller’s profound discovery of the Swiss Alps or the Spanish architectural aesthetic, the guidebook focuses on an illusory array of landscape and cultural features promoting instead ‘the very opposite of what it advertises’ (Barthes, 1972: 76). Barthes’ assumption is that text directly influences consumer understanding, and accordingly the guidebook is part of the machinery of ‘mystification’ designed to transfer and naturalise bourgeois values and ways of seeing the world. In the following discussion, we present prominent examples of research which similarly draw on textual readings of the guidebook to argue their function as a significant mediator of tourist understanding. Two areas of investigation are identified as relying especially on textual reading of guidebooks. The first of these is the political relationship between guidebook production and consumption as explored by Barthes. More recently, this relationship has been examined in the context of post and neocolonialist agendas where the guidebook constructs the ‘other’ of visited cultures, races and social classes chiefly for a Western audience. A second noticeable area of investigation is the reading of guidebooks to assist understanding of the construction of a destination image for the tourist.

Travel Guidebooks as Text

51

Bhattacharyya’s (1997) semiotic analysis of the text and images contained in Lonely Planet’s India guidebooks is a widely referenced and notable example of the first theme. Bhattacharyya’s (1997: 380) textual analysis finds that ethical judgements are made in the book regarding local practices such as the ‘pernicious’ nature of a dowry and ‘worthwhile developments’ occurring as a result of India’s colonisation by Britain. This post-imperialist script is reinforced through the stereotypical reproduction of Indians as either service-oriented middlemen or ‘tourees’. Bhattacharyya (1997: 386) asserts that ‘the claim to a right to judge the local inhabitants is a major resource in the power and prestige of the traveller in relation to the local inhabitant’. Thus, in reinforcing the objectification of local Indians as authentic representatives of a ‘traditional’ life, Lonely Planet India disingenuously fortifies the power relationship between tourist and host. The commercial agenda of the publishers is also aided by constructing the Western reader’s journey through this India as culturally confronting and physically hazardous as underscored by the ‘survival guide’ series title. Bhattacharyya (1997) discerned through a critical evaluation of the text that readers of India received an already familiar negative discourse concerning the ‘other’ which the guidebook in turn built on and perpetuated. According to Bhattacharyya (1997), the India guidebook is framed as a component of Western cultural production used by travellers to mediate their interactions. The guidebook thus relies on and assumes that the dominant Western discourse concerning the Asian ‘other’ is known and understood by the reader, and these values are subliminally reinforced each time the guidebook is used. India thus provides ‘a cognitive framework for understanding’ the place described by the guidebook circumscribing for the visitor ‘the only India’ possible (Bhattacharyya, 1997: 372, 376). Similarly, Callahan (2011: 97) understands guidebooks as sharing the same characteristics as colonial travel writings in constructing those visited ‘from an instrumental perspective’ whose landscape and material culture are valued over their humanity. Callahan (2011: 97) observed that contemporary guidebooks designed for a youthful independent tourist readership also maintain ‘a didactic project in which the traveller is implicitly inscribed within a discourse of solidarity with the struggles and identities of the people whose spaces and products are being consumed’. Independent Western guidebook publications emerging on a wave of alternative political world views from the 1960s demanded to be read as explicitly anti-colonialist. As Buzinde (2010: 223) asserts of one example, Lonely Planet claims to be ‘committed to an emancipatory and empowering project that speaks to oppressed people living within situations of injustice’

52

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

reinforcing a familiar humanitarian discourse through its guidebooks in contradistinction to the inherent colonial project of Western tourism. The company has, since the mid-1980s, donated a proportion of the income gained from each guidebook sale to various aid and human rights projects in the countries related to their guidebooks. This approach is flawed, however, according to Bhattacharyya (1997: 388) for whom ‘the real question is not whether Lonely Planet India is a useful source, but whether guidebooks in general (or even tourism as a whole), facilitate the aim that Lonely Planet publishers themselves advocate’. Lisle (2008: 167) likewise articulates Lonely Planet’s public humanitarian stance as an ethical dilemma at odds with a capitalist agenda that ‘cannot help but entrench the differences and inequalities endemic to that system’. Although Lonely Planet guidebooks aim to replace an ‘outdated’ colonial perception with a new discourse of humanitarianism, ‘such an outdated colonial logic is not dissolved at all in this process but rather is smuggled into this new discourse of humanitarianism in covert and subtle ways’ (Lisle, 2008: 164). Lisle (2008: 155) found that while Lonely Planet’s Burma series reflected and produced ‘a powerful discourse of humanitarianism’, the ‘colonial logic embedded in that ethical vision’ was inherently problematic. Lisle (2008: 156) asserts that, ‘despite its claim to offer an “alternative” form of responsible independent travel, LP cannot help but resuscitate the very global inequalities it seeks to overcomeinequalities that bear more than a passing resemblance to their colonial antecedents’. A second area of investigation of guidebooks as text has been the exploration of the tourist destination image. Tourism marketing deploys readily understood language and symbols to signpost tourists’ anticipated experiences, thus offering semioticians in particular a rich vein of research possibilities (Dann, 1996). As the primary aim of the destination or attraction marketer is to build ‘brand’, the semiotic meanings of the places promoted either through photographs or texts such as guidebooks are designed to inform tourists of what is ‘worth seeing’. Within the tourism literature, content readings of guidebooks have been especially employed to understand the workings of destination image. Espelt and Benito’s (2005) analysis of over a century of tourism guidebook image making in the Spanish city of Girona found that the tourist images observed in 19th-century guidebooks continued into the 21st century with only minor modifications. This led to the assertion that destinations are ‘prisoners of their own images’ where ‘changes in the management models, the kind of visitor or the changes in the physical area itself ’ have little effect on altering the overall destination image (Espelt & Benito, 2005: 767).

Travel Guidebooks as Text

53

Garrod and Kosowska (2012) undertook a combined content and semiotic analysis of the images used to promote Goa as a tourism destination at state and national levels in the media of travel guidebooks and holiday brochures. They found that the two media offered different representations of Goa as both a beach holiday destination and as a constituent part of India, respectively, and that these dissonant representations undermined a consistent destination image. Mercille (2005) used media effects research as a theoretical framework by which to explore representations of Tibet as a tourist destination in a Lonely Planet guidebook, film and magazines. Tourists were more likely to express the views of Tibet maintained by the guidebook, film and magazines the more of these ‘media artefacts’ they had consumed, prompting Mercille (2005: 1048) to deduce that ‘message repetition increases the impact of media representations on image’. The guidebook’s assumed power in influencing consumer understanding lies at the heart of much of these textual readings. Researchers have attributed this power to several different characteristics of the guidebook as well as to its pervasiveness within contemporary culture. Stausberg (2011: 201) estimates that, with the possible exception of schoolbooks, guidebooks are ‘one of the genres of literature in which most people obtain information about religions other than their own and maybe also about aspects of their own religion (for instance with regard to its artistic heritage, history and spatial variety)’. Likewise for Laderman (2002: 89), guidebooks ‘provide one of the most important generative systems of knowledge and belief ’ enabling over time and through repetition ‘a collective memory of an event’. Laderman considers that the opinions on United States foreign policy contained in the Lonely Planet guide to Vietnam are automatically absorbed by the audience. The notion of the guidebook text contributing to collective memory is maintained by Buzinde (2010: 223) who interprets the Lonely Planet guidebook representations of slavery in the North American South also as a ‘producer of knowledge about a contested past’ although one in which tourists ‘freely engage’. Buzinde (2010: 232) identified in a study of the descriptions of plantation houses in the Lonely Planet Louisiana and the Deep South that the authors attempted to ‘forewarn readers of the historical elisions sustained within the plantation descriptions’, chiefly the absence of complexity in representing the slave–master relationship provided at the sites themselves. This generated a form of double handling of the contested story of plantations in the American South where the introduction section critically evaluated that past in counterpart to the ‘cleansed depiction’ of plantation life and economy in the specific sections of the book related to individual sites. To Buzinde (2010: 232) the attempt

54

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

by Lonely Planet authors to contextualise these sites with an evaluative lens is ‘unprecedented’ indicating ‘progressive change within some sectors of the tourism industry’. Buzinde (2010: 23) emphasised the pedagogical role of guidebooks in ‘rearticulating contested histories vis-a-vis counter or dominant mnemonic practices’. What is often missing from these examples of guidebook textual readings using a content analysis or combined semiotic approach is a deep engagement with the way text informs consumer understanding. For Bhattacharyya (1997: 375), it is the authoritative tone of the guidebook author which provides significant ‘claim to authority’ in the India series, employing a language and tone inferring the inherent truth of the guidebook’s judgements of culture, place and service. Bhattacharyya (1997: 369) asserts that the power of this voice rendered factual and irrefutable assertions that a hostel is ‘friendly but basic’ or a restaurant ‘not too clean’, inflating authorial opinion to the status of an inherent quality in each of the services or sites referenced in the text. The authority of this falsely singular authorial voice over the reader was not reduced by the reality that numerous authors had likely constructed the text and that authorial negotiation over the quality or inclusions of sites probably occurred (Bhattacharyya, 1997). As observed by Rothe (1993), this attribution of cause in sociocultural phenomena is a noted general weakness of the content analysis approach. While not explicitly tying the destination image found in guidebooks to that image received by tourists, Espelt and Benito (2005: 767) describe ‘a certain link that is more or less hinged between the images perceived and the images given’. Some works have markedly contributed to a greater problematising of the textual reading of guidebooks. McGregor’s (2000) work is notable in this regard in that he attempted to uncover the dynamic nature of guidebooks among independent travellers to Tana Toraja in 1994, through interviews as well as observation of their use. Overall, ‘the guidebooks were found to exert an inordinate amount of power over them and their destinations’ and intense loyalty to the Lonely Planet series, ‘regularly referred to as the Bible’, was exhibited (McGregor, 2000: 9). Over 50% of the interviewees articulated their understanding of Tana Toraja in ways which mirrored descriptions provided in their guidebooks, chiefly as ‘a place of incredible and unusual architecture, peopled by an exotic tribe that has retained many of its barbaric traditions through to the present day’ (McGregor, 2000: 17). Young (2009: 160) observed that ‘guidebooks played a major role in shaping [consumer] understanding of Aboriginal cultures’ in a study of the

Travel Guidebooks as Text

55

ways international backpackers interacted with and used their guidebooks to negotiate visits to Aboriginal Australian sites. Employing both a textual analysis of three popular guidebooks to Australia; Lonely Planet, Rough Guide and Let’s Go, and interviews with a sample of 28 international backpackers to determine text impact on the behaviour and attitudes of these visitors, guidebooks were frequently described as the most important informational source for backpackers in their understanding of cultural situations; ‘Most of my knowledge of Aboriginal culture has come through reading the Lonely Planet’. Indeed, the visitors in this study indicated their lack of awareness of the political and social issues addressed by indigenous Australians including the impact of colonisation and assimilation agendas, as well as the nature and role of traditional art. Young (2009) and McGregor (2000) also identify the hidden complexity of how tourists come to understand place through the texts they consume. As they highlight in respective studies of backpackers in Australia and Indonesia, the extent of this acquisition of knowledge from the guidebook varies among consumers. McGregor (2000) identified that while in the destination, backpackers mixed guidebook use with word-of-mouth sources of information. Tourist information centres were also used by tourists to find additional basic information such as time and location of current events which were recommended in the guidebooks they carried. In recounting their experiences and sharing information with other travellers, their talk featured only those sites which were listed in the guidebooks rather than an unknown destination. This finding supports Dann’s (1996: 151) emphasis on the importance of experiential sources of information including wordof-mouth interactions between tourists and between tourists and locals as giving meaning to experiences in a destination in addition to what is read. Perhaps most significantly, Young (2009: 161) found that ‘individual backpackers were inclined to judge the information in their guidebooks based on subjective and personal criteria’. Frequently, the extent and quality of information given in these guidebooks was judged as too small and shallow. Jacobsen and Dann (2003) coupled content analysis of guidebooks with discourse analysis of tourist interviews to explore the images that tourists held of Norway’s Lofoten Islands. The chief aim of the study was to ‘obtain an improved methodological understanding of the best way of eliciting how a destination is socially constructed by those who initially experience it’ (Jacobsen & Dann, 2003: 26). In this context, the authors contrasted the language of guidebooks with those of interviewees, finding that guidebooks were a strong source of inter-textuality and that tourists had a perceived need ‘to replicate the discursive strategy of guidebooks in their own articulation of the sublime’ (Jacobsen & Dann, 2010: 42).

56

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

While it is nearly impossible to deny the connection between text and consumer cognition, the lack of problematising of the relationship coupled with limited practical research on the phenomenon raises doubt about the validity of such findings. Beyond conjecture, there is little solid empirical evidence to indicate how and to what extent consumers absorb the cultural messages of their guidebooks and even less how they behave in response to those messages.

Text Analysis and Tourist Behaviour What of the connection between text and tourist behaviour in addition to tourist cognition? The influence of text on backpacker behaviour is particularly well described as these tourists have been found to carefully plan their tourism route according to a broadly predetermined programme set out in the guidebooks published for this market (Pryer, 1997; Riley, 1988). Elsewhere, Beck (2006) examined the portrayal of World Heritage Sites in travel guidebooks to various European nations on the basis that they are an acknowledged source of influence on tourist behaviour. The content analysis approach showed that few places were labelled as World Heritage even in the more comprehensive books with implications for visitor behaviour and management at these sites. The link between guidebooks and tourist behaviour is clear in these contexts. Bhattacharyya (1997) takes this connection a step further in maintaining that the impact of the authoritative voice on the reader renders the need for personal evaluations unnecessary. Bhattacharyya argues that even in the face of alternative evidence by users that the guidebook has been in error, or that the authoritative voice is not shared, tourists suspend their own judgement and follow instead the directions of the guidebook. The legitimacy of the guidebook ‘can be sustained even in the face of contradictory empirical evidence’ (Bhattacharyaa, 1997: 376). However, Bhattacharyya (1997) also identified the need for deeper understanding of how guidebooks influence actual tourist behaviour, tourists’ acceptance or rejection of guidebook representations and the extent to which tourists’ interaction with host cultures is structured by guidebook discourse. ‘Only when there is research on actual tourist praxis will it be possible to understand the role of guidebooks in the complex process of mediating a tourism destination’ (Bhattacharyya, 1997: 388). Overall, researchers have been less inclined to address the interplay between user and guidebook in these textual readings although a few voices stand out from the crowd on this matter.

Travel Guidebooks as Text

57

McGregor (2000: 4) claims that, like other texts, guidebooks do not exist only as ‘static markers of cultural traits’ but provide opportunities for myriad interpretations by the audiences they serve as ‘texts have no intrinsic meaning independent of the process of conscious interpretation’. He decries the lack of recognition among cultural studies researchers of ‘the issue of reception’, the ways in which tourists both apprehend and act on the information they receive through texts (McGregor, 2000: 28). This claim is also made by Tresidder (2011: 60) who observes that ‘the individual interpretation and reading of these signs and images is an individual activity in which we draw from our own backgrounds and experiences’. This tension between the inherent mechanism so often assumed between tourist and text deserves closer analysis. So far, in the catalogue of textual evaluation of place in tourism studies, there has been little research into how individual understandings of place and culture combine with popularised notions of destinations broadcast through tourism texts to influence consumption. Guidebook text as motivating tourists to actively pursue experiences of culture beyond iconic tourist sights was addressed in Young’s (2009) study. These backpackers described how guidebooks ignited their curiosity in indigenous Australian culture where previously they had not seen this experience as important in their travel. Their situational reading of guidebooks was highly significant in directing the consumption of particular kinds of cultural sights as ‘various dimensions of information contained with the guidebook become meaningful at different times’ (Young, 2009: 162). In this way, guidebooks mobilised individual experiences and behaviours; ‘through a situational textual engagement the evocation of certain desires relating to Aboriginal cultural experiences occurs in certain destinations, and the guidebooks simultaneously provide the knowledge necessary to fulfil these desires’ (Young, 2009: 163). An individual tourist constructs meaning through diverse resources including the promotional material of the tourism industry, popular portrayals of place and culture articulated through film and written text, formal education, familial and friendship interpretations, guidebooks, personal experience and proclivity. Meaning is not created within a vacuum and is not fixed (Lew, 1991; Young, 2009). Corporeal travel is marked by attendance at specifically chosen experiences defined before arrival with the spaces of understanding about place filled in by the experiences that happen along the way. This way, the intended and unintended experiences of a tourist contribute to how a place is understood and consumed.

58

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

A critique of text therefore assists in identifying the presence of signs and suggests how they may be interpreted based on the specific expectations and knowledge of a group. It is perceptible, however, that only limited evidence has been used to justify the claim that guidebook text can determine how tourists see and experience place and culture. The utilised evidence cannot delineate a totality of use. Contrarily, we find that the critique of texts hints at lofty attempts by academic researchers to point out the banality of all tourism and in particular the gullibility of stereotypical tourists who are incapable of understanding more than what they have been schooled to see by a guidebook. The problem with the use of semiotics according to Tresidder (2011) is that only a few can be assumed to interpret signs in the same way. Neither will these tourists always act in accordance with signs which are collectively understood. For some, there will be outright resistance to the messages ascribed by the signs and an expression of independence becomes automatic in acting in the reverse of what the sign asserts. The context and medium in which signs are presented, and the target audience intended for that sign, will affect the way a message is interpreted by individuals. At the same time, the social and cultural embedding of signs and perceptions can create consensus regarding particular sign meanings. Tresidder (2011: 61) observes that ‘although the semiotic language of tourism may be socially and culturally embedded within the individual sphere, the individual tourist negotiates these’. Underscoring the paucity of evidence on how guidebooks operate in the field is the determined emphasis among researchers on the much studied texts from Lonely Planet. It can be suggested that the impact of this research emphasis on Lonely Planet as a catch-all for the guidebook has implications for how we understand the cognitive and practical effects of the guidebook in modern tourism. A guidebook which began life targeted to the most independent of travellers has demonstrably changed over time to meet different market demands and, as a consequence of new product, is unlikely to be entirely representative of the genre. How can the guidebook as a genre be classified as an agent of neocolonialism when the majority of guidebooks are purchased by Westerners travelling in the West? It is also difficult to generalise about opinions held by small groups of Lonely Planet readers regardless of how suggestive these findings might be. In addition, there is little emphasis in the scientific literature on the definition of the guidebooks used in textual critique. Despite the careful caveats used by researchers to indicate that their critique addresses a single guidebook only, the lack of deep engagement with the question of how relevant this example of a guidebook or a guidebook market is to a general

Travel Guidebooks as Text

59

thesis regarding the impact of text on tourist behaviour is marked. In this context, the influence of Lonely Planet publications as the dominant foci of so much textual analysis cannot be overlooked. Studies which draw on a range of guidebook types taking account of a diversity of readers are few. Work such as that by Laderman (2002) on representations of the Vietnam war in four English language guidebooks and Jacobsen and Dann (2003) who investigated landscape images of the Lofoten Islands as perceived in 10 different published guidebooks from a range of markets and genres, including Berlitz, Fodor, Guide Arthaud and Rough Guide, are rare but highly useful for exploring the difference between guidebooks, text and use. Their recognition of the likely diversity of readings of guidebooks is likewise refreshing where they suggest that gender is one variable where an investigation of inter-textuality between guidebooks and users ‘might reveal a close connection between a discourse of verticality and male conquest’ (Jacobsen & Dann, 2003: 44). Similarly, in a seminal paper, Lew (1991) analysed four different guidebooks to Singapore with the aim of testing how place is constructed through each guidebook according to perceptions of diverse markets. Guidebooks associated with three markets were identified comprising Papineau’s Guide to Singapore and The Singapore Travel Agents Guide aimed at ‘mainstream mass tourists’, the Singapore chapter of Lonely Planet’s South East Asia Handbook intended for ‘alternative youth tourists’ and Living in Singapore published by The American Association of Singapore aimed at American expatriates resident in Singapore. Lew (1991) identified clear differences in the way each guidebook presented Singapore according to the anticipated needs of the intended consumer. Thus, the Lonely Planet guide focused intensively on cultural experiences while the guidebook targeting mass tourists emphasised retail and the kind of mainstream tourist experiences derided or avoided by the Lonely Planet text. Such distinctions between texts indicate how guidebooks present a diverse discourse on place and that ‘the content of these different realities are selectively chosen to be congruent with the cultural ideology of different tourist market segments’ (Lew, 1991: 136). Wearing and Wearing (1996) also note the impossibility of determining how individuals will experience place and culture. Thus, while guidebook text may implicitly or explicitly reinforce a dominant discourse, individual understanding and experience can filter and challenge the message. Finally, a quote from Lisle (2008: 165) who argues that Lonely Planet users ‘think they are making active independent choices about their destinations but in fact those decisions have already been framed in advance by LP’s ethical vision’. The guidebook as slightly suspect manipulator of

60

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

the gullible tourist is a long-standing trope which textual analysis has yet to problematise more fully. An important theme in the mix of guidebook text and tourist behaviour and thought must surely include the guidebook as mass enabler of independent travel for those who might otherwise have not chosen to do so. The didactic agenda of all guidebooks has facilitated the emancipation of travellers since Karl Baedeker (1867: 3) stated his intention to render the elite German travellers in his target audience ‘as independent as possible of the services of interested parties’. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the growth of backpacker visitors over recent decades.

Conclusion This chapter has explored the insights and weaknesses of the most common styles of textual readings of the guidebook. We find that while such analysis has yielded significant insight into the cultures of guidebook production, there is still more to uncover about tourist cognition and action arising from these texts. How representations of place or culture are accepted or contested by consumers, even what components of a guidebook are actually read during travel, cannot be revealed purely through textual analysis. Guidebook materiality, as objects carried and used by tourists, must be foregrounded in order to understand the nexus between text, consumer understanding and action. This matter is further addressed in Chapters 7 and 8. What is also evident in the current literature evaluating guidebooks as texts is the perpetuation of the tourist/traveller dichotomy. We contend that this centuries-old and fundamental critique of the guidebook remains evident in much research over the last three decades. The notion that tourists who carry guidebooks are unable to maintain independence of thought or action under the thrall of these texts is not always overt but certainly pervasive. Barthes’ (1972) interpretation of the Blue Guide which opens this chapter is perhaps the best known amid an extensive literary critique of the guidebook as instrument more of the world view that created it than the reality of use the guidebook purportedly represents.

5 According to the Guidebook: Exploring Lonely Planet’s Australia Sydney has finally got a youth hostel. Wheeler, Australia: A Traveller’s Survival Kit, 1977

Introduction It may be self-evident that travel guidebooks from specialist publishers undergo regular updating if there is a continuous market for the publication. Yet, despite the required modification of text, the guidebook, as an ephemeral and disposable object of tourism is popularly regarded as largely unvarying in content. In the introduction to this book, we identified how the routine use of the generic term ‘guidebook’ to describe a diversity of publications in the research literature, combined with the scornful descriptions of guidebook monotony in fiction, scaffolds routine perception of the guidebook as a standardised object. Indeed, regardless of the diversifying factors of production and consumption, the presumed uniformity of the guidebook across publishers, languages and time is what characteristically underpins descriptions of homogenised tourist experience. In this chapter, we challenge this assumption through a longitudinal exploration of Lonely Planet’s Australia series. Our questioning of how wellfounded expectations of the uniformity of the guidebook analysis are, is designed around two questions. Firstly, what variations are evident in the text and structure of this series? Secondly, what might these variations between editions signify about the way a successful publisher adapts to trends in tourism consumption and transformations in travel culture and infrastructure in a single destination? This second question in particular resonates in later reflections on the influence of guidebooks on destination development explored in Chapter 10. Findings from this chapter therefore build understanding on a central theme of this book, chiefly the extent to

61

62

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

which guidebooks either reflect or promote fundamental changes in the tourism system. In accord with Bhattacharyya’s (1997: 388) observation that a longitudinal study of a guidebook series might reveal ‘shared characteristics of guidebooks as a narrative genre and as a component in the tourism system’, the material examined here encompasses the first edition of Australia published in 1977 through to the 16th edition published in 2011. As a means of understanding the guidebook diachronically, a content analysis approach is used to evaluate the information provided in each edition and to identify the extent and nature of mutability over more than three decades. A number of studies have described the discursive construction of tourist, host communities or destinations through the prism of one or several guidebook publications (Beck, 2006; Buzinde, 2010; Callahan, 2011; Espelt & Benito, 2005). The approach adopted in this chapter is perhaps most inspired by Gilbert’s (1995) critique of guidebook representations of late 19th-century London over time which identified guidebooks as differentiated products sharing common features and subtly organised differences. Gilbert’s (1995) work explored notions of sameness and variability in guidebooks from the middle of the 19th century onwards, and ours is a parallel ambition in a late 20th-century setting, but with a focus on one particular series of guidebooks. Extant research has yet to examine a guidebook series coverage of a specific destination systematically over time with the intent of comparing and contrasting change. The detailed description of guidebook changes over time provided here is therefore essential to fill this gap.

Lonely Planet The choice for this task of a guidebook series from that most ubiquitous of contemporary travel publishing houses, Lonely Planet, is germane to providing insight into the way some guidebooks designed for the independent traveller operate within the tourism system. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, independent travel drew increasing numbers of Western youth seeking an alternative to mainstream tourism (Cohen, 1973; Teas, 1988; Vogt, 1976). According to their autobiographical account (Wheeler & Wheeler, 2006), this included Lonely Planet’s founders, Maureen and Tony Wheeler. Their winding journey across Asia’s hippie trail in the early 1970s led them to Australia and residency in Sydney where, in 1973, they established a ‘table top publishing house’, filling what they saw as a guidebook void through information acquired on their

According to the Guidebook: Exploring Lonely Planet’s Australia 63

trip. The self-published booklet Across Asia on the Cheap (Wheeler, 1973) sold 8500 copies and financed another year travelling in Asia where the Wheelers wrote South East Asia on a Shoestring (Wheeler, 1975). Among Western backpackers, the guidebook was frequently referred to as ‘the yellow bible’ (Riley, 1988: 322). In 1981, Rough Guide, founded by English publisher Mark Ellingham, became Lonely Planet’s major competitor in a market where the United States guidebook series written by students from Harvard University, Let’s Go, had already been established in 1960. In 1982, Let’s Go joined with St Martin’s Press to publish its six-title list focused on Europe and the United States. These publishers developed a benign although intense rivalry for market supremacy. Following the market success of their guide to India published in 1983, which sold more than 100,000 copies (Wheeler & Wheeler, 2006), Lonely Planet observed that the Indonesia guide published by another small independent, Moon Travel Publishers, was significantly out of date and quickly commissioned an alternative (Friend, 2005). In 1996, Penguin bought a majority percentage in Rough Guides, enabling a pricecutting strategy to outmanoeuvre Lonely Planet. Lonely Planet responded by commissioning their own versions of Rough Guide’s leading titles (Friend, 2005). The Lonely Planet publishing house maintained a strong hold on the youth travel market throughout the 1990s despite the incursions of competitors such as Moon and Rough Guide. Pryer (1997: 228) identified of backpackers in the mid-1990s that possession of a Lonely Planet guidebook was ‘one of the truly distinguishing characteristics of the majority of travellers’, a trend continually noted by researchers over the following decade (Gogia, 2006; Hottola, 2004; McGregor, 2000; Richards & Wilson, 2004; Sørensen, 2003; Young, 2009). Such is its continuing iconic standing that ‘Lonely Planet’ acts as a metonym for the independent guidebook genre, the publisher’s name standing in for the object just as the Baedeker and Murray handbooks did so a century before. Academic analysis has also drawn extensively on Lonely Planet publications in researching contemporary tourism and tourist behaviour. Indeed, a count presented in Chapter 2 in this book might be taken to indicate that, in the tourism research literature, Lonely Planet seems to be named more often than all other guidebook publishers put together, both in connection with literal readings and when making a passing reference to guidebook use. It should be noted, however, that the market supremacy of Lonely Planet from the 1980s until the early 2000s notwithstanding, continuation of its lead position among independent guidebooks at the time of writing is less well documented.

64

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

The significance of Lonely Planet as arguably the leading contemporary commercial entity in guidebook publication and an icon of independent travel is illuminating of the rise of a self-consciously ‘alternative’ tourism in late 20th-century Western youth culture and its recent mainstreaming (Iaquinto, 2011; Kenny, 2002; O’Reilly, 2006). Lonely Planet’s early success derived from a capacity to rearticulate for its market a kind of travel which disdained commodified tourism experience and its trappings. In the first 15 years of publishing, Lonely Planet guidebooks were written chiefly for a youthful audience who, like the Wheelers themselves, desired to travel as cheaply as possible as a means of finding personal fulfilment. Adopting a non-linear structure, informal tone and coverage of unconventional destinations and experiences, Lonely Planet publications sought to escape from all that was prescriptive about the kind of mass tourism readers associated with their parents’ generation. From the mid-1980s, this traveller type had diversified from youth whose tourism solely advertised their personal challenge to mainstream social practices and ethics. Combined with the growing affluence of Western youth and decreasing long-haul transport costs, once alternative guidebooks like Lonely Planet brought self-organised travel within reach of a larger audience. From the late 1990s, the emergence of technologies enabling greater independence of travel planning broadened the market for guidebook publishers such as Lonely Planet (Osti et al., 2009). Lonely Planet helped construct an increasingly manageable experience of ‘backpacking’ for the more conventional consumer. The needs of older independent tourists with less time, more money and a personal history of relying on alternative guidebooks are now met in the broader approach of these guidebooks which nevertheless still cater for younger consumers looking for a cheap bed in an out of the way destination. Lonely Planet’s increasingly mainstream approach has given rise to a derisory critique within the popular media such as this from the New Yorker: Like Apple and Starbucks, all of which began as plucky alternatives, Lonely Planet has become a mainstream brand. (Friend, 2005) Yet, a heightened sense of corporate responsibility to the communities and environments consumed by Lonely Planet users has accompanied this mainstreaming. An articulated emphasis on matters to do with ethical tourism has underscored Lonely Planet’s distinction in a crowded guidebook market (Lisle, 2008). The case of Lonely Planet’s Australia series is also instructive given the prominent role of independent youth travel in the growth of inbound tourism to Australia from the 1980s. Increasing numbers of predominantly Western

According to the Guidebook: Exploring Lonely Planet’s Australia 65

youth tourists with the time, means and motivation to travel, combined with improved accessibility to the southern hemisphere overland through South East Asia, and the subsequent deregulation of airlines, provided a foundation for Australia’s international travel industry which peaked in the early 2000s. In their biography of the company, Wheeler and Wheeler (2006) identify the confluence of economic and cultural circumstances which fuelled the growth in international backpacker tourism to Australia, and consequently of their publishing house: Backpacker hostels were suddenly popping up all around the country, young travellers were beginning to discover the Barrier Reef and the outback, and the movie Crocodile Dundee would soon help turn Australia into one big tourist attraction. (Wheeler & Wheeler, 2006: 149) Australia: A Traveller’s Survival Kit (Wheeler, 1977) was the fifth guidebook published by Lonely Planet. Author Tony Wheeler described this first edition as ‘seriously under-researched’ owing to the pressures of his then two-person publishing operation (Wheeler & Wheeler, 2006: 102) which is reflected in the lack of specific content in the text. Nevertheless, this first edition sold 10,000 copies in two years from 1977 followed by an equally rudimentary second edition which sold 15,000 copies in four years. The third edition (1983), a significantly more developed product, sold 60,000 copies the year it was launched. Wheeler had been able to spend time in active research with funding provided by a successful first edition of a guidebook to India published in 1981. Subsequent editions of the Australia series sold more than 100,000 copies annually with the 10th edition published in 2000, the year of the Sydney Olympics, reaching sales of 250,000 copies. From 1983, Lonely Planet published an updated edition of Australia on average every two years. In taking a longitudinal perspective on a guidebook series, we identify how Australia has changed from 1977 until 2011 signifying adaptation to wider transformations in the independent tourist market it services. In the following section, we examine the authorial voice particularly as identified through the preface and introduction sections of each edition in relation to Lonely Planet’s evolving readership.

Readership and the Authorial Voice Gilbert (1999: 282) observes that 19th-century guidebooks designed for the mass market tended to adopt ‘an authoritative and self-confident tone of instruction and direction’ frequently implying a single author although

66

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

most relied on the increasingly formulaic writings of several authors. The disguise of authorship characteristic of European guidebooks throughout the 19th and 20th centuries was designed to maintain an independent authorial perspective which is not evident in Australia. Instead, Tony Wheeler’s highly informal yet reassuring voice as author/publisher is an increasingly commodified characteristic of the text sought by consumers as the publishing house cemented its status as the leading backpacker guide. As indicated in Table 5.1, Australia was authored solely by Wheeler until the sixth edition (1992) when he was joined by six co-authors. As with Baedeker and Murray’s handbooks, the introduction and ‘this edition’ sections in Australia frame the text from the author’s perspective. Here, the author speaks directly to the consumer establishing the purpose for travelling and the raison d’etre of the guidebook. Throughout the 1980s, the information included and the authorial style of Australia are framed by an independent traveller culture which is assumed to be shared by its readership. Lonely Planet’s intimate consumer conscious style was especially reflected in the tone of the foreword and ‘this edition’ sections which offered a personally researched guide to Australia by experienced travellers untainted by self-interest. The conversational style of the Australia series emulates the de facto voice of the more experienced fellow traveller dispensing stories and practical advice on where to go, ‘things to see’ and how long to stay. In the second edition, the Wheelers described their pride in the embryonic Lonely Planet ‘because what we publish comes from people who’ve been there and found out for themselves. Not from glossy travel brochures’ (Wheeler, 1979: 5). Like Baedeker, Wheeler emphasised the objective provision of information in his guidebooks and his opinionated, familiar voice was a feature for consumers underscoring their shared values. In the introductory section ‘This Edition’ in the third volume, Wheeler (1983) animatedly confides to the reader the challenges and opportunities in bringing the book to print: This new edition of Australia-a travel survival kit has been long delayed, principally by other projects pushing it to one side (our India guide turned out to be a much bigger book than planned)…I did a whirlwind updating trip right round Australia…And I had a terrifically good time!. (Wheeler, 1983: 1) The informality and sense of shared adventure with the reader in these claims is also evident in the ongoing encouragement to readers to report any errors in advice or changes which might be incorporated in ensuing editions in the subsection ‘And the next edition’. As in the preface

Date

1977 1979 1983 1986 1989 1992 1994 1996

1998

2000 2002 2004

2005

2007 2009

2011

Edition

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

9

10 11 12

13

14 15

16

1101

1100 1116

1120

1033 1030 1064

1033

168 192 576 616 883 834 935 1002

Pages

15

10 10

10

11 14 19

9

1 1 3 4 5 7 4 9

Authors

Advertisements included. Advertisements removed. Colour photographs included emphasising Australians, cities and Australian wildlife. Maps no longer hand drawn. Foreword including author’s message removed. Comical sketches removed. Tony Wheeler is no longer listed as an author. Includes a section for women travellers and wheelchair access. Photographic inclusions of Australians not featured. Includes new section for gay and lesbian travellers. ‘Travel survival kit’ subtitle removed. Separate content for the boxed information sections included. Human subjects return as a focus in photographs. Inclusion of web and email addresses for some businesses. Reformatting of contents and introduction. Removal of Aboriginal art section. Contents order of the states is no longer in alphabetical order. Increasing internet inclusions. Directory section included at rear of book including a new transport section. Colour maps at the back of the book. Colour photograph pages double the number of previous editions. Air travel information more dominant over bus and train. Introduction reworked. Favourite places of celebrity Australians featured. Colour photographs separated by state removed. ‘Our pick’ notations used for accommodation and restaurants. Text printed in blue and black. Colour photographs divided thematically rather than geographically. Reduction in representation on maps. Pull out colour map and ‘green index’ included.

Notable removals/inclusions

Table 5.1 Australia (Lonely Planet) 16 editions, publication date, page length, number of authors and notable removal and inclusions in the text

According to the Guidebook: Exploring Lonely Planet’s Australia 67

68

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

of 19th-century Black’s and Murray’s handbooks, a shared camaraderie among travellers is evident in the following pre-internet invitation published in similar style from the first (1977) to the 11th (2002) edition: Things change – prices go up, good places go bad, bad places go bankrupt. So if you find things better, worse, cheaper (unlikely), more expensive, recently opened or long ago closed please don’t blame us but please do write and tell us. We love letters from out on the road and the best ones score a free copy of the next edition. This creation of a collective identity among readership and guidebook producers is evident throughout the series even as Australia broadens away from a sole focus on inexpensive options to include more at the ‘top end’. The ability to pay for expensive accommodation, meals and experiences did not undermine the sense of a shared travel culture built on avoiding the ‘tourist traps’ as mass tourism sites were continuously referred to from the first (1977) to the 16th edition (Rawlings-Way et al., 2011). The desired communication between readers and the publishing house also remained constant. From the ninth edition (Finlay et al., 1998), the existence of the internet as a means of communication between guidebook user and publisher vied with traditional letter writing as a means of communication between the publishers and those ‘on the road’. By the 11th edition (2002), readers were provided with several sources of updated advice online including free quarterly newsletter Planet Talk, monthly email bulletin Comet and an upgrades section of the company website updated by Lonely Planet authors. Those who emailed suggestions had their names listed in the following edition of the book. Until Australia was first published, Lonely Planet guidebooks had been written entirely for a Western audience visiting South East Asia. Writing for these consumers, Lonely Planet self-consciously attempted to invert traditional imperialist notions of the exotic other even while expressing a latent exoticism of their own through increasing emphasis in the text on an ‘ethical travel’. However, in the case of Australia, the destination described by the guidebook is the First World newly adopted ‘home’ of the authors who are still writing for a Western audience but one which is chiefly domestic. Tony Wheeler was struck by the contemptuous attitude towards travelling domestically exhibited by the young Australians he met crossing Asia. Consequently, they knew little about the tourism opportunities he observed as a newcomer to the country. In editions one to three of Australia, Wheeler therefore exhorted well-travelled Australians to look locally in an exploration of their home country. In the first two

According to the Guidebook: Exploring Lonely Planet’s Australia 69

editions (1977, 1979) under the heading ‘Why Australia?’, Wheeler’s encouragingly informal response states: Because it can be a fun place, because it’s popular to knock it and I like it, because there’s a hell of a lot to see here and some fantastic travelling waiting for you…Australians have a well-earned reputation for being great travellers but I’ve met Australians on top of the Khyber Pass who haven’t been on top of Ayer’s Rock. So if you can’t make it to the rest of the world this year, look around you. (Wheeler, 1983: 6) Readership of the first and second editions (1977, 1979) of Australia was therefore assumed to be chiefly domestic although the Wheelers were aware of the small number of independent international arrivals to Australia who, like themselves, would be in want of a guidebook. In the first edition, the emphasis on a domestic readership is apparent in the caveat provided under a subheading titled ‘The Warning’: This book is also intended for people coming to Australia from abroad – so if you don’t need to know about Australian visas, or what a chook is – skip those bits. (Wheeler, 1977: 1) This advice was removed from the significantly more sophisticated third edition (1983) and, although a domestic readership is still anticipated as evidenced in references to ‘our island continent’ (Wheeler, 1983: 7), the authors speak more strongly to a nascent independent international market to Australia. Their interests are directly appealed to in the section titled ‘What to buy’, which suggests that: Australia is not a great place for buying amazing things - there’s nothing in particular which you simply have to buy while you’re here. Except Aboriginal art. (Wheeler, 1983: 42) Australia’s exoticism for the domestic tourist or European visitor was invested strongly in the popular commercialisation of indigenous art in the 1980s. International readers were also advised in the introduction to the third edition (1983) that Australia is ‘far from the rough and ready country its image might indicate’, a destination ‘not just exciting and invigorating, it’s also very civilised’ (Wheeler, 1983: 7). While the reference to Australia’s degree of civilisation is removed from the eighth edition (Finlay et al., 1992), the ninth edition (Finlay et al., 1998: 15) introduction refers for the first time to an international market which is also rapidly

70

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

diversifying with reference to an experience accessible to ‘the short or long-term visitor’. Guidebooks have frequently been examined for their representation of contentious national history (Buzinde, 2010; Callahan, 2011). In the case of Australia, representations of the nation’s colonisation and subsequent race relations offer an example of textual feature which changes significantly over editions. In the first five editions to Australia, the history sections focused on European exploration of the continent and colonisation, particularly the convict settlement story especially well known by British readers. Statements such as this from the third edition (1983) introduction briefly observe that: Today the Aboriginals are a dispossessed, lost people and belated efforts (generally unsuccessful) are being made to find them a place in modern society. (Wheeler, 1983: 9) It was not until the sixth edition (Finlay et al., 1992) that a structured narrative of Australia’s indigenous history featured in the introduction. From the sixth to the ninth editions, introductory commentary focused on indigenous Australians in relation to European colonisers. From then, the ‘Facts about Australia’ section begins with substantial sections on aboriginal settlement, traditional society, devastation through colonisation and self-actualisation reflective of contemporary trends in indigenous politics in Australia. For two decades, commentary in Australia valued aboriginal art as the most confidently and positively framed aspect of indigeneity in the text. In the seventh edition (Finlay et al., 1994), colour images accompanying information on Aboriginal art forms are one of just two coloured sections in the text, the other providing information on Australian wildlife. This includes a section on what to look for in buying Aboriginal art and artefacts as ‘the best and most evocative reminders of your trip’ (Finlay et al., 1998: 146), which should be purchased from indigenousowned enterprises where possible. In the 11th edition (2002), a boxed section titled ‘sorry day’, reported sympathetically on the 1997 Royal Commission inquiring into generations of children taken from their parents by the state as a consequence of their indigeneity. The emphasis on indigenous art as an indicative souvenir of Australia for international visitors is also reduced by the 14th edition (Vaisuitis, 2007). This is possibly as a reflection of growing popular awareness in Australia of the commodification of indigeneity. In this edition (2007), the coloured photographs accompanying descriptions of indigenous art forms are

According to the Guidebook: Exploring Lonely Planet’s Australia 71

replaced by a coloured map depicting Aboriginal Australia according to language group. The following section addresses the changes and standardisation of core components of Australia with particular attention paid to the series’ overall structure and design, maps and photographs and sections on transportation, itineraries, accommodation and food references. These components of the series not only clearly evince change but also indicate where the process of ’mainstreaming’ the guidebook has had an impact. Such changes are also reflective of evolving trends in tourism practice over this period.

Structure and Design The structure and design of Australia throughout the period under investigation routinely contained the kind of normative information an independent tourist would require such as transport needs (‘getting there and away’ and ‘getting around’), accommodation (‘where to stay’), activities and destinations (‘what to see’) and food options (‘places to eat’). In the following analysis, we offer evidence of change in the representation of these and other structural elements. These changes can be seen as a reflection of the publisher’s dynamic response to the broadening of Lonely Planet’s independent tourist market but there is another notable transformation at work. We observe that such vade mecum style information, while consistently present in Australia, and while growing in absolute page numbers through the first many editions, also reduces in relative intensity over time. What can account in large part for the increase in page length of Australia by 10 times across these decades is a clear growth in belles lettres style content. The 16-edition profile provided in Table 5.1 indicates date of publication, number of pages, authors and maps in each volume, and a brief summary of notable removals or inclusions in the text or structure. Immediately apparent is the increasing size of the volume from the brief 196 pages of the first edition to a peak size of 1120 pages in the 13th edition (2005). Contributors to each edition likewise grow in number from Tony Wheeler’s lone authorship in the first two editions to a maximum total of 19 contributors in the 12th edition (Smitz et al., 2004). Wheeler is no longer listed as co-author from the sixth edition (1992). In terms of the first two editions (1977, 1979), contents are divided into two principle sections. The first section offers overall travel rationale and six subsections of general information encompassing the motivation for travel in ‘Why Australia?’, transport options for entry in ‘Getting there’, ‘Paperwork and red tape’ including customs, money and entry formalities,

72

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

‘Getting around’ detailing methods of travelling throughout the country; ‘About Australia’ including history, geography, climate and mundane travel information such as tipping and opening hours; and ‘Living in Australia’ outlining accommodation options and food. The latter two thirds of the text in these editions contain alphabetically arranged accounts of visiting each state or territory. Destinations are listed in a radial pattern from the capital city. In the third edition (1983), these contents were rearranged with the substitution of the sections ‘Paperwork and red tape’, ‘About Australia’ and ‘Living in Australia’ for ‘Facts about the country’ and ‘Facts for the visitor’. This structure changed little until the inclusion of a map list following the main contents appeared in the ninth edition (1998). More substantial changes to the contents and structure of Australia followed in the 12th edition (2004) with the addition of sections on ‘Highlights’, ‘Getting started’ and ‘Itineraries’ in addition to ‘Snapshot’, ‘History’, ‘Environment’, ‘The culture’ and ‘Food and drink’ replacing the earlier ‘Facts’ and transport sections. ‘Transport’ is listed in the rear of the book followed by a substantial index of road maps indicating the growing significance of selfdrive tourism. From the 12th edition, states and territories are no longer alphabetised in their location in the text. Tracing the changes to illustrations and maps in the series is suggestive of Lonely Planet’s growing resources. Images in the first edition (1977) are black and white with colour reserved for four pages of advertisements. These advertisements disappear in the second edition (1979) as the proclaimed independence of Lonely Planet publications becomes a commercial feature. The book’s earliest editions depended on photographs provided by the Australian Tourist Commission as well as the Wheelers’ own. In the third edition (1983), the line-drawn cover is replaced with a colour photograph of the Sydney Opera House and montages of five to six colour photographs depicting tourist highlights are included at the start of each state-based section. This format is unchanging with the exception of a greater emphasis on photographs of the natural environment in regional Australia by the seventh edition (1994). In the eighth edition (Finlay et al., 1996), full-page colour sections on Aboriginal art, native fauna and flora and ecology are regarded as a feature. In the 13th edition (Smitz et al. 2005), the number of colour photographs doubles from that of previous editions but the overall structure of photographic inclusions is changed significantly in the 15th edition (Vaisutis et al., 2009) with the improved linking of photographs to personal experience. Colour plates illustrate specific themed sections only, such as ‘On the road’, depicting the contributors in diverse destinations and ‘Australia highlights’ where popularly known Australians advise on their favourite destinations.

According to the Guidebook: Exploring Lonely Planet’s Australia 73

Since the mid 19th century, maps have been an essential component of the guidebook genre, enabling, perhaps even more than the text, a sense of independence for the tourist who is able to quickly develop a spatial understanding of any new destination. Guidebook maps index and arrange the geographic and man-made features explicitly for the tourist’s consumption. The growing range of maps included in Australia is notable, particularly given the digitised maps on handheld devices available in the last decade. Lonely Planet’s maps, however, are marketed as a feature of each volume from the fifth edition (1989) which promoted ‘more than 150 detailed maps’ on the back cover. By the 15th edition (2009), the extent of advertised maps has expanded to include a 16-page colour ‘road atlas’ suited to young tourists on a working holidaymaker visa reliant on car travel for leisure and job seeking. The earliest maps in the series depict the business districts of capital cities in black-and-white line drawings with numbered attractions and resources such as accommodation and bus terminals provided. Small maps of each state and increasingly of major tourist centres such as Cairns and Byron Bay on the east coast are included from the third edition (1983). By the fourth edition (Wheeler, 1986), the hand-drawn maps are replaced as are the comical sketches in the fifth edition (1989) and the sixth edition (1992) features a greater number of high-quality black-and-white maps with significantly more detail included. The map of Sydney includes 62 annotations as opposed to just 10 in the third edition (2003) increasing to 140 in the eighth edition (1996). Much of the enhanced detail from the eighth edition (1996) identifies restaurants and bars rather than tourist sites and accommodation. In the 16th edition (2011), maps of capital cities are now in full colour with regional destinations and cities in two shades of blue and black as an assistance to reading. The inclusion in recent editions of dense textual or illustrative sections of the guidebook such as the expanded introduction and boxed commentaries evident from the mid 1990s editions, and the growing number of maps and photographs, contributed to expanding each volume over time. This occurred in tandem with a reduction in the number of indexed destinations in each volume. For example, a comparison of the third (1983) and eighth (1996) editions indicates that fewer than half the indexed locations for the state of Victoria in the earlier edition were included in the later volume. The earliest editions displayed a larger number of geographic destinations less comprehensively described. In later editions, as the number of indexed destinations decreases, lengthier place descriptions of what are identified as key visitor destinations increase together with an increase in the number of related accommodation and

74

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

activities highlighted. These changes may have emanated from the rapid development of product suitable to the backpacker market over time as well as experimentation by the publishers in an attempt to optimise the product overall. There are also fewer changes to indexed destinations from the 1990s possibly as a result of a maturing backpacker product and the creation of identifiable routes and destinations suitable for the market. The indexing of space in Australia is thus reflective of the wider transformation of Australian cities and regional destinations as they accumulate tourist attractions and amenities over time. The detail on destinations which have gradually emerged as international independent tourist centres such as Cairns in northern Queensland, particularly reveal the structural and economic effect of a growing international tourism industry to Australia. The entry for Cairns in the third edition (Wheeler, 1983: 283) comprises eight pages detailing what has become ‘quite a traveller’s centre in recent years’ although ‘a colourful and easy going place’ which expands to 14 pages by the 10th edition (O’Byrne et al., 2000). The statistic given at the start of the Cairns entry in both editions indicates that the resident population of the regional city tripled in less than two decades from 39,500 in 1983 to 118,800 in 2000. Such expansion, chiefly because of the growth of tourism, has its costs and benefits according to the Lonely Planet text. The 10th edition (O’Byrne et al., 2000: 563) entry for Cairns describes it as ‘one of Australia’s top tourism destinations’ while lamenting that the rapid growth in tourism after the opening of the international airport in 1984 ‘has destroyed much of the city’s laid-back tropical atmosphere’. In both editions, the Cairns entry is accompanied by a map of the city centre which indicates both the expansion of tourism facilities in the city centre and the categorisation of relevant spatial features characteristic of Australia from the mid 1990s. In the third edition (1983), the map of the city centre marks 28 entries numbered consecutively, including memorials, bicycle outlets, restaurants and just five accommodation resources; two privately run hostels, a guest house and two hotels. In the 10th edition (2000), the Cairns map is a detailed resource of 86 numbered indicators. These are divided into the categories ‘Places to stay’ with 33 individual properties listed including a five-star hotel, ‘Places to eat’ and ‘Other’. In describing the transformation of touring Vienna in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Spring (2006) observed how it was not until the late 19th century that guidebooks regularly provided more than a list of sights for visitors. City sights were no longer distributed ‘randomly across urban space’ but ‘transformed into narrative sequences’ through walking tours (Spring, 2006: 39). Such tours were a necessity as the sights

According to the Guidebook: Exploring Lonely Planet’s Australia 75

of Victorian cities increased in variety along with available space and the amount of visiting time decreased with the restricted time frames of early mass tourism (Spring, 2006). Baedeker’s first guidebook to the city published in 1868 offered tours and information on transportation and accommodation linking sights to each other and providing knowledge of the spaces in-between. Overt connections of space and time are not made in the earliest editions of Australia however, nor are the first four editions (1977, 1979, 1983, 1986) of the guidebook prescriptive about routes although spatial and temporal associations are an integral aspect of the text through the detailed sections on modes of transportation indexed as ‘Getting there’, ‘Getting around’ and ‘Getting away’. The directional subsection ‘Things to see’ was only included as a specific section in the first two editions (1977, 1979) after which readers were steered towards essential sites through their listed descriptions under geographic subsections. Attractions are listed collectively according to type in these earliest editions with the 1977 entry for museums and art galleries in Sydney advising that: The Art gallery of NSW on the Domain has an excellent permanent display…The Australian Museum at the corner of college and William Street is a natural history museum (…) The slightly decrepit Museum of Applied Art and Science is on Harris Street (...). (Wheeler, 1983: 96) This loose collection of sights in capital cities gives way to their indexing within identified precincts of a city or region. By the fourth edition (1986), Sydney is indexed in its entirety with diverse subheadings including ‘city centre’, ‘Museums’ ‘surf beaches’ and ‘other displays’. By the 1990s, however, the growing accumulation of attractions in Sydney and surrounding suburbs as in other Australian capital cities enabled sites to be structured by defined precincts. Thus, the ninth edition (1998) divides Sydney’s attractions according to the areas of central Sydney, the Inner East, the Eastern harbourside suburbs, the Southern beaches, the inner West, the North Shore, Manly and Northern Beaches. Other changes in the content and design of the text reflect diversifying consumption patterns among the Lonely Planet audience and a growing acknowledgement of independent tourist diversity. Changes in the content of Australia were not always attributable to change in the destination presented but to editorial decisions made across Lonely Planet series. The inclusion of resources in Australia for women travellers and those needing wheelchair access appear in the seventh edition (1994) and for gay and lesbian travellers and those entering the country on a work

76

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

and travel style visa in the eighth edition (1996) were editorial decisions duplicated across Lonely Planet publications. In the 12th edition (2004), a new directory section at the back of the book includes detailed transport options as well as colour maps for the first time. The 16th edition (2011) features a ‘unique green index to help make your travels as eco-friendly as you wish’. The inclusion from the 12th edition (2004) onwards of ‘Highlights’ and ‘Itineraries’ sections aimed at packaging the experience more easily for visitors. In the context of Australia, these itineraries outlined what were defined as ‘Classic routes’, ‘Roads less travelled’ and ‘Tailored trips’. The first two categories indicated the average time which might be taken on the route as well as the minimum time possible. Thus, the ‘East coast run’ listed as a ‘classic route’ from Sydney to the northern regional city of Cairns might take one month with a five-day minimum travel time. These itineraries indicate how Australia maintained currency with tourism-related infrastructure and the increasingly established routes of Lonely Planet consumers. By the early 2000s, this marked an established backpacker trail along the east coast of the country described in the introduction to the route in the 12th edition as: Australia’s lush and sun-loving east coast is where hordes of travellers choose to stay on the beaten track, following a beach-sprinkled route from the highlife of Sydney to the tropical tourism hub of Cairns. (Smitz et al., 2004: 17) The rise in belles lettres content in these later editions through the ‘Highlights’ and ‘Itineraries’ sections is clear while the subsection ‘Tailored trips’, in the 12th edition (2004), also identifies the development and mainstreaming (O’Reilly, 2006) of independent tourism accommodated by new editions of Australia. The five trips comprised a ‘walk on the wildside’ aimed at adventurous walkers appreciative of Australia’s natural beauty across four states, ‘a grape escape’ for tourists interested in following a trail of vineyards from New South Wales to Western Australia, ‘childish delights’ detailing children’s attractions, ‘follow the fans’ designed for sports enthusiasts and ‘making it big’ offering a trail of ‘cheesy big things’, attraction icons such as a giant banana or lobster located alongside highways (Smitz et al., 2004: 24). In the 15th edition (2009), these tailored trips are removed and replaced with a section titled ‘great Aussie trips’ suggesting itineraries themed to different interests such as wine, surfing and the environment. The 16th edition (2011) also adds a section titled ‘top 25 experiences’ showcasing a diversity of Australian attractions.

According to the Guidebook: Exploring Lonely Planet’s Australia 77

The increasing institutionalisation of independent travel globally and particularly to Australia from the late 1990s required Australia to adapt to emerging independent travel markets. These independent tourists had more money to spend, potentially less time in the destination and were likely to include persons both older and younger than the youthful backpackers typical of the 1980s. In Australia’s eighth edition (1996), Australia is no longer referred to as ‘our island continent’ in the introduction but ‘this island continent’ as the early informality and communal tone of authorship is replaced with a more objective style in line with the broadening of the guidebook’s market appeal. By the ninth edition (1998), the Travel Survival Kit subtitle of the Australia series is discarded as occurred in several other series covering now more mainstream destinations. The whimsical subtitle suggestive of an attractively perilous journey for youth did not resonate with an older travel market now acculturated to Lonely Planet’s publicised ethical and experiential approach to travel.

‘Things to See’ In her study of Lonely Planet’s guidebook to India, Bhattacharyya (1997) notes the guidebook’s significant role in the touristic process in mediating the relationship between host and guest, tourist and destination. In the case of India, it represents an aspect of Western cultural production which constitutes the discourse of otherness in general and India in particular. Urry (1990) theorised that the tourist ‘gaze’ defined by all tourist literature was dependent on the non-tourist experience of the visitor. Guidebooks select that which is ‘Other’ from the readers’ general experience. Like Cohen’s (1985) human guides, the guidebook selects and validates sights for the tourist determining the authentic from the inauthentic (Culler, 1981). Throughout Lonely Planet’s Australia series, sites deemed to be ‘worth seeing’ because they are marked as authentically ‘Australian’ commonly comprise the natural environment particularly coastal regions, forests and deserts, the built environment and historical landmarks in cities and regional towns, and sociocultural events such festivals. The Northern Territory outback remains, through 12 editions of Australia, ‘the red heart’ and the centre of Australian identity for both Australian and international tourists. From the 1970s to the early 1990s, the introduction section to each edition repeated and then rephrased the following distillation of Australian otherness: To really get to grips with the country, however, you must get away from the cities. Australian society may be a basically urban one but,

78

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

myth or not, it’s in the outback where you really find Australia – the endless skies, the endless red dirt, the laconic Aussie characters. (Finlay et al., 1992: 11) However, with the increasing international consumption of Australia, changes occur in what is identified as ‘authentically’ Australian and therefore ‘worth seeing’. There is a clear attempt to broaden the stereotype of Australians beyond the rough-hewn outback inhabitant redolent of the character in the film Crocodile Dundee which was particularly popular in the United States. The introduction in the 11th edition (Harding, 2002) emphasises the country’s natural environment as the country’s ‘big attraction’ dropping the reference to ‘laconic Aussie characters’. In this edition, international visitors are reminded that Australia is far from ‘a cultural void’ and that they might be: surprised at the sophisticated city nightlife, myriad arts festivals, the outrageous Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras and, if you’re fortunate, timeless Aboriginal corroborees.’ (Harding, 2002: 20) Yet, the stereotype is not removed completely. In the 14th edition (2007) with the introduction now titled ‘Destination Australia’, an international, predominantly British, audience is directly addressed. Opening with a quote from Irish comedian Dylan Moran, the introduction flippantly describes the harshness of the Australian environment and the corresponding and clichéd hardiness of its inhabitants. Along with the natural environment and native animals featured in significant coloured sections from the eighth edition (1996) onwards, this stereotype of an Australian is depicted as worth seeing. Australians themselves, however, are decidedly absent. The daily life of real people in regional Australia is not presented as part of the experience for visitors. The entry for Cairns is illustrative once again in that it reads as though contemporary Cairns exists solely as a tourist ‘service point’ rendering the local community largely invisible. References to the history of the area which precede the text confine the Cairns community to its earliest, engaging antecedents only. There is no reflection on the contemporary nature of a community radically changed by the very experience of tourism the reader seeks.

‘Getting There and Away’ and ‘Where to Stay’ From the late 1980s, leisure travel to Australia had become accessible to the short-term long-haul visitor underscoring the increasing accessibility

According to the Guidebook: Exploring Lonely Planet’s Australia 79

provided by a deregulated airline industry and the growing spending power of young tourists. Australia provides evidence of these changes in the way transport sections, titled ‘Getting there’, ‘Getting away’ and ‘Getting around’, and the accommodation listings, ‘Where to stay’, are described. A significant indicator of the broadening of Lonely Planet’s market for Australia can be identified in the statement ‘options for all budgets’ advertised on the back cover of the fifth edition (1989). Until that time, the list of accommodation options included in Australia was uniformly aimed at the backpacker on a budget as this entry in the fourth edition suggests: Finding a cheap place to stay can be a major stumbling block to seeing Australia at a reasonable price. It’s not impossible, however, and these days Australia certainly offers as good value as you’ll find in most western countries. We’re actually very well-equipped with youth hostels and campsites, the cheapest shelter you can find. (Wheeler, 1986: 37) Australia accommodation options also included university colleges and ‘traditional-style’ hotels or pubs. Throughout the 1980s, the most expensive alternative ‘if you’ve got wheels and want a modern place with your own bathroom’ (Wheeler, 1983: 45) were motels built to accommodate domestic holidaying together or holiday flats including a kitchen or kitchen facilities. Camping was recommended throughout these early editions as the cheapest and easiest accommodation style; ‘Australia has lots of bush where nobody is going to complain about your putting up a tent’. From the first to the fourth editions (1977, 1979, 1983, 1986) however, Youth Hostels Australia (YHA) options are listed as ‘the number one accommodation choice for backpackers’. Similar hostels operated by the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), popularly referred to as ‘the Y’s’, and Country Women’s Association (CWA) were accompanied by listing for ‘associate hostels’, private operations accessible to YHA members. In the fourth edition (1986), ‘unofficial hostels’, those described as failing YHA standards or preferring independent operation, were also recorded as ‘growing in number’. These establishments sought to differentiate themselves from the traditional YHA operations through the provision of less austere accommodation and the abolition of the guest domestic duty roster that had long underpinned the communal YHA ethos. Independent hostels throughout the 1980s and 1990s were characterised by limited capital reserves and a heavy dependence on the availability of cheap existing infrastructure adapted to the needs of group accommodation (McCulloch,

80

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

1991). Australia indicates the rapid development of these independent commercial operations in backpacker gateway cities and along the eastern coastal route to the northern state of Queensland where international tourists were proliferating. In the fifth edition (1989), accommodation listings in Brisbane comprise a youth hostel, three hotels, a motel and two independent hostels. By the 10th edition (2000), these accommodation listings have diversified to include 10 independent hostels, two apartment complexes, a YHA youth hostel and a motel. The 10th edition (2000) entry for Brisbane also illustrates the diversifying market for Australia with accommodation sections divided according to type and price. From here, accommodation options in Australia are routinely divided into ‘budget’, ‘mid-range’ and ‘top-end’ although this diversification of accommodation options was incremental. ‘Mid-range’ included guesthouses and bed and breakfast establishments, self-contained apartments and motels and hotels of a higher standard. ‘Top end’ listings included five-star chain hotels such as the Conrad International described as ‘a classy hotel in the casino complex’ offering room rates ‘around $300 per night’ (O’Byrne et al., 2000: 469). This diversification of accommodation types away from the lower priced was initiated in the fifth edition (1989) when the guide’s provision of accommodation ‘options for all budgets’ was advertised on the back cover. The map of Sydney in this edition references the Hilton Hotel in the central business district but it is not given a textual reference underscoring the continuing focus on the budget tourist as target consumer of Australia. From the 15th edition (2009), ‘Our pick’ notations are also included in accommodation and restaurant listings where a wide choice of options is given. ‘Our pick’ directly injects the publishers’ choice into consumers’ thinking in a tone that is personal and persuasive such as this commentary on a hotel in suburban Melbourne: A glorious departure from chintz and generic comfort, the Albany has serious rock-chic cred behind its glamorous 1890s mansion façade. (Vaisutis et al., 2009: 520) Other changes in travel infrastructure and travel practice are reflected in Australia over time. The sections, ‘Getting there’, ‘Getting away’ and ‘Getting around’ addressing transport matters are the most consistently titled in the series. Australia is regarded as a long-haul destination from principle source markets in the northern hemisphere and Australia advised its Western readership over decades that ‘the basic problem of getting to Australia is that it’s a long way from anywhere’ (Wheeler, 1983: 44).

According to the Guidebook: Exploring Lonely Planet’s Australia 81

The option of travelling by sea to Australia from within the Pacific is offered as a difficult although not impossible option throughout the series but it is air transport which receives significant coverage. The expense of air transport both to Australia and within it from the 1970s to 1990s was a frequent complaint of authors who attempted to find the cheapest means of transport available. Thus, the first edition (Wheeler, 1977: 8) information on ‘Getting there’ includes cheaper options such as flights from Bali to Darwin ‘long a favourite of the overlanders’ or New Zealand. Non-conventional methods of getting to Australia such as finding a lift on a private yacht or island hopping to Timor and taking a barge were also included in a ‘weird and wonderful’ section in the first and second editions (1977, 1979). Source country destinations of Australia readers and their travel itineraries are clearly indicated in the specific subsections on ‘Getting there’ specifically from Europe, the United States, New Zealand and Asia in the third to fifth editions (1983, 1986, 1989). In the sixth edition (1992), Africa and South America are included. Greater airline price competition both globally and within Australia in the last decade is reflected in the shifting emphasis on modes of travel shift in the text. In the third edition, the ‘Getting around’ sections for each city have significant information on rail and bus routes over flying. By the 12th edition (Smitz, 2004), information on air travel around Australia exceeds that of bus and train for the first time. Information on travel around the country, like the ‘Getting there’ section, was initially placed at the front of the text but moved to the back of the book from the 11th edition (Harding et al., 2002). In the earliest editions, flying was grudgingly regarded as a means of moving across the continent which would have to be undertaken at some time and duopoly of the two domestic airlines was frequently described as the scourge of cheap airfares. Bus travel was identified routinely as better value than either air or rail travel with a range of travel pass options described from the third edition (1989) throughout the series. So-called ‘backpacker buses’ are also described from the seventh edition (1994). Alternatives include rail and self-drive. Rail is described in the 10th edition (O’Byrne et al., 2000: 141) as ‘something you do because you really want to – not because it’s cheaper or convenient’. Hitching a lift from a passing motorist is also included as an important travel option, ‘a good way of getting around’. Buying or renting a car while in Australia is described throughout the series evolving from an option in the first edition (1977) to a tourist experience in itself by the 1990s. In the first edition (Wheeler, 1977: 13) driving is described as ‘expensive by European or American standards’ and somewhat dangerous for the inexperienced.

82

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

By the 10th edition (2000), self-drive options using four-wheel drives and campervans and road networks are extensively described. International visitors are advised that driving holds ‘few real surprises’ if care is taken. Other in-country transport options which are more consistently advocated throughout the series are motorcycle and bicycle. The development of cycling tours in cities and regionally is reflected in Australia content from the ninth edition (1998) onwards.

Conclusion This chapter addresses three decades of a guidebook series from a single destination perspective. It shows how the institutionalisation of international tourism in Australia throughout the last decades of the 20th century is reflected in the changing inclusions and tone of the guidebook. Australia as an example of a guidebook series can be described as a combination of structured continuity, as each new edition builds on the last, and dynamic text is constantly changing in small but important ways to meet the needs of consumers. Continuity and changes in structure, content and text evident since 1977 are reflective of the evolving nature of the publisher’s target audience and the ways in which Australia’s significance as a tourism destination altered to express shifting reconstructions of its place in the world. Also clearly observable in the case of Australia is how the basic structure of the text resonates across much older publications such as Baedeker and Murray’s handbooks. Despite the publisher’s characteristic contempt for the trappings and experiences afforded the mass tourist, Lonely Planet routinely perpetuates the 19th-century guidebook organisation in Australia through its schematic inclusions and authorial tone. Yet, this guidebook series is far from unchanging. Rather, guidebooks operate in the tourism system as dynamic cultural artefacts both as a product of inherent changing demand and reflective of changing patterns of tourist consumption. What is also notable is the shift in this series away from vade mecum style information to a more substantial belles lettres approach. Descriptions of place and culture, of recasting the essential details of what to see and how to travel into an experience through the suggestions of tailored trips and ‘classic routes’ and of sites which will aid the traveller in ‘getting to grips with the country’ grew over time. Routine vade mecum travel information is now available online even without roaming access through wireless internet and geographic positioning systems. This growth in online availability has only accentuated the inability of a printed book to stay updated throughout an edition’s life span. What fills the void, and indeed

According to the Guidebook: Exploring Lonely Planet’s Australia 83

more than 1000 pages of content in recent Australia editions, for regular consumers of these guidebooks is the known and trusted authoritative voice of the publisher. ‘Our pick’ inclusions for accommodation and restaurant options in recent editions are one indication of the publisher’s cultural capital in play. In Chapter 9, we address the associated issue of guidebooks as agents of change in the morphology of tourist destinations. This analysis has demonstrated the opportunity presented by the guidebook series to provide a representation of place which serves empirical uses in understanding changing spatial patterns and infrastructure in tourist places. For the student of tourism, guidebooks thus present as a significant historical resource but what can they mean for their tourist users? In the next chapter, we turn to popular conceptions of the guidebook and expectations surrounding its purpose.

6 ‘Why I Love/Hate My Guidebook’: Perspectives from the Blogosphere I adore travel guide books. I have a bookcase bulging with them. Mikeachim, travel blog, 2012 You start out fond of them, enjoying the way their insights can expand your experience. Halfway through the trip, their little habits start getting on your nerves – their taste in cafes and hotels is different from yours, they drag you to sites that bore you and they don’t know as much as they pretend. And by journey’s end, if you haven’t already parted company, you want to dropkick them out the window. Dale, 2000: 3

Introduction The turbulent relationship described above in the quote by Dale (2000: 3) speaks not of the vicissitudes of shared travel but of frustrations when the guidebook is the tourist’s only companion. While an amusing journalistic take on the guidebook–tourist relationship, Dale’s observations are framed by a shared understanding of the guidebook as capable of generating a strong emotional response from its users. This interpretation is supported by results from an interrogation of the popular discourse surrounding the guidebook in one Western economy in which we found that guidebooks attracted strong positive and (more often) negative associations among travel writers and journalists (Peel et al., 2012). The most frequently cited weakness of the guidebook by media commentators was the inaccuracy of practical advice, the vade mecum content. Guidebooks were routinely berated for failing to provide up-todate and ‘true’ depictions of places and services. Almost as frequently described, and certainly more emotively argued, was the strength or weakness of the more belles lettres style descriptions of destination places and culture. In this context, guidebooks were depicted as overly directive and destructive of the freedom of the travel experience and the existence of ‘undiscovered’ destinations. Yet, at the same time, the positive positioning 84

‘Why I Love/Hate My Guidebook’: Perspectives from the Blogosphere

85

of the guidebook writer as exemplifying a desirable traveller ‘type’, and potentially facilitating an idealised independent tourist experience for the reader, supported a narrative of the value of the guidebook in tourism. Such conflicting understandings of the guidebook hint at its role in both the enactment of contemporary tourism and the variety of consumer expectations of the guidebook. Leaving an exploration of guidebook usage to Chapter 7, our present concern is with the latter theme and the symbolic function of the guidebook in tourism. In this chapter, we gain insight into the breadth of user attitudes towards their guidebooks through an exploration of written commentary freely expressed by a group of Englishspeaking online bloggers. Analysis of these exchanges offers insight into the satisfaction and frustrations of the guidebook among one group of vocal consumers. When viewed together with the depiction of guidebooks in the media undertaken in the Australian print context, their perceptions are revealing of popular consumer understandings and expectations surrounding the contemporary guidebook. In particular, we find that the guidebook plays a significant role in defining perceptions of the tourist ‘other ’. Additional insights from this analysis on the usage of guidebooks, consumer interpretation of the impact of guidebooks on destination development and consumer attitudes towards electronic information sources are explored in Chapters 7, 9 and 11, respectively.

The Guidebook in the Blogosphere While recognising their inherent limitations as a data source, researchers have described blogs as enabling authentic accounts of travel without artifice (Schaad, 2008). Banyai and Glover (2012: 268) identify how blogs offer the opportunity to ‘express tourists’ impressions, perceptions, thoughts, and feelings, all that may otherwise not be revealed in a more constrained research environment such as personal interviews’. The growing volume of travel blogs on the internet suggests the continuing and compelling nature of this diary-style recounting of personal experiences and perceptions of tourist experience. As a multifaceted research methodology, ‘netnography’ (Kozinets, 2002) offers an opportunity to tease out deep meanings from the online recounting of consumer experience. Methods include thematic content analysis, semiotics, hermeneutics and historical analysis (Mkono, 2012; Mkono & Markwell, 2014). The ‘deep meanings’ acquired from analysis of online commentary as Kozinets (2002) describes, suggests an inherent truthfulness in internet discussions. Blichfeldt and Marabese (2014: 62) describe blogs as presenting a more ‘natural’ account of the experience of tourism in the sense that

86

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

they are less affected by ‘researcher initiation than traditional interviews or surveys’. Without the need to reveal their ‘true identities’, Langer and Beckman (2006: 195) assert that all participants, not just those intensively involved in a topic whom Kozinets (2002) framed as ‘devotees and insiders’, might therefore be recognised as valuable participants. Yet the reality or otherwise of online accounts of behaviour must necessarily be treated with care. The postmodern critique of ethnography which highlights the dual crisis of representation, when all knowledge is relative, and of legitimation can be understood in the context of netnography. The validity and generalisability of data accumulated in this manner must be subject to the same reflexive considerations to permit competing realities outside the researcher’s field of vision (Cassell & Symon, 2004). We therefore agree with Blichfeldt and Marabese (2014: 65) who contend that static-word netnography cannot provide holistic insights into the tourist and what he or she does but rather access to ‘how the tourist presents and posts him/herself in a conversation’ with a known audience. It provides the researcher with insights into the online identity of tourists through their communication. As such, Blichfeldt and Marabese (2014: 66) claim that static-word netnography reveals the construction and negotiation of the imagined world of the traveller and therefore ‘how these travellers enact and make sense of travelling and their own identity as travellers’. Much netnography in tourism research adapts the passive ‘lurker’ (Mkono & Markwell, 2014) approach in which the researchers neither reveal their research activity nor engage in online participation with the unknowing informants. Kozinets (2002: 63) draws from ethnographic traditions when describing netnography as providing ‘access to the heretofore unobservable behaviours of interacting consumers’. Online ‘lurking’ by researchers and their direct engagement with the groups they study must therefore be bound by the ethical practices of ethnography. Kozinets (2002: 63) insists that compiling data from online communities demands that the researcher disclose his or her ‘presence, affiliations, and intentions to online community members during any research’ and that the confidentiality of informants and their feedback must be considered. In particular, netnographers should ‘take a cautious position on the privateversus-public medium issue’ (Kozinets, 2002). While in broad agreement with Kozinets (2002), Langer and Beckman (2005: 194) offer a more nuanced approach to the ethical considerations of netnography. They suggest that the existence of a password to enter a discussion or website suggests a ‘semi-private communication within the community’ requiring the researcher to apply the procedures outlined

‘Why I Love/Hate My Guidebook’: Perspectives from the Blogosphere

87

by Kozinets (2002). However, unrestricted online information which is freely available for persons accessing the internet is typically public information and consequently should be less bound by such processes. They contend that the tradition of content analysis in communication studies should not be ignored and replaced with a ‘qualitative quasiethnographic method’ alone, but that research questions should guide analysis of internet content in either quantitative or qualitative form (Langer & Beckman, 2006). Their view is shared by Blichfeldt and Marabese (2014) who present netnography as less about ethnography and more about content or discourse analysis which they describe as ‘staticword netnography’. The rights of research participants must always be respected, however, regardless of the availability of information in the case of sensitive topics as Langer and Beckman (2006) found in their exploration of the use of cosmetic surgery. Static-word netnography raises the methodological issue of choice of online accounts and the bias inherent in that choice. For example, selection on the richness or ‘thickness’ of text may focus attention on those who write more extensive or descriptive narrative. We adopt a content analysis approach, which draws from the total contributions on a theme and can act to counter this form of bias (Blichfeldt & Marabese, 2014; Langer & Beckman, 2005). Following the approach of Schaad (2008) and Mkono (2012), a convenience sample of blogs was undertaken using keyword searches of ‘blogs’ combined with ‘guidebook/s’, ‘travel guides’, ‘love guidebooks’ and ‘hate guidebooks’. A random sample was not devised owing to the impossibility of determining an accurate number of blogs addressing the topic. Blogs were selected which had the appearance of offering a personal perspective on the theme, even those on corporate sites such as guidebook company forums. Corporate blogs with an identifiable business objective and those reviewing specific guidebooks were excluded. In adopting this approach, we have therefore followed ethical considerations appropriate to ‘the pragmatic position towards covert research’ as described by Langer and Beckman (2006: 197) and elsewhere (Eysenbach & Till, 2001; Rager et al., 2013). At no time were semi-private blogs requiring formal membership accessed and permission to incorporate material from the publicly available blogs used in our analysis was not sought. Online pseudonyms used by bloggers have been cited wherever quotations have been used in discussion. The selection method ensured that the majority of accessed blogs were posted recently as these appear readily in keyword searches. A total of 25 blogs were compiled of which 18 were posted in 2012, one in 2007, 2009

88

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

and 2011, respectively, and four in 2010. These blogs were then scanned to ensure they met the criteria of a personal blog discussing guidebooks and addressing issues of usage, the blogger’s relationship or observed relationship of others with guidebooks, or the guidebook’s influence on travel patterns, activities and experience. Posts provided by 204 individuals were compiled and then analysed using a thematic content analysis approach. Themes were created heuristically since no reliable prerequisite study on which to base this analysis could be identified, and a frequency analysis was made of the number of bloggers who discussed each theme. A total of 419 comments divided into 10 broad themes were elicited from the blog analysis. Of these, seven themes related to bloggers’ conceptualisation and value judgements regarding guidebooks are addressed in this chapter and are listed in Table 6.1. The remaining three themes comprising guidebook usage, business providers’ experience with guidebooks and electronic information and guidebooks are addressed in Chapters 7, 9 and 11, respectively, of this book. These themes are identified in Table 6.1 as ‘other’. In the second stage of analysis, these broad themes were examined to compile a more nuanced understanding of user attitudes to their guidebooks and a number of sub-themes emerged. Blogs have been noted as enabling the expression of intense ranges of emotion (Morgan & Table 6.1 Guidebook blog analysis of thematic categories, and number and percentage of blog comments addressing each theme in relation to the total number of comments (n = 419) Theme 1. Guidebooks are reliable/unreliable

No. blog comments and % of comments 68 (16%)

2. Guidebook publishers or authors express political agendas

5 (1%)

3. Guidebooks lack relevance, are opinionated or don’t meet preconceived values 4. Guidebooks influence personal relationships

26 (5%)

5. Guidebooks constrain creativity/freedom/experience

50 (12%)

6. Guidebooks affect tourist confidence while travelling

13 (3%)

7. Users express a brand preference or preference for specialty guidebooks 8. Other (not addressed in this chapter)

21 (5%) 235 (56%)

Total

419

5 (1%)

‘Why I Love/Hate My Guidebook’: Perspectives from the Blogosphere

89

Watson, 2009). A blog analysis of this sort is akin to the study of an unmediated focus group. It has the potential to tease out the opinions of people interacting with one another as they might in a normal social setting. The semiotic analysis undertaken here thus renders a more reliable sense of the importance of an issue to individual bloggers than a simple frequency analysis enumerating the extent to which a theme was mentioned.

Reliability of Guidebooks Theme 1 addressing the issue of factual accuracy and the reliability of guidebook content was the most frequently mentioned issue among bloggers (16%). The proportion of those in this theme complaining about the inaccuracy of guidebooks comprised 63% (n = 43) compared with 37% (n = 25) who described them as a reliable information source. As evidenced in our study on guidebooks in the print media (Peel et al., 2012), blogger commentary on guidebook reliability was particularly vocal regarding the accuracy of both the vade mecum and belles lettres components of guidebooks. In the following sections, these themes are addressed individually.

Vade mecum reliability Unreliability of routine advice in guidebooks such as prices, geographic locations, visa requirements and luggage storage attracted considerable although not equally negative attention among bloggers. Costs and prices reported in guidebooks were frequently mentioned although generally understood as inevitable annoyances in the use of guidebooks as Taramorourke described pragmatically: The thing is most backpackers are aware of the surprise costs and come across them daily… All three of my European guidebooks were off with their prices – some by just a little, some by a lot. I always had to budget an extra 10 Euros a day for these hidden costs – most travellers do. Writing on outdated information on visa requirements during travel, Sarah expressed dismay at the authority of the Lonely Planet guidebook on the subject among some of her clients: As a travel agent I find it funny when advising passengers they need a visa for a particular country and they turn around and say ‘but the

90

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

Lonely Planet says I don’t need one.’ Okay, get to the border and see what happens!! Poor geographic positioning advice and map quality attracted similarly negative comments from bloggers: ‘I am travelling through South America [sic] and have found maps and border crossings incorrect. Two of the most crucial things’. Daniel McIsaac wrote of his deep disappointment in the poor quality of directions in his Lonely Planet: My guidebook and I are on the outs. So far, in my current location of Esteli, Nicaragua, it has provided me with bad directions to a hostel, two restaurants, a cigar factory, a guitar maker, and a bar. I’d be truly surprised if the author has been to this city at all. Perceived causes of unreliability comprised price gouging among travel businesses, reduced quality of accommodation or restaurant service as a result of being featured in the guide, and inaccurate or unreliable historical or cultural or factual information. The accusation that guidebook authors had limited lived experience in the destination which caused errors to be made in what should be factual information was vehemently expressed by Taramorourke: The very first paragraph in my new guide book talks about how most train stations have lockers (which is true). They explain how convenient this is since night trains arrive early in the morning and you can’t check into your hostel till 5pm. The guide book talks about how you can lock up your bags, go sightseeing, come back to get your bag and then check into your hostel. They were wrong though. Every single hostel will let you drop off your bags at ANY time of the day. …I wonder how a travel book could be so wrong about that? Were they actually backpacking? I think a European travel book needs to be written by a group of real travellers, who actually backpacked the continent. The most commonly cited reason for guidebook inaccuracies was the lag-time in publishing mentioned by a total of 17 bloggers. For Theseraphicrealm, lag-time inaccuracies were the chief cause of dislike in the blogger’s self-described ‘love–hate relationship’ with guidebooks: The inherent problem with a guidebook is that the very moment its [sic] published, its [sic] already outdated. The store that was here

‘Why I Love/Hate My Guidebook’: Perspectives from the Blogosphere

91

yesterday may be gone tomorrow. The excellent chef might move on and take the secret recipes she used at the listed restaurant with her. The awesome tour deal is no longer so awesome. Big Al acerbically summed up the impact of lag times on guidebook reliability: Let’s get something straight. It takes about 18 months minimum to prepare a guidebook and get it printed and distributed, and probably another couple of months or so before it is actually used. By that times [sic] it becomes about as useful as an Iraqi Guide to Weapons of Mass Destruction. Jake was of a similar mind: Take LP for China for example. The last edition which came out in 2002 I think was probably written in about 2000 – to be published and released by 2002. So, here we had people trying to navigate a country where roads, buildings, and all other infrastructure changes on a monthly basis, with a book that was 4 years out of date. This made a lot of the book useless. A further 12 bloggers attributed unreliability to what they termed ‘the LP (Lonely Planet) effect’. The ‘LP effect’ was said to occur when businesses mentioned in a guidebook no longer had to provide good service at low prices since they would be guaranteed a continuing customer base of travellers thoughtlessly following the guidebook’s recommendations. Ryan Gargiulo expressed the belief that the LP effect was so pervasive as to render the guidebook utterly unreliable as an information source for accommodation: Most hostels/guesthouses that are in LP no longer have to put in the effort to keep their places clean, put new sheets on the bed etc. Why? Because they have LP backing them and telling people to come to ‘X’ Hotel. Whatever you do, NEVER trust LP for accommodations. Although Ryan Gargiulo begins with the relatively benign judgement that most (but not all) accommodation houses take advantage of the LP effect, the capitalisation of the word, NEVER, is an emphatic statement of the perceived pervasiveness of the LP effect at tourist destinations. Another blogger responded in agreement:

92

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

Ha Ha you’re SO right about the accommodations, just because they can put a sign up in front of their door saying ‘recommended by Lonely Planet’, they don’t need to worry about the service anymore. Amusement gave way to sarcasm expressed in the following post by theseraphicrealm: Oooooh! Look! Our restaurant’s been listed in Lonely Planet! Let’s raise our prices! The derisive tone of the post is telling. Although these bloggers did not accuse Lonely Planet of complicity in price gouging, it was assumed that their popularising of businesses and destinations provides the opportunity for price gouging. Blame was therefore heaped on the publishing house as the messenger.

Belles lettres reliability A total of 3% (n = 5) of the total number of posts explicitly addressed the issue of guidebook accuracy within the context of their descriptive belles lettres style content. All of these responded negatively, suggesting that the descriptions contained in guidebooks created a false impression of a destination or site which failed to live up to visitor expectations. This might be because the destination or site had been overhyped by the guide or because the author’s language evoked a different image in the mind of the user. The following account by theseraphicrealm of the discovery of a church in Zacatecas, Mexico, which was not noted in their guidebook offers a case in point: I wanted to know what the name of the church was and where I was on the map so I flipped open my guidebook. I found my location on the map alright, but there was absolutely no information at all on the church. Nothing. Not even a small dot on the map. I was shocked! The apparent glibness of a Lonely Planet description of the French town, Cagnes-Sur-Mer, was likewise deemed offensive to Lesley Stern who complained that: According to Lonely Planet, with the exception of Renoir’s house/ museum, Cagnes-sur-Mer is ‘nothing to write home about’. This is exactly why I hate travel guides – If a tourist went by Lonely Planet

‘Why I Love/Hate My Guidebook’: Perspectives from the Blogosphere

93

they’d go to the Renoir Museum, find that it’s closed for renovations head off to St. Paul de Vence, or Monaco or whatever and miss the perfectly lovely, untouristed old village on the hill. Guidebooks are deemed reliable by these bloggers when they reproduce users’ interpretations of ‘must-see’ sites and strong reactions occur when they fail to do so. Several blogs displayed an author ’s belief that descriptions of unique events and sights in the text should routinely be available for their consumption at the time of their visit. Dave Seminara complained of his Lonely Planet guidebook account of cafes in the Mexican village he was visiting as ‘frequented by blackshirted moustachioed men, the older ones often wearing traditional dress’, descriptions which did not tally with the blogger ’s experience. Subsequent conversation threads with other bloggers, including the guidebook author, revealed that the published account described the village during a festival rather than on a typical day and therefore should not be consistently expected. Alleged errors in the reporting of culture and history in guidebooks also elicited passionate commentary. This suggests that some guidebook users perceive themselves in dialogue with the guidebook author through their text, allowing for a one-sided exchange online. Such were the supposed contextual inaccuracies in a Rick Steves’ guidebook to Spain according to Aduchamp1: He calls Velazquez the photojournalist of the court. This shows abject ignorance of how important and influential Velazquez is to western art. He portrays the dress of pilgrims who have completed the Camino de Santiago in clownish and stereotypical terms. If someone is writing a trip report or is a casual visitor to Spain these are minor grievances but he is supposed to be a professional travel writer.

‘Big picture stuff’ and guidebook reliability Approximately one third of those who wrote about issues of accuracy offered qualified praise for guidebooks they had used. For these bloggers, guidebooks were valued for what was termed ‘the big picture stuff’, the kind of canny ‘insider’ style advice which crossed the boundaries between vade mecum and belles lettres content. The reliability of transport advice in Lonely Planet guidebooks was praised by Ryan Gargiulo: ‘What LP can be helpful with is transportation advice. It’s usually spot on and they usually provide great information on how to get from one place to

94

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

the next via different borders’. Guidebooks were also valued for enabling tourists to avoid being cheated while travelling, according to The Pres: I believe guides like the Lonely Planet are indispensable – unless you want to get ripped off by $50 on every second cab ride from the station to Turtle Lake in Hanoi or get kidnapped for a day and forced to eat lunch at the bus drivers [sic] restaurant on your way to Saklikent Gorge in Turkey. The guidebook as a replacement for a human guide dispensing the necessary wisdom about ‘how’ to travel was asserted by other bloggers as a strength of the guidebook. This was particularly valued when the guidebook publisher was perceived as offering independent advice. Stuart (2) for whom the guidebook provided a reliable insight into an unstated travel culture rather than the provision of practical information articulated this perspective: [F]or those looking for something more out of a trip than cheap meals and WiFi’d bedrooms, a guidebook remains the preeminent starting point to the learning process of travel. Accuracy was seen to be enhanced when the credentials of guidebook authors as independent but identifiable ‘travellers’ themselves were accepted. These qualities in Lonely Planet authors add validity to their publications according to Empress Jo: LP books are written by travelers…who also happen to have the knack of writing a good yarn. They don’t inform places who they are or when they’re coming, so their reviews are based on as if they’re really ordinary guests staying or eating there – which they are. They just happen to write about it afterwards and get paid for it, lucky bastards.

Guidebooks and Politics A small number of comments on what bloggers described as biased or politicised accounts of events or interpretations of place by guidebook authors and publishers (1%) comprised theme 2. Like Theme 1, these accounts bear similarities with concerns over inaccuracy identified in Theme 1 while focusing less on factual errors and more on the perceived subjectivities of guidebook authors and publishers. All but one of the blogger comments expressed disapproval of perceptible political bias in guidebooks. Reflecting on the published opinion of a journalist that guidebooks frame

‘Why I Love/Hate My Guidebook’: Perspectives from the Blogosphere

95

social and economic stagnation as ‘authenticity’, Johnathan Pearce argued that this leads to ‘a hatred of any human activity’: The problem comes when that crosses over into advocating force to preserve those unspoilt lands for ‘me’ rather than allowing others to also increase their wealth. Truly socialism is anti-social at root. In agreement, GerryN cynically highlighted the exploitation of impoverished destinations for tourism purposes as an agenda of guidebook publishers: ‘Unspoiled’…seems to mean filth, misery, disease, ignorance and early death. But as it’s mostly smallish brown people with no money, who cares? After all they’re quite fun to photograph and their crafts are quaint. The extent of bias differed among guidebook publishers according to these bloggers. Lonely Planet guides were inaccurate and politically motivated according to RBL; ‘their little potted histories are often wildly biased and wrong as well’. Such is the calculated commercial agenda of guidebook publishers, according to another user, that they write only what will prevent them from being banned in the countries they describe. Those possessing a strong social or political value set identify particular ideological leanings in the text of guidebooks coloured by their own ideals. For some, this renders the guidebook biased and inaccurate. For the apparently less politically motivated, any bias is seen to be unimportant or pragmatic in nature. Flat Eric observed that guidebooks had to be written in a manner that would not challenge authority in the destination country for fear of recrimination: But as a practical matter, travel guides are bound to be rather mealymouthed about authoritarianism and atrocities, aren’t they? I mean, you are supposed to take these books with you to the countries they’re writing about.

Guidebook Relevance and ‘Real Travellers’ The relevance of guidebooks to those consumers that publishers were understood to be targeting was reflected in the commentary coded as Theme 3 ‘Guidebooks lack relevance, are opinionated or don’t meet preconceived values’ (5%). Negative opinion in this category claimed that guidebooks did not meet the aims of their specified users and that they contained irrelevant information or commentary. Observations about

96

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

guidebook authors being too young, too old or not ‘proper backpackers’ and therefore unqualified to be writing a guidebook were classified in this theme. The transformation of independent youth guidebooks, especially Lonely Planet, into more generic manuals for a broader audience was both annoying and confusing to these bloggers. As identified by Andrew, the shift to accommodate a broader audience of Lonely Planet readers risked their becoming too generic or attempting to be all things to all people: The thing that annoys me about LP (sic) is that it attempts to accommodate medium and expensive accommodation as well as backpacker. It tries to be too many things. Annhig remarked that Michelin guidebooks too had lost their specificity and had become too generic, in a follow-up post on this thread: I have a collection of some of the old ones before they decided to be all things to all men. I’ve bought a couple of the new style as well but they aren’t as good. The need for guidebooks to meet the demands of an increasingly segmented travel market was also evident in the following frustrated post from theseraphicrealm: I don’t drink. About a quarter of the book devoted to recommendations on where to spend money getting intoxicated is useless to me…I’m on a budget. I don’t care about the delightful interior and the friendly staff at the boutique hotel which costs ten times my daily budget. Guidebook irrelevance to their target market was blamed on authors who were described as out of touch, too old, too young or never having travelled to the area they were writing about. For older blogger, Tim Newman, Western youth-oriented guidebooks ‘are aimed at the age group of the writers, and in the case of a lot of them, that’s people barely out of their teens’: In Eindhoven recently I found myself directed by an online travel guide to a “must visit” party district where I was the oldest person by about 15 years. Including the doorman. Conversely, a younger user, Cambodge, complained that Lonely Planet authors were considerably older than their target market and that they were out of touch with the bulk of users:

‘Why I Love/Hate My Guidebook’: Perspectives from the Blogosphere

97

I stopped using Lonely Planets [sic] after meeting one of their writers in Vanuatu. She was like 100 years old and put sh*t [sic] on the place we were staying (which was clean but not the most flash place). The indignant exaggeration in this post underscores an expectation that guidebook authors must be within the age range of the targeted consumers of their guidebook. Otherwise, how would they determine what these consumers would value? The assumption that writers ought to be experienced backpackers themselves indicates the desire for a book designed especially for the specific user. Yet, backpacking was taken to imply not only an age group, mode of travel or accommodation choice but also a set of morally superior ideals. Sharing the travel style and therefore values of the ‘real’ traveller/backpacker was regarded as central to a common sense of reliability between guidebook author and consumer according to Taramorourke: Were they actually backpacking? I think a European travel book needs to be written by a group of real travellers who actually backpacked the continent.

Guidebooks Influencing Personal Interactions The impact of guidebooks on relationships addressed in Theme 4 comprised commentary on their effect on relationships among travel companions. While proportionately small (1%), this category suggests how the use of guidebooks can elicit tension among those who travel together and among groups of apparently like-minded travellers. Two bloggers described the impact of guidebook use during travel on their relationship with a significant other. Tali Landsman described how her husband’s preponderance for planning meant that he over relied on the guidebook carried with them on each trip and that her desire not to plan caused frequent arguments while travelling. For Taramorourke, the discord was apparently confined to the pre-trip planning phase. Tension arose over whether there was a need to have an up-to-date guidebook for their repeat backpacker-style trip to Europe or no guidebook at all: To save money I suggested buying a used one but Andrew felt it would be too out of date…The thing is, even a 3 year old guide book would have been enough, at least for the trip we were doing (I wouldn’t have told Andrew that though, not after he bought a brand new one)…

98

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

Basically what I’m saying is, Andrew and I didn’t need a new guide book. If we were first time travaller’s [sic] then an updated one would have been better, but we have both backpacked Europe before and know what to expect. Taramorourke’s views are especially interesting in that she suggests less need for the vade mecum elements of a guidebook requiring constant updating but a continuous need for the belles lettres normative element of a guidebook which is significantly less changed between editions. For Taramorourke, her travel experience determined the benefit of paying for a recently updated guidebook.

Guidebooks and Travel Experience The role of the guidebook in either hindering or expanding a traveller’s freedom of experience was specifically addressed in Theme 5 (12%). Positive commentary suggesting that guidebooks free travellers to become more creative or adventurous accounted for 18% (n = 9) of this theme while 82% (n = 41) described the role of the guidebook in travel negatively. Positive commentary in this theme emphasised guidebooks as enabling independent travel and facilitating the saving of time and money. Theseraphicrealm encouraged those debating the status associations among some tourists of carrying a guidebook to reject social constraints for the greater benefit of travelling: You might be tightly constrained time or budget wise and want to be able to enjoy independent travel but not have to stress over planning and research. A guidebook helps alleviate that stress. You can follow the recommendations and still have a good time! YES – there will be people who sneer mockingly, ‘Oh you’re one of those people who travels according to a guidebook’. Good for them, it’s YOUR holiday, not theirs. The most significant themes in negative commentary focused on the guidebook’s apparent constraining influence on travel experience. Planning and the use of itineraries were disparaged as providing preconceptions about the experience which prevent tourists from either enjoying the moment or discovering the destination for themselves. Chamborres was adamant about these reasons for disliking the guidebook: Perhaps it’s our desire to travel the unbeaten path that makes us hate guidebooks, or maybe it’s that we don’t want to see all the same faces

‘Why I Love/Hate My Guidebook’: Perspectives from the Blogosphere

99

in every city as we make our way around the world. Either way, it’s not hard to realize how empty guidebook’s suggestions are. Just pick up a copy of Lonely Planet for your country, flip through to the section on your hometown and read it. You’ll notice how much they’ve left out. Underpinning such comments is a strong emphasis on ‘true’ travel experience. This is constructed as getting lost or wandering in a destination and serendipitous experiences all of which bloggers believed encompassed the real value of travel. Ben Groundwater was scathing of both the guidebook and its user for these apparent failings: Apart from eating crap food, Mr Guidebook’s major problem is that he’s never going to have any of the experiences that make travel great. While his nose is buried in his map as he navigates the pavements, life is being lived around him. Jeremy B’s appraisal was less scathing but emphasised that guidebooks needed to be kept ‘in their place’ during the travel process: I think guidebooks are awesome to get acquainted with the city you are visiting. However, if you never take your head out of the book, smell the air, observe the people, and experience the culture, then at the end of your trip you can check items off a list but you didn’t really accomplish anything. Here the guidebook is viewed as helpful as an introduction to place but could not assist with what several bloggers seemed to define as the real ‘work’ of travel in assisting the progression towards self-fulfilment. These comments reflect the innate tension felt by some bloggers between missing a more fulfilling travel experience through over-reliance on the guidebook and trusting that preparation to enhance the travel experience. Pre-trip preparation by reading a guidebook presented risk. While preparing for a destination meant ‘making the most of it’, Mikeachim feared that following a ‘script inside your head’ could be perceived as a failure to find the purported truth at the heart of the travel experience: But what if ‘preparing’ is really another word for ‘programming’? One way to improve your chances of having a particular experience is to visualize it beforehand. That’s what pre-reading is meant to do – it focusses you on particular things. Problem is, if you’re (loosely) following a script inside your head, or from a guidebook in your

100

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

hands, you’re probably less likely to see the things that fall outside that script. And so it could be that you’re less open to what is actually there right now. Putting aside these anxieties Mikeachim advocated freedom from the guidebook and any other prescriptive devices impeding self-discovery: ...don’t be afraid of putting your guide book down, folding up your map, turning your smartphone off and ensuring you have absolutely no prompts whatsoever. It’s important. It’s how you feel you’re truly somewhere Foreign and, from your point of view, Unexplored. It’s part of why you travel – to struggle to understand, to experience. Mikeachim’s comment received general support from other bloggers who described their own attempts to ‘get lost’ in a travel destination and serendipitous experiences which they owed to discarding the guidebook. Katja responded that ‘I don’t plan at all. I just rock up and see what happens. Mayhem, usually. But it’s fun’.

Travel with Confidence Constructions of guidebooks as either a restricting or empowering force in travel was also allied to their capacity to empower or disempower the user as specifically identified in Theme 6 (3%). Bloggers with a favourable view of the guidebook commonly described it as providing a ‘safety net’ with seven individual bloggers expressing their greater confidence in travelling with a guidebook although they might never consult it on the journey. Mental and Internal claimed of guidebooks ‘they’re comforting and it makes me feel slightly safer with one in my hand, but I never really read them’. The sense of personal safety attained through the guidebook was articulated by two female bloggers. For Lily, authorial guidance regarding safer routes through a destination was a valuable commodity for women travelling alone: As a solo female backpacker, guide books have often been a lifeline for me; notifying you of the dodgy parts of town; which bed and breakfasts aren’t run by former convicted rapists; how to get from the bus station to your accommodation at 11pm without getting lost, raped, mugged and murdered in the back streets.

‘Why I Love/Hate My Guidebook’: Perspectives from the Blogosphere

101

Lily also draws attention to different attitudes towards the guidebook between men and women according to divergent needs for safety while travelling: On the road, I notice that most of the people with a snobbish antiguidebook ethos are men, who, let’s face it, have far less to fear when wandering around unfamiliar deserted back streets in the dead of night in a foreign country. The guidebook standing in loco parentis for naïve or otherwise vulnerable travellers was likewise articulated in the following post by ms traveller who aimed to ‘stand up’ for guidebooks: i [sic] reckon it’s easy to knock the advice given by those who went before you, but the one time i [sic] landed in a country without a guidebook (and before the internet was as popular as it is) – was in Belize, 1995. i [sic] was 20 years old and thought i [sic] was above guidebooks. ha [sic] what did i [sic] know? needless [sic] to say the trip was one disaster after another. i [sic] had no money and my ATM card didn’t work. a [sic] local walked me to a guesthouse which ended up being on the dodgy street of belize [sic] city. i [sic] couldn’t get out to the islands – no cash – and had to rely on our guesthouse proprietor for everything. taxis [sic] and food were brought on tick til i [sic] was wired some money from home. and [sic] that phone call cost me a small fortune – reverse charges via the US to Oz. the [sic] scene outside the guesthouse at night was reminiscent of michael jacksons [sic] thriller videoclip with zombified drug addicts everywhere. the [sic] fact that i [sic] wasn’t raped or killed was a miracle. While ms traveller spoke of the value of guidebook advice, she did not discount the potential for new media to provide similar advice. What she valued was the shared experiences of those who had been to the destination before and understood the hidden cultural subtleties of the destination. These, she had learned, were reliably available in the form of a printed guidebook. Yet valuing the guidebook as a safety net does not always translate into actual intensity of use, a theme explored more fully in Chapter 7. As MR describes: Although i [sic] don’t use it for much more than maps and rough travel prices, i [sic] find my LP to be a bit of a safety blanket. I lost my SEAsia

102

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

[sic] book somewhere between Thailand and Laos and upon arrival in Laos felt so naked without it. A few days later managed to pick up another for cheap but didn’t look at it for a week.

Brand Loyalty Theme 7 identified 5% of the commentary which expressed a preference for specific guidebook brands or specialty guidebooks. Not all bloggers articulated reasons for liking or disliking particular brands and some listed more than one favourite. Two bloggers stated that different guidebook publications were better suited to different regions and that no one guidebook was universally superior. Lonely Planet was a preferred brand according to six posts, followed in order of frequency of mention by Rough Guides (4), Rick Steves (2) and Time Out (2). Fodor’s, In your pocket, Moon, Frommer’s, D.K. and Insight were stated as preferred in one post each. Overall, the guidebook brand most frequently discussed by name in these forums is Lonely Planet or ‘LP’ as it is commonly cited. It can be assumed that much of the discussions of guidebooks in blogs and forums in such youth-oriented publications would feature Lonely Planet given the iconic nature of this brand for the market. Those who valued Lonely Planet publications praised the quality of their maps, overall format and frequent updates. Ryan felt that such vade mecum content was the one reason for choosing Lonely Planet: When it comes to transportation tips, routes from country to country, translations, etc this is where LP can be very handy. Otherwise you can call me an LP and guide book hater. Meg’s preference for Lonely Planet, however, was based on what she identified as excellent belles lettres content. She enjoyed reading stories and relevant information aloud to her companions as they travelled; ‘The bits I love are all the snippets of history and stories littered through the LP’. Stuart (2) gave different preference to guidebook brands for each section of a trip according to what he perceived as their strength: If I was on a more free-wheeling trip to somewhere I wasn’t already familiar with, I’d grab a Rough Guide for the intro section and an LP for the listings, sure they’ll be a bit out of date, but really, is that that massive an issue?

‘Why I Love/Hate My Guidebook’: Perspectives from the Blogosphere

103

Pegontheroad also identified preferences for particular guidebook brands at different stages of the trip: I use Fodors and Frommers for planning and Rick Steves, whose books are smaller, for actual travel-as long as it has all the destinations I want. On my last trip to Spain, I tore out pages from an old Frommers. Rough Guides was preferred by other bloggers, arguing that it contained better historical and cultural information than competitors’ guides, was less ‘opinionated’ and offered more ‘general’ information. Little old lady expressed strong endorsement of Rough Guides, stating that any difficulties they found in getting used to their layout was because people were too used to that of Lonely Planet: ‘scratch out your LP programming and start again’. Rick Steves’ guides were appreciated not only for having up-to-date phone numbers but also for the quality of its belles lettres content and inclusivity of diverse opinions. Cowboy 1968 claimed to like ‘the little things in his [Rick Steves] articles, like the one on Barcelona’s Columbus column…[blogger ’s dots] with the famous explorer pointing toward the sea which Rick says will show you the way to the New World/ America’. Only three brands attracted statements of specific dislike from bloggers; Lonely Planet (6), Rough Guides (2) and Rick Steves (1). For Michael Jennings, Rough Guides had a (presumably conservative or elitist) ‘Ivy League’ feel to them despite being British in origin while the Lonely Planet was steeped in ‘leftist Australian student politics’ and therefore to be avoided. Heidi found Lonely Planet particularly ‘guilty’ of misrepresenting the reality of destinations which she attributed to marketing strategy: I think they are trying to recreate their sort of “trendy” label that got lost in the shuffle as they migrated from small, backpacker guidebook company to a huge conglomerate. And don’t get me wrong, I use them, but I think they are trying to prove that they are edgy enough to have discovered places that no one else has. The trouble is, often, there is a reason that no one else has bothered to discover these places! Rough Guides was accused of lacking updating and extended research and Rick Steves attracted accusations of inaccurate historical information. Oz in Ireland indicated their intention to avoid purchasing Rough Guides in the future:

104

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

...mainly because I saw the updates for the Sarajevo [sic] section of their books in action. A pair of green (i.e. young, not more than 17) travellers. All they did was bail up a woman in the tourist information office for 2 hours. they [sic] didn’t stay in any of the accommodation in the city, didn’t visit any attractions, didn’t even let other visitors access the information officer… However, brand preference holds specific meaning for these bloggers beyond the factual reliability of one guidebook over another. Dislike of Lonely Planet extended beyond perceived inaccuracies to their popularity among inexperienced backpackers and their role in the creation of ‘the LP effect’. Meta: I hate LP guidebooks with a passion!! I prefer using Time Out guidebooks (brought out by the same people that publishes Time Out magazines). It does the job of LP but it also does much much more!! Not only does it point out more chicer [sic] places to eat/stay/drink and shop, you also won’t be bumping into the LP crew. *shudders* No longer a universal signature of status among youth travellers, according to Meta the Lonely Planet guidebooks carried by ‘the LP crew’ herald the less worldly independent tourist to those who consider themselves more experienced. Conscious of such judgement from other travellers, jonjonjon made sure to avoid the humiliation of discovery: I had to pull out my LP in the net café to check my facts and am very embarrassed now as I sneak it back into my bag. Nothing worse than being seen with it. Flick reported tensions arising from the self-representation embodied in the possession of one guidebook over another: Travelling around Europe 13 years ago, fellow Aussie backpackers with Lonely Planet looked down on me for having Let’s Go. Who would have thought there was a hierarchy for backpackers!!

Loving and Hating the Guidebook This analysis offers insight into tourist attitudes towards the guidebook expressed by a blogger group. Such attitudes address both vade mecum and belle lettres constituents. In the following discussion, we

‘Why I Love/Hate My Guidebook’: Perspectives from the Blogosphere

105

highlight a number of additional findings which shed light on the place of the guidebook in contemporary tourism. In terms of vade mecum advice, issues of factual accuracy attracted the most significant commentary among the themes explored in this chapter. Criticism of the guidebook on the basis of factual inaccuracy blamed the inevitable research to publication delay, although as Jake described, the delay in publication combined with the speed of development in the destination could render a guidebook ‘useless’. Failure of vade mecum advice in guidebooks was also viewed as the responsibility of authors who were accused of offering unverified advice and of publishing houses seeking to provide correct but irrelevant information in an attempt to broaden their market. In this last contention, the idea of accuracy expanded to encompass information gauged to be correctly applicable to the perceived guidebook market. These assumptions engender the notion that guidebooks must be always current and exact in the information they provide despite the innate challenge of bringing guidebooks to market which makes this aim impossible. Bloggers also identified the significance of guidebooks which targeted a sub-segment of travellers and avoided generalised information which spoke to tourists with whom they did not identify. The desire for a guidebook offering factual advice relevant only to youth budget travellers remains intact. It is notable that these expectations for guidebooks to be correct and offer impartial perspectives, particularly when these are the stated motivations of guidebook companies such as Lonely Planet, were also strongly articulated among those writing for print media. As shown in our analysis, in 2008 three newspaper articles covered a newly published book by a previous writer of Lonely Planet claiming systemic deceptive behaviour among writers of guidebooks: ‘The Lonely Planet guidebook empire is reeling from claims by one of its authors that he plagiarised and made up big sections of his books and dealt drugs to make up for poor pay’ (Campbell, 2008: 4). Such anxiety surrounding both the accuracy of reporting in guidebooks and the biased nature of destination coverage raises questions regarding consumer expectations of the role of their guidebooks in the travel experience. It also attests to the strength of the narrative identifying guidebooks as a necessary source of independent and reliable information. Conversely, those who valued the guidebook for vade mecum purposes testify to trusting their routine information. Among this group, guidebook factual errors such as changes in price over time tended to be overlooked and treated as an inevitable consequence of the publication process.

106

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

Certainly, inaccuracies of this kind did not render the guidebook a useless resource for the tourist. Rather, guidebooks were viewed as facilitating freedom of experience. The positive positioning of the guidebook writer and of guidebooks as a genre among these bloggers reinforced a narrative of guidebooks as enabling independent travel. This enhancement of the liberating aspect of travel came not just from the provision of relevant and accurate practical information but from what possession of a guidebook can ‘allow’ the consumer. As Julia indicated, guidebooks liberate the user from the imposition of technology; ‘I love guidebooks! They allow you to unplug from your damned computer/iphone/tablet for a while’. Here, the guidebook contributes to the user’s escape from the everyday, a core travel motivating factor. For some, this generalised reliability of advice also prevented the user from being cheated or physically at risk. The commentary categorised in Theme 6, travel confidence, hints at a gender divide regarding the perceived value of the safety warnings contained in guidebooks. Certainly, only female bloggers identified with valuing the guidebook as a source of personal safety. Lily’s observation regarding males as more critical of guidebooks hints at the very least at a male travel discourse which demands rejection of the guidebook as a masculine demonstration of independence. Elsrud’s (2001) observation that backpacker narratives associated with risk and adventure are routinely constructed as masculine may be at play here. Further exploration is required to determine whether this discourse tallies with actual male use of guidebooks; however, it fits with a number of analyses of gender and independent travel. Those bloggers who dismissed inaccuracy of information as a reason to discard the guidebook were also likely to strongly value the belle lettres elements of the guidebook. Meg reflects this view in her description of most enjoying ‘the snippets of history and stories’ in her guidebook of choice. Taramorourke’s preference for a cheaper outdated guidebook over a new edition as the former retains the normative narrative information she seeks is likewise indicative. Interestingly, Taramorourke qualified this choice with the acknowledgement that new editions of guidebooks were only necessary for inexperienced travellers. This idea of the usefulness of a guidebook for novices was echoed by Stuart (2) for whom guidebooks served a purpose in educating the inexperienced traveller as a ‘preeminent starting point to the learning process of travel’. Consumer culture research explores how consumers develop social solidarity, creating ‘distinctive, self-selected, and sometimes transient cultural worlds through the pursuit of shared consumption interests’ (Arnould, 2006). What is clearly evident in this diverse commentary is

‘Why I Love/Hate My Guidebook’: Perspectives from the Blogosphere

107

that blogger critique of the guidebook extends beyond simple criticism over content. These consumers attribute complex sometimes contradictory values to their guidebooks representative of their own identities and assumed competency as travellers. As discussed in Chapter 3, the guidebook as a symbol of the fatuous tourist has long played a role in the tourist/ traveller binary described by McCabe (2005) and others, and the binary is clearly evident in the blogs analysed here. In the 1980s, the commercial establishment of youth-oriented brands Lonely Planet, Rough Guides and others, imbued the carriage of these particular guidebooks with a status among backpacker tourists that destabilised the routine ridicule of the guidebook and the guidebook carrier. These guidebooks have acted as an institutionalising force through which social and cultural codes and capital are transferred from one group of travellers to the next as observed decades ago among backpackers (Riley, 1988; Sørensen, 1999). Bloggers who valued guidebook use routinely identify with a notion of the idealised ‘traveller’ as represented by a particular kind of guidebook or guidebook author, an association which remains a tenet of guidebook preference. This analysis indicates that approval or rejection of guidebooks or a particular brand is part of a more complex system of status identification. This complexity is distilled in the online commentary of Flick who wondered about ‘a hierarchy of backpackers’ as evidenced by their guidebook preference. Flick identified that guidebooks are capable of challenging the notion of a community of like-minded, egalitarian travellers promoted by Lonely Planet and others. The analysis here indicates how this fictional egalitarianism is riven with status signifiers derived not just from the simple possession of a guidebook but from the particular brand in evidence. Thus, while some condemn the ‘LP crowd’ to tourist-like mindlessness, they too are open to critique by other bloggers as holding an illusory sense of self-importance. It may be that this double critique played out in emotional displays in blog commentary is only possible within a community that displays particularly heavy use of the guidebook. It is only perhaps with intense use that the gap between guidebook ‘promise’ and actual user experience will be shown up in ways which elicit the kind of commentary found here. Guidebook users for whom status is not attached to the guidebook may express less extreme attitudes. It is also likely that guidebooks appealing to the most independent of tourists are also more prone to critique. Notably, both approval and criticism of belle lettres elements of the guidebook, such as perceived inaccuracies in describing the ambience of a destination or promoting one destination over another, generated especially impassioned language. Lesley Stern’s assertion that guidebooks destroyed

108

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

the experience of travel by avoiding the most interesting destinations is an illustration. For Lesley Stern, this framed ‘exactly why I hate guidebooks’. Yet, while guidebooks elicited passions described as ‘love’ and ‘hate’, the results here do not indicate an overall consistency of views. Bloggers such as Ryan Gargiulo, who approved of Lonely Planet’s advice on transportation but was scornful of much else in the text, indicates that guidebooks are evaluated according to a complex range of perceived needs. This was expressed particularly in the commentary on brand preference such as Meta’s who attested to hating Lonely Planet guidebooks ‘with a passion’ but only in counterpoint to her preference for Time Out. Complexity of need is also evident in the commentary of those who used several guidebooks while travelling because particular brands suited that requirement. This was illustrated by Stuart (2) who described using ‘a Rough Guide for the intro section and an LP for the listings’. The issue of how guidebooks and particular guidebook brands are used before, during and after tourism will receive more focus in the next chapter. Also of note is that blogger analysis clearly indicates the dominance of Lonely Planet in these bloggers’ thinking about the guidebook. This publication is something of a metonym for the guidebook genre although we acknowledge this might be solely reflective of the sub-culture of the blogger group from which comments were drawn. It is a view which may not be expressed among other guidebook user groups dependent on age, culture and type of travel arrangements. This analysis has also relied on blogs posted in the English language. While English is widely spoken and can be regarded as something of an international lingua franca, the application of this study’s findings to a non-English-speaking cohort might prove unreliable. Additionally, it is possible that those who use guidebooks but who do not interact with blogs might not display the same sets of values and relationships as the bloggers discussed here. Would elderly travellers on a packaged tour who field a guidebook in the destination share this view of the primacy of Lonely Planet as the very definition of a guidebook? Perhaps it is unlikely. Wong and Liu (2011: 626) observed that ‘the more freedom the tourist exercises over the trip, the more likely they are to demand that guidebooks satisfy their itinerary improvement needs’. The culture of alternative travel to which many of these bloggers subscribe suggests they imbue the guidebook aimed at their market, and Lonely Planet in particular, in ways which cannot be generalised. As a concluding observation, it is notable that across a spectrum from adulation to loathing, the often emotional engagement of these bloggers indicates that the guidebook as an artefact of contemporary tourism is far

‘Why I Love/Hate My Guidebook’: Perspectives from the Blogosphere

109

from irrelevant. Instead, for this online community, the guidebook remains a dynamic, even contentious, influence on their travel, capable of eliciting considerable emotion which they express through their writings.

Conclusion As revealed in this analysis, the self-constructed views on guidebooks of one group of consumers demonstrate a notable breadth and dynamism. There is a diversity of attitudes among this consumer group as to the value or otherwise of guidebooks, reasons for their failures and strengths and their preferences for one brand over another. Guidebooks have been shown as central to the accrual of traveller status among this group of tourists, a role which emerged in the 1970s and is far from extinguished in the digital age. We continue exploring this theme of the guidebook and Western anxieties around tourist status in the next chapter when we turn to the important theme of guidebook use.

7 Slaves to the Guidebook? Exploring Guidebook Usage Hi. My name is Katie and I’m a guidebook junkie. ‘Katie going global’, travel blog, 2010

Introduction In Chapter 6, we explored attitudes towards the guidebook expressed online by a sample of bloggers. Their perspectives might be described metaphorically as ‘when the guidebook is in the tourist’s bag’. Here, our focus shifts to consumer use of guidebooks or, ‘when the tourist takes the guidebook out of the bag’. Once again, we turn to evidence provided by those who blog about their use of guidebooks in addition to other tourists observed and interviewed in the field. Katie going global, a self-declared ‘guidebook junkie’ offers a useful starting point. Katie going global routinely follows a sequence of stages when planning a trip, beginning with the purchase of several guidebook brands ‘as a way of getting a variety of opinions’: I love visiting places of historical significance or with a good story behind them and I want to get a feel for what the ‘must see’ places are. Then I go through city by city, skimming the descriptions of what to see and highlighting the things that jump out to me the most. I follow that by making a list of specific sites to visit or activities to do in each city. This allows me to narrow down which cities I want to visit. On a two-week trip (my max as long as I am gainfully employed), I typically aim for 2-3 cities. Next, I go back and read about my selected cities in-depth, taking notes on the websites recommended for hotels. This description suggests an intensity of use with the consumer immersed in the structure and detail of guidebooks, augmenting the general information on history and attractions with web-sourced material. Katie going global skims, lists, takes notes and reads in depth long before actual travel has begun. This description contrasts with routine assumptions 110

Slaves to the Guidebook? Exploring Guidebook Usage

111

about the tourist slavishly in the field following a guidebook like a script, as observed in the popular media (Peel et al., 2012). As we saw in Chapter 3, common interpretations of guidebook usage, and some scholarly theorists, suggest consumer judgement to be barely in evidence in the face of authorial advice. What then can be understood about the actual use of guidebooks from consumers such as Katie going global? To date, empirical evidence on guidebook usage is scattered across a number of areas. Brown (2007) has deplored the lack of detailed knowledge about ‘actual tourists’ behaviour’ despite scholarly acknowledgement of the importance of understanding tourism as practice. In investigating how guidebooks influence consumer understanding of Australian Aboriginal culture, Young (2009: 157) noted how the ‘question of reader response – that is, how travelers use, engage with and negotiate these texts – is overwhelmingly left unanswered’. This chapter therefore aims to generate fresh thinking about guidebook use by consumers both in the field and when at home. There are six parts to the discussion. The first examines perspectives on guidebook usage in the literature and is followed in the second section by a profiling of relevant data drawn from the study of blogs introduced in Chapter 6. The third, fourth and fifth sections of the chapter explore the data in the context of other empirical findings on guidebook usage from the literature. The concluding section draws together key findings in the chapter with a challenge to routine assumptions concerning guidebook usage.

Guidebook Usage: Perspectives in the Literature The body of empirical research addressing aspects of guidebook usage reflect several different approaches and aims (Brown, 2007; Fodness & Murray, 1999; Jack & Phipps, 2005; McGregor, 2000; Nishimura et al., 2006a; Osti et al., 2009; Therkelsen & Sørensen, 2005; Tsang et al., 2011; Wong & Liu, 2011; Young, 2009; Zillinger, 2005). Key areas addressed in the literature include guidebooks used in tandem with other sources, temporal aspects of usage, kinds of tourists that use guidebooks, purpose of use and the impact of length of trip on guidebook usage. There is significant less focus on actual guidebook practice. The following discussion will address relevant findings on each of these areas in turn. Guidebooks used in concert with other resources have been investigated by a number of studies with particular focus on advice provided by friends and relatives, professional travel agents and online sources (Beritelli et al., 2007; Cai et al., 2004; Ho et al., 2012; Hyde, 2009; Vogt & Fesenmaier, 1998). Ho et al. (2012) noted the paucity of empirical analysis on how tourists

112

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

use multiple information sources, particularly combinations of online and offline materials. Hyde (2009) and Beritelli et al. (2007) analysed how tourists combine different kinds of information, specifically internet resources and guidebooks, finding that the internet supplements traditional sources of information rather than replaces them. Guidebooks are understood as items to be used by tourists when in the destination, but there is considerable evidence of their use both before and after a trip is completed. Drawing from a large population of Japanese tourists on package or semi-package tours, however, Nishimura et al. (2006a) found that guidebooks had a decisive impact on the choices of travelling Japanese during all phases of their trip including before travel. Wong and Liu (2011) in their study of Hong Kong outbound tourists found a similarly substantial use of guidebooks pre-trip chiefly for functional purposes such as trip planning and shopping, although this was less evident among the outbound Hong Kong tourists surveyed by Tsang et al. (2011). Aspects of the temporal element of guidebook usage were also noted among the Western tourists analysed by Jack and Phipps (2005), Brown (2007) and Zillinger (2011), the latter in an analysis of independently travelling German tourists to Sweden who used their guidebooks both before and during their travel. Jack and Phipps (2005: 77) likewise found substantial preparatory use of guidebooks among the more independent German travellers in Scotland as they anticipated and imagined the destination before visiting, a usage they usefully describe as ‘in the nontourist everyday’. Brown (2007) not only described this preparatory phase of engagement with the guidebook as ‘pre-visiting’, but also captured a rare understanding of guidebooks in the ‘post-visiting’ phase after travel is completed. Overall, there is considerably less research focus on the use of guidebooks in the post-travel phase among these populations. Tsang et al. (2011) found that, while Hong Kong outbound tourists were less likely to engage with destination information post-travel than pre-travel, guidebooks were more likely to be used than other sources. They describe guidebooks as ‘more like tools during travel’ becoming ‘relatively nonfunctional’ after a trip is completed (Tsang et al., 2011: 732), a possible reflection of the intensity of the vade mecum use of the guidebook for these tourists. Yet, Tsang et al. also importantly observed some post-trip use of guidebooks, which was chiefly for engaging further with information on the destination and for recollection. A number of studies have also drawn conclusions on the focus of our next chapter, guidebook user type (Nishimura et al., 2006a,

Slaves to the Guidebook? Exploring Guidebook Usage

113

2006b; Osti et al., 2008; Tsang et al., 2011). Some research has addressed demographic determinants of guidebook use such as gender and nationality. According to Nishimura et al. (2006a), women tourists on flexible package tours or independent tourists journeying to a destination for the first time were more likely to use a guidebook. Nishimura et al. (2006a) also question whether the popularity of travel guidebooks as evidenced among Japanese tourists to Australia would also be evident among other nationalities, as Japanese tourists indicate a preference for printed over online travel material. A similar question might be asked of Hong Kong tourists who, according to Tsang et al. (2011), perceive guidebooks as the most influential travel information source followed by friends or relatives and personal experience, despite the frequently publicised influence of the internet as an information source (see, e.g. Buhalis & Law, 2008; Heung, 2003; Mills & Law, 2004; Peterson & Merino, 2003). Culture of origin was determined as significant by Osti et al. (2008), who attempted to determine the extent to which culture influences the extent and type of information sought from guidebooks among Japanese, Korean, Chinese and North American travellers. Their findings suggest that tourists from both Western and Asian cultures rely equally on guidebooks although for different purposes and at different times. Evidence of usage indicated that persons of different nationalities attached a different value to particular types of information contained in guidebooks. For example, Japanese visitors are more interested in the cost of living in a destination while Chinese visitors are interested in reading about the healthiness of the destination. More analysis has addressed the role of guidebooks among tourists travelling on pre-packaged arrangements or independently. The findings indicated that guidebooks are used among both groups although for different needs and to a varied extent. Wong and Liu (2011) identified intense guidebook use among Hong Kong tourists both travelling on a ‘basic’ package and those wholly independent, asserting that ‘the more freedom the tourist exercises over the trip, the more likely they are to demand that guidebooks satisfy their itinerary improvement needs’ as they seek to reduce risk factors while travelling. Likewise, Nishimura et al. (2006a) in their survey of more than 1200 Japanese tourists, two thirds of whom were on packaged and partially-packaged tours, found that those who didn’t use guidebooks attributed their non-use to the inflexibility of their package or group itinerary. Guidebooks were used less intensively where pre-packaged travel arrangements fulfilled the need for practical assistance which a guidebook provides. These findings concur with research undertaken among Western independent tourists who are observed to undertake intense use of guidebooks (Brown, 2007; Hyde & Lawson,

114

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

2003; Jack & Phipps, 2005; McGregor, 2000; Riley, 1988; Sørensen, 2003; Therkelsen & Sørensen, 2005; Young, 2009; Zillinger, 2011). What is clear is that a package tour does not preclude the use of a guidebook although the frequency of use and the nature of the information sought may differ from a tourist travelling independently. Neither does independent travel guarantee that a guidebook is the chief source of information or indeed a source of information at all, something that will be further demonstrated in research presented later in this chapter. Another factor which is likely related to user type and which has been addressed occasionally by researchers is guidebook use in the context of length of trip. Research indicates the intuitively attractive finding that a tourist’s length of trip heralds greater dependence on the guidebook than otherwise. Both Zillinger (2007) and Wong and Liu (2011) analysing the use of guidebooks by German and Hong Kong tourists, respectively, identified that those who travelled longest were markedly more dependent on guidebooks than those travelling for a shorter time. In addition to the element of time spent away, distance, both perceived and real, from the main tourist-generating region has also been understood to stimulate greater use of guidebooks (Zillinger, 2007). Zillinger (2007) found that German tourists travelling to northern Scandinavia thought of their trip as a kind of expedition and would rely heavily on the guidebook. Here, the notion of distance is identified as both corporeal and cerebral relating to the tourist’s perception of remoteness from home inciting an anxious need for the guidebook safety net. Likewise, Zillinger (2007) observed the relaxation of guidebook use among German tourists when travelling at home as opposed to abroad. Attempts to provide a more nuanced account of guidebooks in practice are remarkably few. In addition to Therkelsen and Sørensen’s (2005) attempt to develop a typology of guidebook users is Jack and Phipps’ (2005) examination of the use of guidebooks by German tourists in Scotland and the work of Brown (2007) who explored how tourists solve problems when travelling. Jack and Phipps (2005: 90) used hermeneutics and ethnography in their study of why tourism matters, finding that guidebook use highlights elements of non-tourist life including ‘our hopes, memories, expectations, discursive positioning, our habits as tourists’. Brown (2007: 373) observed the centrality of the guidebook in tourists’ direction finding when travelling; the eager conversations taking place over the book combined with much ‘pointing either at a map or in a direction, so as to link together the establishments being discussed with their position’. Guidebook prose is converted to activity as tourists draw from a mix of sources in situ to locate directions or sites where navigation

Slaves to the Guidebook? Exploring Guidebook Usage

115

is difficult. In this way, guidebooks are worked as objects by tourists in an unknown environment. Brown’s (2007) observations are important in the context of the discussion in this chapter as they move the debate beyond one-dimensional assumptions regarding tourists as slavish followers of a guidebook into how guidebook content is converted into practice by the user. The connection between guidebook text and tourist action is also addressed in the work of Young (2009) and McGregor (2000). These works highlight the intense use of guidebooks by backpacker tourists in central Australia and Indonesian Tana Toraja, respectively, differing from Brown (2007) and Jack and Phipps (2005) in being more focused on how guidebook text informs the user’s understanding of alternative cultures and places. Young (2009) observed the extensive use of guidebooks and their influence on shaping understanding of Australian Aboriginal culture, finding that subjective standards and understandings informed backpackers’ use of their guidebooks as a source of knowledge. McGregor (2000) also noted how backpackers alternated their guidebook use with information from word-ofmouth sources in Tana Toraja. Among these users, guidebooks were judged to lack sufficient accuracy to be the sole source of vade mecum information in the destination. This basic summary of the literature on guidebook usage informs an analysis of data discussed in this chapter. Methods of data collection and our analytical approach are presented in the following section.

Structure of Analysis In Chapter 6, we described our approach to the topic of user attitudes to guidebooks through an examination of online posts from bloggers. A total of 204 individual posts were compiled and analysed using a thematic content analysis approach eliciting 10 broad themes. Of these, seven themes related to bloggers’ conceptualisation and value judgements regarding guidebooks and were addressed in Chapter 6. Two other themes comprising business providers’ experience with guidebooks and electronic information and guidebooks are addressed in Chapters 9 and 11, respectively. The theme, guidebook usage, elicited 200 individual mentions in posts and is the focus of this chapter. Results associated with this theme from the blog analysis are presented in Table 7.1. The findings on the theme of guidebook usage were divided into three sub-themes under which a number of specific topics were identified. The three sub-themes comprised ‘when guidebooks are used’ (26%), ‘how guidebooks are used’ (39%) and ‘what guidebooks are used for’ (36%).

1 1.1 1.2 2 2.1 2.2 2.3 3 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 3.16

When guidebooks are used To undertake trip planning As a source of inspiration either to travel or reminisce about travel How guidebooks are used Physical adaptation of the guidebook As a guide only (rather than an encyclopaedic tool) Changing use What guidebooks are used for For navigation, maps and directions To locate accommodation To identify places of interest To locate cafes and restaurants For historical or cultural information To enhance personal safety in the destination and for emergency advice For transportation details To avoid predatory behaviour by travel providers in the destination To check details found independently As a means of socialisation To provide tour information As a means of assisting with travel budgeting As guidance for where you live To locate entertainment venues For language or translation use For cultural practices

Usage sub-themes and topics

9% (17) 9% (17) 8% (16) 7% (13) 6% (11) 4% (7) 3% (5) 2% (3) 2% (3) 1% (2) 1% (2) 1% (2) 0.5% (1) 0.5% (1) 0.5% (1) 0.5% (1)

19% (38) 13% (25) 7% (13)

15% (30) 11% (21)

Mentions

Table 7.1 Proportional representation of the theme ‘guidebook usage’, sub-themes and associated topics mentioned in travel blogs

116 Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

Slaves to the Guidebook? Exploring Guidebook Usage

117

The first of these sub-themes contained two identifiable topics addressing guidebook use in various stages of the trip cycle. The second contained three topics focused on the adaptation and practice of guidebook usage, changes to the way guidebooks were used and the broad approach to usage. The third contained 18 topics identifying the specifics of the purpose of guidebook use. These addressed the predominantly vade mecum purposes of guidebook use such as accommodation, way finding and culture or language translation. Additional data were collected through semi-structured interviews (Fontana & Frey, 1994; Kvale, 1996) and participant observation (Spradley, 1980) with and among users of travel guidebooks in Copenhagen (Denmark), Melbourne (Australia), Bali (Indonesia) and the Pacific Island destination of Fiji, and opportunistically in a number of locations in Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. Potential respondents were identified on the criterion that they were in possession of one or several guidebooks that covered the location. Observational and field-based research conducted in Fiji was also drawn from a group of 30 graduate students, then present conducting field research, whose use of guidebooks for their trip and comments about that use were recorded. For a fuller description of this approach, including reflections on the limitations to which such data are prone, see Chapter 8.

Guidebook Usage in the Trip Cycle: ‘The When’ The valuing of pre-trip use of guidebooks is clearly depicted in the travel blog commentary shown in Table 7.1, where 13% of posts wrote of using guidebooks to gain a sense of how the journey might unfold in the lead up to travelling. A total of 9% of posts described the guidebook either as a source of inspiration to travel or to reminisce. Asserting that ‘buying a guidebook is as fundamental to [me] as packing my bag and passport’, Jeremy Head posted on how the guidebook serves to generate excitement in the planning of travel. For some, this meant purchasing more than one copy of a guidebook through which to plan their travel. Having listened to a podcast on The Amateur Traveller about visiting Israel, Marigross was stimulated to purchase both the Lonely Planet and Rough Guide publications for Israel in order to visualise the practicalities of the trip and to plan the visit. At the same time, Marigross purchased an Eyewitness guide to the backroads of Spain which ‘got me drooling and wanting to stay in Spain forever ’. Like Marigross and Katie going global, ErikSmith from North America attested to buying multiple guidebooks for consideration even before the selection of a destination:

118

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

I have been known to buy guidebooks for places I’m only considering going [to]. They are nice inspiration. I do like reading novels (even nontravel ones) but grabbing an occasional guidebook to read like I would a novel has given me ideas for trips that I might not have taken without reading them. For some, intense use of guidebooks before a trip comprised their entire usage. Pam confessed to reading the guidebook ‘before I go and then, you know what? I often leave them at home’. Mark attested to relying on guidebooks as places of dreaming and memory before also leaving them behind: DK Eyewitness and Insight Guides are great as picture books of places I’ve seen (or dream of seeing), and they’re a lot cheaper to buy and easier to use than a camera. Since I leave them (and most other guidebooks, usually) at home, they’re also a lot less likely to be stolen. The literature on guidebook usage makes only fleeting reference to the significance of guidebooks in the post-trip phase (Jack & Phipps, 2005; Tsang et al., 2011), yet there was substantial evidence of the importance of guidebook use at this time. Andrea whose Lonely Planet China holds pride of place in her bookcase ‘in all its well-worn, water stained and falling apart glory’ appreciates the guidebook as a corporeal testament to the rigours of the journey. The value of the guidebook as a keepsake is also evident in the words of Jeremy Head: The scribblings and jottings in the margin create something that is actually uniquely yours – memories of a great trip that scraps gleaned from 20 different websites will never retain in the same way. For Genie, the guidebook functions as a ‘scrap book’ of the trip in which miscellaneous entrance tickets, train passes, bar coasters and the like are used as bookmarks. These items provide a prompt to the fading detail once travel has finished, making ‘the memory of the trip more complete’. Shanna extended the idea of the guidebook as a repository of miscellany into an unparalleled opportunity to reflect on her younger self: Guidebook pages with circles and arrows, folding maps with red lines following a route, margin notes. 20 – 30 – 40 years later, you’ll pull those out of a drawer, gasp, then sit back and remember that young woman, her awe and delight. Priceless.

Slaves to the Guidebook? Exploring Guidebook Usage

119

In the literature and in popular understanding, guidebooks are routinely conceived as objects for use solely in the tourist destination. Yet, research in different national settings and among different user groups has revealed the intensity of use of guidebooks before the trip is undertaken (Jack & Phipps, 2005; Nishimura et al., 2006a). This is also borne out in the evidence of bloggers presented here who reflected a variety of pre-trip uses of guidebooks. Bloggers’ commentary on usage before departing for a trip shows the guidebook’s role in stimulating the motivation to travel as well as transforming an initial desire into active visitation. Guidebooks variously act as resources by which to plan and to imagine what lies ahead, only to be discarded perhaps because of the physical challenge of carrying a bulky guidebook or the moral challenge to backpacker status in being ‘seen with it’ by the tourist peer group. In a sense, the guidebook is pulled further into the realm of travel literature through this intense pre-trip reading, which may be conducted almost in a linear fashion like a novel. Such an idea contravenes a common understanding of guidebooks as resources which are routinely ‘dipped into’ according to need and never actually ‘read’. Little analysis of the role of the guidebook post-travel has been undertaken. Users actively incorporate their used guidebooks into what Jack and Phipps (2005: 90) describe as the ‘post-tourism everyday’ as repositories of memory. Gordon’s (1986: 135) understanding of the narrative significance of souvenirs for tourists is also a useful corollary in interpreting the role of guidebooks as objects of reflection when travel is completed; ‘its physical presence helps locate, define and freeze in time a fleeting transitory experience and bring back into ordinary experience something of the quality of extraordinary experience’. The construction of the guidebook as a travel token invested with significant personal meaning in these uses highlights the changeable nature of the guidebook in the enactment of tourism before, during and after travel.

Guidebook Usage In Situ: ‘The How’ The second sub-theme identified in Table 7.1 presented data on ‘the how’ of guidebook usage (39%). The three topics identified within this sub-theme comprised the physical adaptation of the guidebook (19%), the guidebook as a guide only rather than an encyclopaedic tool (13%) and the changing use of guidebooks over time (7%), and are addressed below. The sheer bulk of many guidebooks, their weight in the luggage of tourists who are attempting to travel light, was frequently mentioned in blogs as problematic. Although extended carriage of a Lonely Planet guidebook or ‘brick’ was viewed by Andrea as emblematic of the work of

120

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

travel, a significant reason for refusal to use guidebooks was, according to Chapla, that ‘the books are just too cumbersome to carry around’. For Pegontheroad, one way to solve this problem was to keep a smaller guidebook, such as Rick Steves’, for use on the road and leave the heavier guidebook at home. Mark Henshell agreed that the answer still remained with the book although in lightweight form; ‘is a city guide in the back pocket of your jeans any more cumbersome than a tablet or e-book?’ For others, adapting the guidebook to improve its portability was the answer. Bloggers reported tearing out the maps from guidebooks to carry while travelling or, as ErikSmith did, photocopying maps before circling desired locations and then adding notes for reference when on the ground. Aduchamp1 described printing out the pages needed and storing them ‘in a lightweight three ring binder which we carry with us’. Jane1144 does the same: Guide books are really heavy to drag around. Many people just tear out and bring sections they need and toss them as they go. It always pains me to deliberately damage any book, so I tend to photo copy (double sided) the few pages that I really need. You don’t need the accommodation pages and there are lots of apps about eating in various places. I make sure I have the safety/emergency info, consulates etc. which is usually only one page. Since my activities are roughed out, I have most of that info on a spreadsheet already. Physically adapting the guidebook for improved use while travelling reflected a practice which was carefully selective and idiosyncratic. These observations fit with Brown’s (2007) understanding of how the problem of the guidebook itself is resolved. Through use in combination with other resources, the guidebook is made relevant as a practical tool in the performance of tourism. Reuse of guidebook information in this way also had the additional benefit of helping to preserve the status of the seasoned traveller. Julia remarked on a preference for discreetly looking at a slip of paper when lost instead of taking out a guidebook which would mark her inexperience. These concessions to status enabled by modifying the guidebook frequently accompanied appeals for its use merely as a guide rather than an encyclopaedic tool. As Justin observed: The one thing you learn from travelling a lot with different guide books is do your utmost to use them as a guide only. If it’s a bible then I think you’ll miss out on a lot of the best there is to experience.

Slaves to the Guidebook? Exploring Guidebook Usage

121

Justin’s perspective and others who urged careful use of the guidebook suggest how acquiring personal travel experience can change the way tourists use their guidebooks. A total of 5.5% of the blog sample described changes in their use of the guidebook over time of whom half indicated this was as a result of their growing experience as travellers. Two bloggers felt they had less need of a guidebook, while one indicated that experience had taught him or her the value of planning and the importance of the guidebook in that process. Referring to the problem of how to carry a guidebook on a long trip, Wesleymarsh described how guidebooks had once been a staple of his travel although now they are rarely used. Airline luggage policy made the final decision to leave the guidebook at home even easier: There was a time when I took guide books with me. What a waste. I never opened them. I was too busy seeing and doing. Now that luggage weight is seriously restricted, the decision about carrying books is settled. Some of the blog reporting indicates a conviction that guidebook usage contributes to a liminal stage in the evolution of the traveller. The guidebook’s loco parentis role in the initial stages of the journey is gradually relinquished with the maturation of the traveller. Fellow travellers prompt others to aspire to this more advanced stage of traveller identity by ‘closing the book’. Unsurprisingly, the growth in availability of online resources changed bloggers’ use of guidebooks over time. AllesandraZoe describes a mixed-use approach with the appearance of online readers: I’ve really changed my practices. Before the Kindle, I just tore out a guidebook’s applicable pages to keep my suitcase light. And even as a dedicated Kindle user for the past 3-5 years who often sends PDF compilations of vital material to all travel party members via THEIR (sic) Kindles, I still found that having the guidebook was really helpful. Lately, however, my husband has been bringing his ipad. And I’ve found myself stealing it and looking up the needed info there. He only uses it in free wifi, the availability of which is constantly expanding. I did not consult my Turkey guidebook once this past summer. Bloggers’ preference for and usage of guidebooks in connection with digital information is explored more fully in Chapter 11. However, for the purposes of this discussion, it is notable that guidebook usage occurs

122

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

in tandem with other information sources according to factors such as the accessibility of the internet in any destination and the preference of the tourist. In the example offered by AllesandraZoe, a guidebook is still carried although with the availability of electronic platforms the guidebook’s vade mecum use is waning. This concurs with Hyde’s (2009) finding that the internet supplements traditional sources of information rather than replacing them.

Guidebook Usage for Purpose: ‘The What’ Sub-theme three shown in Table 7.1, what guidebooks are used for (36%), illustrates the diversity of purposes of guidebooks fielded in the destination. Eighteen topics were identified where one or more bloggers described their motives for using a guidebook at a particular moment when travelling. The specifics of that motivation illuminate further our understanding of the contemporary role of the guidebook in tourism, particularly the balance of consumer use of vade mecum and belles lettres content. While the discussion in a number of topics lends support to findings in extant literature, others raise previously unexplored perspectives requiring further examination. The most frequently referenced topics in this sub-theme comprised between 2% and 7% of commentary on the guidebook usage theme. These identified a range of normative vade mecum purposes of a guidebook including as a source of navigation, to locate accommodation, places of interest, restaurants and transport, for historical or cultural information about the destination and to enhance personal safety. The least referenced topics, comprising between 0.5% and 1% of the theme of guidebook usage, included guidebooks as a means of socialisation, to assist with travel budgeting, to locate entertainment venues and for language or translation use. The following discussion draws together these findings in four observations on the practical purpose of guidebook usage. Firstly, guidebook use as a means of safeguarding the person and experience; secondly, calculated restraint of guidebook use to address tourist anxiety; thirdly, the purposeful use of guidebook types during the trip; and fourthly, how guidebooks combine with the user’s judgement in the practical selection of services or attractions. A first observation is that these descriptions of use show how guidebooks are incorporated into the safeguarding of both the person and the travel experience in different ways. These include protection against perceived personal danger and predatory commercial behaviour in the destination, and to check on translation use as well as cultural practices.

Slaves to the Guidebook? Exploring Guidebook Usage

123

Brian described how he and his wife would routinely buy a Lonely Planet guidebook to every destination they intended to visit to minimise any cultural awkwardness arising in the destination as well as to check up on what they had seen: We use it (a) to check on local manners so that we don’t do terrible things like blowing our noses at the table in Korea and (b) to find out what it was that we saw, after we have seen it, rather than going to places just because they are in the LP. Another form of intercultural communication, language translation which served a primary purpose for the 19th-century guidebook user, was little described in the blogs. Indeed, the sole comment on guidebooks for translation came from a professed ‘guidebook hater’. Ryan bundled this purpose in with transportation tips and travel routes: When it comes to transportation tips, routes from country to country, translations, etc this is where LP can be very handy. Otherwise you can call me an LP and guide book hater. Jack and Phipps (2005) found that guidebooks were not a total release from the need for interpretation among the tourists they observed on the Isle of Skye. They were, however, a substitute for an interpreter as Baedeker foresaw, thus enabling the tourist to ‘stand on his own two feet’. In the context of this study, the issue of guidebooks as interpretation resources demands further scrutiny. Perhaps these English-speaking bloggers and the countries in which they travelled were less affected by language challenges or perhaps they ‘got around’ the problem of language in ways which are untold in their blogs. It is possible that language mattered more than is indicated here and that guidebooks played a role in mitigating against the language barrier when travelling. Valuing of the guidebook as a means to protect the person in an unfamiliar environment was discussed in Chapter 6. Helena worried about the safety of being a ‘solo female traveller in Peru’ and foreshadowed frequent use of her Lonely Planet guidebook while there. She valued both the maps and notification of the safest places to venture out alone as insurance against unknown threats, although this preparation clashed with the untutored experience she attributed to a ‘true backpacker’: I’m not a worry-wart, but scary things are more likely to happen to people who aren’t informed. Guess I’m not a ‘true’ backpacker then, hey?

124

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

Carriage of the guidebook as a talisman against misadventure did not always lead to frequent use, however, according to Mental and Internal who claimed to carry one for comfort but never read it. In seeking to understand the role of the guidebook in preparation for travel, Jack and Phipps (2005: 83) observe the apparent linking of ‘anticipation of new worlds and experiences and the instruction manual’. They draw inspiration from Graburn’s (1978) description of travel as ‘symbolic death’, which is manifest in the fetishised approach to preparing to leave for an unknown possibly dangerous future in a new destination. The guidebook replacing brooches and charms as a modern-day grave good which, along with the camera and sunscreen, prepares the tourist spiritually, physically and emotionally for the journey ahead. In the data presented here, it is easy to view the guidebook as devotional text offering ‘an insurance against the unexpected and the unknown’ (Jack & Phipps, 2005: 82), but what if that insurance negatively affects the quality of the tourist experience? Calculated restraint of guidebook use is a second and connected observation to the first. Bloggers’ descriptions of guidebook usage reflect the double fear of needing to prepare sufficiently for the unknown paired with the moral disquiet associated with over preparation and loss of independence. Commentary in the blogs suggests how these anxieties are held in balance through carefully managed use of the guidebook. Mikeachim expressed this tension overtly in professing to be ‘never quite sure what to do about reading’: Logically, it should be a no-brainer: pick up a copy of the appropriate Lonely Planet or Rough Guide, Google yourself silly on keyword searches of all the places you’re staying, plunder the blogs of travel bloggers who have been there and done that…fill a notebook really, really full of enthusiastic, tightly-spaced, frequently-underlined scribbling. In short: prepare. And doing anything else is stupid surely? But what if ‘preparing’ is really another word for ‘programming’? As such comments show, engagement with the guidebook in the destination is replete with moral tension as users dare themselves to experience unfamiliar places without preparation. Mikeachim goes on to describe the same gnawing anxiety ‘every time I buy a ticket for somewhere new’: I felt it for Austria in 2011, and put aside my Lonely Planet to see what would happen to my brain… I cheated, because I had a good guide to rely on – a safety net that fed me cake until it hurt.

Slaves to the Guidebook? Exploring Guidebook Usage

125

In this reading, using a guidebook either in organising or undertaking travel is cheating the tourist of the opportunities to experience place and culture unfettered by that very preparation. These comments suggest how the traveller/tourist dichotomy is well represented in the practice of guidebook use, particularly for tourist sub-groups such as backpackers to institutionalise and symbolise their personal status through travel. The guidebook in practice contributes to the formation of a cosmopolitan status, in Bourdieu’s (1986) sense, for independent guidebook users particularly. Objectified cultural capital is present in both the possession of cultural goods and the capacity of individuals to consume these according to their ability to interpret cultural value or meaning. Our third observation revisits the topic of brand raised in Chapter 6 and addresses the purposeful use of guidebook types. Modern multidestination travel demands more than a single compendium can usually provide and some users travelling beyond the geographic boundaries of the guidebooks they carried, or travelling by a particular means of transport, chose to purchase multiple books to meet their specific needs. Mark describes using different publishers at different times during the trip cycle and in different destinations: Mostly I use guidebooks like Rough Guides, Lonely Planet, Frommer’s, Fodor’s, etc., for pre-travel research. For European travel, I like to add the Rick Steves books, which seem to me very much up to date concerning things like phone numbers to call to get advance museum passes, or what extra perks might come with buying transit passes in various cities. Like others, Taramorourke, a self-proclaimed ‘intensive’ user of guidebooks, described the use of three guidebooks on a trip through Europe while also travelling on a budget: The first one covered each European country and their cities – what to see and do on a budget…Our second guidebook covered Europe with a EuroRail pass…The information in this guide book was very specific and incredibly helpful. Our third guidebook was similar to our first one but it was even more targeted towards backpacking on a budget. It had names of the cheapest hostels, with directions and maps on how to get there. Their maps for each city were so specific, showing where the cheapest internet cafes were located, grocery stores, hostels…We would just walk off the train, open our guidebook and follow their detailed instructions.

126

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

This kind of selective use based on guidebook brand was mirrored in Lisa’s comments, although she was far less sanguine about routinely following guidebook instructions. Lonely Planet and Rough Guide texts were combined with word-of-mouth resources during a nine-month trip to the United States and Europe: I used both only to make sure I had some idea of where I was going when I left the bus/train/airport/ferry. I figure I had plenty of time but not a huge amount of money – so it [Lonely Planet] was a good guide on where to stay and what to see. Restaurant sections were useless – or I didn’t use them. Learnt far more talking to fellow jetsetters than in any guidebook. How guidebooks combine with the user’s judgement, or other advice the user considers to be independent, in the selection of services or attractions comprises a fourth observation. Like Lisa, Oscar described using the guidebook information sparingly for specific vade mecum needs while leaving serendipitous encounters with those assumed to know better to provide the rest: I always use LP to get a cheap bed and find my way from the bus station or airport, after having read a little about the history or sites of the place I’m visiting. I never use the LP to find the best cafes, bars or nightlife in town. Leave that to chance encounters with locals. Another approach was to use the guidebook as an indicator of the general geographic location of suitable accommodation or restaurants before making a choice of service seemingly independent of guidebook recommendations. Speaking of the advantages of Rough Guides over other publications, Aramis rejected reliance on guidebooks for restaurant and hotel recommendations instead employing them to help decide ‘where I want to go and what I want to see’ before finding accommodation and food ‘after the “where” is known’. In claiming never to have eaten at any restaurant listed in a guidebook, Theseraphicrealm likewise used the guidebook to locate an area of cheap restaurants; ‘then I go there and wander around freely and try whatever attracts my fancy’. Inexpensive restaurants and budget accommodation are assumed to be geographically grouped, offering both a critical mass of guided options and freedom of choice. The visitor makes a selection of the services on offer ‘freely’ through direct experience of the options available rather than via careful scanning of the guidebook listings. The guidebook distils the multitude

Slaves to the Guidebook? Exploring Guidebook Usage

127

of accommodation and restaurant options available before providing a smattering of structure to the seemingly unfettered experience of the tourist. As Theodora cynically observes, cheap accommodation can always be located ‘near a Lonely Planet top pick’. A third approach to guidebook use combined with perceived independent choice was described by ErikSmith. His guidebook played a peripheral role in the destination, serving mainly as a source of orientation before the trip and then as a reference point for places independently found once there: I like to read the guidebook on the plane then once I land I only pull it out when I need a map or to check the name of something I found myself. A final example demonstrates how guidebooks are also used in reverse to find out more about a service or an attraction once it has been independently and serendipitously found. Brian claimed to always carry a Lonely Planet on his travels to support his preferred method of being a tourist: We practice ‘tourism by wandering around’. We take a tuk-tuk to the middle of Luang Prahbang and start walking. If we like the Wat Xieng Thong, then we read up about it. If someone recommends a visit to the tomb of Henri Mouhot, we visit it, and then look in the LP to see who he was. Our field notes from research among backpackers abound with statements of similar kind as those taken from the blogs and referred to here. This is hardly surprising as the two groups share a preference for an independent, backpacker style of travel. What they indicate is how guidebooks are used selectively as broad navigational tools to places where tourist services are densely concentrated, as a checkpoint for accommodation or restaurants sourced seemingly ‘independently’ through experience or from the knowledge of other tourists or locals. Several guidebooks may be used for a single trip, used before the trip has begun or during travel to the destination only. Of particular note in regard to the purpose of tourists’ use of their guidebooks is the declining importance of vade mecum information use in guidebooks, an important theme which we will return to in Chapter 8. Bloggers describe using their guidebook for accommodation but will not use a guidebook for restaurants, or they rely on a guidebook

128

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

for transport details but nothing else. In place of the guidebook, other travellers or locals and internet resources if available are the resource of choice. We observed similar trends among visitors to information-dense urban locations such as Copenhagen and Bangkok, who were interviewed for this book. In such locations, online information, review sites and booking engines are heavily used for selecting accommodation, transport, events and attractions, locations, schedules, prices and nightlife. This trend suggests that information where mutability is a condition is more routinely searched online when the service is available among guidebook users and non-users. Most guidebook usage encountered in such locations appears to have more to do with the historical and political context of the destination, cultural appreciation and the like – the normative belles lettres dimension of a guidebook which serves as a shortcut through the plethora of knowledge now available to the tourist. Conversely, data from guidebook usage in locations with less information density, whether this be because of lack of online access or because of lack of information (or both) showed, not surprisingly, a much higher degree of reliance on the vade mecum information in the guidebook. Availability of online access appears to have a role in driving guidebook carriage and use, a theme taken up more fully in Chapter 11.

Challenging Assumptions on Guidebook Usage Our findings reinforce understandings of guidebook use particularly as framed by those researchers who have delved closely into the actual integration of the guidebook in the doing of tourism (Brown, 2007: 373; Jack & Phipps, 2005). Three final observations are made which challenge traditional assumptions regarding guidebook use and the role of the guidebook in contemporary tourism. Firstly, this study of guidebook usage contributes to debate surrounding the ‘tourist’ and ‘traveller’ dichotomy. The overt disquiet over guidebook use as evidenced in the commentary of bloggers highlights a role in increasing or maintaining the social capital of some tourists. The drive to achieve a personally fulfilling experience from travel was a common tension made manifest through guidebook usage as tourists deliberated over travelling with either a more or less tutored mind. Anxiety vies with petty conceits as consumers seek to distance themselves from those whose guidebook use suggests an inexperienced over-reliance. These others are what the blogger Brian described in a parody on the ubiquitous Lonely Planet title, ‘Lonely Plonkers’, whose dependence on their guidebooks indicate to the peer group their failure to travel truly

Slaves to the Guidebook? Exploring Guidebook Usage

129

independently. In this way, guidebook use, at least as it is written about online, assists the consumer to actively make and remake his or her identity, to select, reject and manipulate the experiences and individualities circumscribed by the text. The consumer’s active role in identity formation through tourism is thus held in tension with the symbolic and institutional power of the guidebook’s authority. Secondly, the findings from this analysis of use strengthen the assertions made in Chapter 4 that little can be deduced about the role of guidebooks in the tourist system from textual readings alone. The failure of semiotic approaches, according to Tresidder (2011), is based on the impossibility of identifying both a common reading of signs and of behaviour enacted in relation to their dictates. While a critique of text may assist in identifying the presence of signs and how they may be interpreted based on the specific expectations and knowledge of a group, it cannot define a totality of use. Instead, in an increasingly consumerdriven world, the role of human agency and individualised response to the guidebook are evidenced in the diverse accounts of usage described here. Thirdly, we find that there is much evidence to counter the stereotypical depiction of guidebook usage as slavish and linear, not least because of the deliberate distancing from the stereotype evident in some of the bloggers’ commentary. The guidebook is, as McGregor (2000) describes, a ‘dynamic object’ carried, consulted, left behind, argued over, skimmed, shared, adapted, ignored and destroyed. Guidebooks are downloaded, have pages torn out which are then carried and discarded, are used as a means of cross-checking other sources, are incorporated as a framework by which to navigate the plethora of internet resources or are left at home and not used at all. These snapshots, combined with the findings of the few studies in the area, problematise the practice of guidebook use while attesting to the ways tourist problem solve as identified by Brown (2007). While our research among backpackers and other types of tourists (as well as our own guidebook usage) has yielded examples of adherence to guidebook recommendations, these rely on a situational rather than a sequential use of vade mecum advice. We suspect that others too have been tempted to faultily infer general behaviour from situational observations. Thus, the persistence of the assumption that guidebook users adhere to the guidebook as a script may be based on a fallacy akin to the ‘black swan’ problem and Popper’s (1959) notion of ‘falsifiability’. While it may be easy to observe guidebook users apparently following their guidebook as a script, we are unable to observe and thus investigate when their practice actually differs. We only notice the guidebook users when they use their guidebooks, not when they don’t.

130

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

Conclusion With the aim of building on the minimal extant understandings in the literature, in this chapter we have chiefly addressed when, how and for what purpose guidebooks are used by consumers. These issues are notably under-researched and our findings here suggest a range of themes to be explored on guidebook usage. These include how usage of guidebooks is affected by the spatial movement of tourists, gender- and cultural-specific trends in usage and how the availability of other forms of tourist information in different destinations intersects with how guidebooks are used. The analysis addresses guidebook users in the broadest sense, a theme largely ignored in the literature but with significant implications for understanding the role of guidebooks in contemporary tourism. In the next chapter, we draw on both the blog data presented here and on interviews and informal discussions held with guidebook users at different tourist destinations around the world in order to compile a guidebook user typology.

8 Towards a Typology of Guidebook Users Funny, I always bring a guidebook when I go here [Bali], even though I’ve been here so many times. Sometimes it stays in my pack the entire trip. It’s a bit embarrassing to show it, you know, like you are some newbie here, and anyway I don’t really use it (laughing). But I always bring it! (…) Yes, it is always the same make, and I get the newest edition. I keep the old ones at home. Interview with Saskia, the Netherlands, July 2009

Introduction Chapter 7 delved into how bloggers present and write about their use of guidebooks unprompted by the researcher’s questioning. It was argued that guidebook users cannot be characterised as slavish followers of their text and that they express divergent opinions on critical aspects of their guidebooks. Yet, at the same time, it is also clear that guidebook use results in some sort of regimentation of the user. In this chapter, we further explore guidebook use, especially elements of guidebook function in different destinations and different ranges of guidebook consumption, when the tourist is in situ. The aim is to elaborate on the limited typologising of this behaviour (Therkelsen & Sørensen, 2005). This enables a further challenge to the understanding of guidebook use that we find implicit in much research, chiefly that the existence of a guidebook somehow predetermines its use. It will be argued that while the character of guidebooks and patterns of use are interlinked, this connection is far from uniform. The exploration is primarily done by means of fieldwork data, supported by analysis of secondary data. It is significant to our findings that this research source both supports and challenges the written observations of the blogs which frame analysis in previous chapters. In the blog accounts, we detected a consciousness among writers of how such guidebook practice as described might be perceived by peers. The data relied on in this chapter, however, were collected in situ and prompted by the researcher’s inquiry with the aim to extend understanding of guidebook use. As we have argued in previous chapters, implicit connections exist between the organisation, length, flexibility and spatial character of a trip 131

132

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

and the character of the guidebook fielded by the tourist. However, our field research also indicates both a wider spectrum of usage of any one guidebook publication than hitherto surmised and, conversely, a wider spectrum of tourist guidebooks present among otherwise seemingly homogeneous tourists. The business traveller who sporadically relies on a copy of South-East Asia on a Shoestring (Lonely Planet) during travel in the region, or the package tourist who carries various guidebooks designed with the independent tourist’s needs in mind, are examples of this double point. Guidebook users master their guidebook in various ways because it is not fully reproduced through use but is used selectively.

Travel Guidebook Use and Users Some research has been conducted on guidebook use. Typically, this appears in studies concerning tourists’ information search in general where use of guidebooks is one of several possible resources (Fodness & Murray, 1997, 1998, 1999; Hyde & Lawson, 2003; Nishimura et al., 2006b; Thapa et al., 2002), and most often in the context of the pre-trip information search conducted before or after a location choice has been made (Bieger & Laesser, 2004; Choi et al., 2012; Hyde, 2009). Findings vary significantly. For instance, Fodness and Murray (1997, 1998, 1999), in a study of information search behaviour among out-of-state auto travellers to Florida, investigated ‘commercial guidebooks’ (not further defined) as one among many possible sources of information. They found that guidebooks were not of key importance for many and, when used, they were often coupled with other sources of information. Other studies investigating different types of travel find contrasting results. Grønflaten (2009), for example, criticises Fodness and Murray’s (1997, 1998, 1999) models and maintains that different tourist types use guidebooks differently as an information source. Some research with a specific focus on travel guidebook use and users has been published, as introduced in Chapter 7 (Iaquinto, 2012; McGregor, 2000; Nishimura et al., 2006a, 2006b, 2007; Osti et al., 2009; Therkelsen & Sørensen, 2005; Tsang et al., 2011; Wong & Liu, 2011). Overall, the literature indicates that, compared to other information sources, use of travel guidebooks is of least importance prior to a tourist’s destination selection although their influence grows in the process of specifying an itinerary before growing again when the tourist is in situ. This pattern of influence registers varying levels of importance depending on a combination of trip organisation (independent, partly packaged or fully packaged), spatial pattern of trip (single destination or multiple destination) and length of trip.

Towards a Typology of Guidebook Users

133

Other research shows that guidebooks are seldom the sole source of information for any tourist, neither in the pre-trip stage nor in situ (Iaquinto, 2012; Nishimura et al., 2006b). On the other hand, research also shows that intensive use of online sources does not necessarily replace guidebook use but the two tend to supplement each other (Beritelli et al., 2007; Iaquinto, 2012). Research more specifically focused on backpackers’ use of information sources indicates that the overall influence of Lonely Planet guidebooks is waning among this cohort (Iaquinto, 2012). It is unclear, however, if the waning influence occurs during the pre-trip stage, while in destination or during both stages, and it is equally unclear whether backpackers and their use of guidebooks both in the past and now are conceptualised enough to sustain a comparison. In other words, documenting the phenomenon with what seems to be a broadening of the category of ‘backpacker’ is problematic. Iaquinto (2012) also makes no assumptions as to the impact of growing online information sources as a cause of the decline of the guidebook influence observed. Nevertheless, it is also our impression from fieldwork that guidebooks do not hold the uniform position of information providers that they once held for backpackers, in particular not in areas where wi-fi access allows more intensive use of other platforms for information search. At the same time, guidebooks still hold sway among backpackers as an important source of in situ usable information, alongside word of mouth from fellow backpackers, in locations with a less-developed tourism infrastructure. A few papers indicate that different modes of travel correlate with varying degrees and ways of using travel guidebooks. It seems that selfdrive tourists are heavy users of travel guidebooks (Becken & Wilson, 2006; Jacobsen, 2001; Jacobsen et al., 1998) as are backpackers. Along the same line of argument, Björk and Kauppinen-Räisänen (2011) in a study of Finnish tourists found that non-institutionalised tourists are more likely to use a guidebook while institutionalised tourists use travel agents. This coincides with the findings of Nishimura et al. (2006a, 2006b, 2007) which reveals that, among Japanese tourists, the degree of travel packaging inversely reflects the intensity of guidebook use and the extent of information/knowledge from the guidebook that is actually used. While the conclusions of Nishimura et al. cannot be generalised to other markets or nationalities, the patterns they observed correspond with our own findings. Elsewhere, level of education has also been found to correlate with degree of guidebook usage. Jacobsen and Dann (2003) argue that visitors to Lofoten with higher education are more likely to bring and use guidebooks. Osti et al. (2009) investigated nationality and use of

134

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

guidebooks. They find that there are differences between Chinese, Korean, Japanese and North Americans in their use of guidebooks, and they suggest that translators should take such matters into account when translating guidebooks. Overall, however, the picture is imprecise. This perhaps owes more to a lack of shared conceptual framework than to a paucity of research. While there is some analysis of pre-trip use of guidebooks, only limited research on tourist use in situ has been published (Brown, 2007; Jack & Phipps, 2005; McGregor, 2000; Young, 2009). Moreover, publications examining tourists’ in situ use have not been of such a character as to throw light on the intersection of type of guidebook and patterns of use. As discussed in Chapter 7, the extant research therefore provides little to sustain or contend the notion that we find implicit in much of the literature on guidebook texts which is principally that there is an assumed and consistent pattern of usage of the guidebook.

Methodology This chapter draws particularly from fieldwork data purposely collected in Denmark, Australia, Indonesia and Fiji, supplemented with data collected opportunistically while engaged in fieldwork on other topics or while encountering guidebook users in situ. Fieldwork was designed to produce qualitative data through semi-structured interviews (Fontana & Frey, 1994; Kvale, 1996) and participant observation (Spradley, 1980) with and among users of travel guidebooks. The data collection technique draws on the procedure used by Therkelsen and Sørensen (2005). Potential respondents in various locations (vicinity of major attractions, accommodation locations, restaurants, transport hubs, beaches and so on) were identified on the criterion that they were in possession of one or several guidebooks that covered the location, whether the guidebook was secured pre-departure, acquired en route to the destination or acquired at the destination. Given the exploratory nature of the research, no restrictive selection procedure was consistently employed so potential informants were identified by observing them with a guidebook or a digital device (smartphone, tablet, e-reader) or by initial screening by means of a question. Potential informants were then asked to participate in an interview about their use of guidebooks, or a conversation was initiated that covered the subject. A high degree of diversity of informants was sought in all locations. The resulting collection of interviews includes informants of both sexes and of all ages, varied travel party compositions and diverse

Towards a Typology of Guidebook Users

135

national, educational and occupational backgrounds who fielded a wide selection of guidebooks. The interviews consisted of three parts: the first aimed at profiling geographic, socio-demographic and travel-related facts; the second part identified what guidebooks were used on the trip, when they were purchased and used and what they were used for; and the final part, in which the respondent was asked to evaluate his or her guidebook(s). By conducting the interviews first-hand, it was possible to let data collection be inspired by ethnographic fieldwork procedure (Atkinson & Hammersley, 1994; Denzin & Lincoln, 2008; Ellen, 1984; Emerson et al., 1995; Spradley, 1980) since fieldwork also enabled the acquisition of additional contextual insight and reflection. This was particularly evident in those cases where the interview continued beyond the normal 15–30 minutes (some interviews lasted several hours), or where social interaction continued after the interview such as when the researcher and interviewee were part of the same excursion group, staying at the same accommodation facility or serendipitously encountered one another again later on the trip. Additional data on guidebooks and guidebook usage were opportunistically collected while conducting other research in several European countries and also in Egypt, India, Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Australia. When possible, the data collection was in the shape of interviews following the same guide as described above. In addition, numerous observations and passing conversations have yielded supplementary insight. The informants interviewed for this study, or who provided data through conversations or as part of interviews for other research, represented more than 40 nationalities. The guidebooks that they carried amounted to about a hundred different publications, although in fewer languages than this number might lead to assume since many nationalities carried English-language guidebooks. The number of publications present in our data is actually quite difficult to determine because of the challenges in counting editions of the ‘same’ publication separately or of including translations of an original edition. In some cases, the informant was not able to produce the guidebook for registration since it was in the hands of another from the travel party, had been left at the place of accommodation or for other reasons. However, an exact number is of less importance since it does not detract from the fact that a multitude of guidebooks are present in the data. In the following two sections, we build on the description of guidebook usage detailed in Chapter 7 to examine elements of guidebook function

136

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

in situ. These comprise guidebook function in terms of information sources and retrieval, and guidebook consumption and reading mode.

Guidebook Function: Information Sources and Information Retrieval Similar to the findings in the blog data, most informants interviewed face-to-face used only one guidebook during a single journey, although several used two or more guidebooks. If the visit was a single destination tour, guidebook holders appeared more likely to field a single guidebook while visitors on a multiple destination journey (Lue et al., 1993; Oppermann, 1995) were likely to carry more than one. However, while it is tempting to induce a simple causality from this – the more destinations on a tour, the more guidebooks applied – caution should be taken. Firstly, not all multiple destination visitors fielded more than one guidebook. Secondly, only very few brought more than two guidebooks. Thirdly, in some instances, one of the two guidebooks was a consequence, not of distinct choice but of what supplementary guidebooks could be borrowed from friends or family, or it resulted from persons travelling together bringing separate guidebooks. Such arbitrariness was not the case when only one guidebook was used for a multiple destination journey. On the contrary, most multiple destination tourists with only one guidebook were very conscious about what guidebook they had selected, although self-drive tourists on a flexible multiple destination trip presented an interesting exemption. Not infrequently, self-drive tourists had borrowed whatever was available from public libraries, or from their own or friends’ bookshelves. On the other hand, an element of chance was also discernible in cases where only one guidebook was fielded, as the informant was not always able to explain why a specific guidebook choice was made instead of another. This element of chance was evident particularly when the informant was on a trip with a high degree of pre-organisation, in the shape of a (more or less) packaged tour or pre-departure self-booking, or on a repeat trip to the location or on an urban holiday. The number of guidebooks carried by an individual tourist also depended on geographic factors. In cities in the developed world, we observed a large variety of guidebooks, in developed world rural destinations relatively fewer and, for developing world countries and regions, very few. While this is as expected, it also lends credence to our data, at least to the effect that this trend reflects the overall pattern of the available variety of guidebooks at the different levels.

Towards a Typology of Guidebook Users

137

Of the travel guidebooks for which we were able to register the time of publication, surprisingly many were more than two years old and/or were not the latest edition. In particular, when informants fielded two guidebooks, one of them was often quite dated. There also seems to be a correspondence between age/edition of guidebook and (in)flexibility of trip – the more elements of the trip that were pre-booked/planned, the more likely that the guidebook was not the newest edition. This seems intuitively sensible (the more pre-booked, the less need for updated practical information); however, if this pattern is pursued, one would also expect to find more guidebooks with a higher degree of belles lettres content than of vade mecum content among those which are slightly dated. We found this not to be the case. An additional twist lay also among the multiple destination tourists with a flexible itinerary encountered, many of whom fielded an older edition of a guidebook. This was typically among backpackers, flashpackers, holiday backpackers and others who travelled backpacker style in terms of flexibility and mobility. Conversation with these tourists often revealed ambivalence as regards fielding a guidebook, and critique of other persons’ allegedly uncritical use of travel guidebooks along the lines of ‘they are slaves to the guidebook while I am not’. At times, our interviews left us with the sense that the fielding of a dated edition of one of the popular guidebooks from Lonely Planet, Rough Guides or Footprint also served as a very public statement of – paradoxically – independence from the guidebook! As described by many bloggers, and in other research (Beritelli et al., 2007; Iaquinto, 2012; Nishimura et al., 2006b), fielding of guidebooks does not preclude tourist’s use of other information sources. The internet is especially popular for advance information search and accommodation booking, in addition to brochures and city maps from the local tourism information centre and word of mouth from other tourists and locals. Most of the respondents who made use of two guidebooks also obtained additional information to be used in situ. This indicates much variation in the information search among guidebook users. While some use a number of sources to acquire knowledge or assist in decision-making, others’ rely on one single source such as a guidebook. Our data support Therkelsen and Sørensen (2005) in their distinction between two types of information that users seek in the guidebook: ‘answers’ and ‘knowledge’. Additionally, we find that these correspond closely with the distinction between vade mecum and belles lettres (Seaton, 2002) that is fundamental for our conceptualisation of guidebooks, conducted in Chapter 2, in which the presence of both, albeit in differing degrees, is a prerequisite for a publication to be termed ‘a travel guidebook’.

138

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

‘Answers’ concern practicalities like accommodation, transportation and dining, business hours and currency, but also identify activities and attractions, thus providing the reader with a number of answers on ‘how/ what/when/where’ questions at the destination. However, when the information retrieval aims for more than that, and includes additional insight whether historical, cultural, geographical or environmental, a ‘knowledge’ dimension has entered the search. General background knowledge, which all guidebooks to varying degrees contain, is included in the ‘knowledge’ category. Almost all respondents used their guidebooks to provide ‘answers’, both for practicalities and identifying attractions and activities. ‘Knowledge’ is identified as interesting by a slightly smaller share of the respondents. For these, the guidebook also serves as a cognitive source (possibly among other such sources) that provides a deeper kind of insight into the place and people visited.

Guidebook Consumption: Reading Mode and Reader Involvement Consumers’ guidebook reading manners and reading thoroughness vary discernibly. As was evident among descriptions provided by the bloggers discussed in Chapter 7, some read their guidebook(s) comprehensively, others focus on specific aspects, while others again only read their guidebook to a very limited extent. Some even stated that they hadn’t opened it at all since leaving home. Obviously, this and the answers/knowledge aspect are closely interrelated since the extraction of ‘knowledge’ necessitates that an effort is put into reading the guidebook. Conversely, the ‘what/how to do’ answers can be obtained by browsing the text and can also be obtained by reading the guidebook in more detail. Unsurprisingly, we find that the respondents who retrieve ‘knowledge’ from the guidebook are also those who undertake the most comprehensive reading of the guidebook. Although cover-to-cover reading is rare, the comprehensive way of reading the guidebook that these informants convey resembles the way in which prose is read, thus supporting our interpretation of the reading as belles lettres. However, most respondents use the guidebook more selectively. They either centre on specific points of interest, which results in detailed yet focused reading, or on practical information that requires limited reading. As regards the reader’s involvement, this aspect has to do with whether the respondents have taken a critical (positive or negative) stand

Towards a Typology of Guidebook Users

139

on their guidebook or whether they have a detached or non-opinionated comprehension of it. Of course, this aspect is highly interpretive. It starts in the very data collection since informants may appear to be more involved in their guidebook in an interview situation than they are in their actual tourist practice. Conversely, they may attempt to underplay their attachment to or dependence on a guidebook as is evident in the example cited above regarding fielding dated editions. Respondents who we find to be highly involved are identified by their attitude towards appraising guidebook content and quality, and towards relating this to personal requirements. In many of the interviews, the respondents display such reflective attitudes towards their guidebooks which invariably involve a degree of evaluation. Comments concerning vade mecum details are frequent, while other comments address the userfriendliness or composition of the guidebook. Concerning the overall content of the guidebook, most respondents clearly evaluate this on the basis of their own needs during their trip. Examples of this span from a negative appraisal because of an absence of needed information on traffic rules for bicyclists, to a positive appraisal because a guidebook has been instrumental in a consumer acquiring local contacts. The presence of such evaluative reflections in the data supports the findings among the bloggers discussed in Chapter 7 that guidebook users do not necessarily accept the judgments or opinions found in their guidebook(s). Some do, but many, including the informants who appraised their guidebook(s) most positively, express some point of critique. For instance, addressing weakness in a guidebook’s place representation implies that the guidebook user does not necessarily accept the authorial voice. In this way, the inherently selective rather than exhaustive character of the guidebook, as defined in Chapter 2, gives rise to endless discussions among tourists whose involvement with the guidebook is high. This subject, the love/hate of guidebooks among tourists, is covered in depth in Chapter 6. Respondents who display low involvement in their guidebooks either evaluate their guidebook positively, but on no specific basis, or display indifference towards their guidebook. Negative evaluation, yet low involvement, is only scarcely present in our data. This is inherently logical as it takes some involvement to both field a guidebook and build a negative evaluation. The positive but unreflective attitudes towards guidebooks come out as simple confirmations to the interviewer’s questions concerning the quality of the guidebook, by means of statements like ‘nothing seems to be missing’ or ‘it is useful’. In these cases, it is possible, but not certain, that the evaluations in the guidebook are taken over uncritically so that the consumer’s choices follow the recommendations

140

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

of the guidebook. This need not necessarily be the case depending on what information is retrieved from the guidebook. A parallel ambiguity concerns those who purposefully display indifference towards their guidebook. This is illustrated by the many backpackers who expressed nonchalance towards their guidebook, suggesting that, as an experienced traveller, they could easily do without it. The parallel to the backpackers who fielded older editions of guidebooks is marked, and in many cases it was these informants who reflected a marked calculated indifference. It is hard not to interpret this as an often deliberate attempt at personal distancing from the uncomplimentary stereotyped depictions of guidebook users outlined in earlier chapters. Viewed in this light, what purported to be low involvement reflects instead a very high involvement. In the following discussion, we draw together these findings on guidebook consumption to further contest the notion often found in research that the existence of a guidebook predetermines its use. We do this by way of building on a previous study to develop a typology of guidebook users.

Types of Guidebook Users In a previous study of guidebook use in Copenhagen, Denmark, in which one of the present authors participated (Therkelsen & Sørensen, 2005), a model of guidebook use identified three different types of guidebook users. This exploratory classification of guidebook users provides a foundation for conceptualisation on the basis of three categories: the ‘information addict’ who pursues a deep understanding of destinations, the ‘planner’ who is reliant on the guidebook for traversing a destination and who seeks chiefly practical information, and the ‘functional minimalist’ who uses the guidebook sparingly and for essential travel information only. In the context of the discussion of user behaviour and attitudes towards guidebooks provided in Chapters 6 and 7, we aim to build on this typology. Aspects which require recognition in the modelling include a more international (albeit still somewhat Western-centric) setting and one which is not confined to urban tourism destinations and which incorporates developments in mobile information acquisition, such as wi-fi, internet, apps and digital platforms. We therefore propose a revised and enlarged fivecategory typology building on the original model proposed by Therkelsen and Sørensen (2005). The types of guidebook users that we have tentatively identified within this model are neither all-inclusive nor mutually exclusive. The model

Towards a Typology of Guidebook Users

141

is not to be confused with an empirical taxonomy, nor is it the result of an exhaustive combination of factors into all the possible variations of combinations, nor for that matter a pseudo-quantitative clustering. Instead, like most other typologies in tourism research, it is intended as a conceptual and interpretive device in that the five types of users demonstrate both breadth and categories of guidebook usage. Additionally, the types must be understood as somewhat accentuated in order to highlight differences, although, in reality, many of our informants could be justifiably localised under more than one of the types. Thus, the typology is not a tool for distinct classification but an instrument for illustration of the breath and width of guidebook usage in situ. The following discussion briefly describes the types, distinctively labelled. First, the information consumer who fields one or two guidebooks and supplements with additional resources. These resources can be in the shape of printed or digital communication, but can also be visual or auditory and delivered through a portable electronic device (laptop, tablet, smartphone). Both ‘knowledge’ and ‘answers’ are retrieved from the guidebook(s) which is read comprehensively. This consumer displays a high degree of involvement when assessing his or her guidebook(s), the quality of which may be evaluated against other sources of information, which in turn are also evaluated against the guidebook(s). The information consumer has been found at all fieldwork locations and among all variations of trip organisation and flexibility, although there are functional differences between single destination tourists and multiple destination tourists which can translate into a higher degree of involvement among the latter. The guidebook use described by blogger Taramorourke cited in Chapter 7 who is likely to ‘walk off the train, open our guidebook and follow their detailed instructions’ is an example of this kind of user. Second, the vade mecum consumer, who fields one guidebook and may supplement with additional information. While ‘knowledge’ only to a lesser degree is sought, much ‘answer’ information is retrieved from the guidebook which is read in a focused manner. The vade mecum user often displays a high degree of involvement when assessing his or her guidebook, the quality of which may be evaluated against its perceived correctness. The vade mecum user has been found at all fieldwork locations and among all variations of trip organisation and flexibility, but seems to be more prevalent at major tourist destinations and attractions among selforganised visitors to such places. The blogger, Oscar, who claimed to rely heavily on a Lonely Planet guide to locate accommodation and transport directions but never restaurants or nightlife when local advice could be found, is illustrative of this kind of consumer.

142

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

Third, the belles lettres consumer, who fields one and often two guidebooks, and very often supplements with other information, often printed but at times of other types (for instance digital/auditory museum guides). Meg who professed in a blog to value ‘all the snippets of history and stories littered through the LP’ is indicative of this consumer. The focus is on ‘knowledge’ information whereas ‘answers’ information is less important and sometime not consulted at all. While a high degree of involvement has been noted among some belles lettres consumers, more often the involvement is only mid-level reflecting the educational and normative ambitions of finding knowledge from more than one source. At times, the involvement surfaces in the shape of taking delight in ‘beating the guidebook’ as regards knowledge of a subject covered, for instance in the area of fine art. The belles lettres consumer is particularly found in connection with cultural tourism, most often in urban locations, and frequently on an (partially) organised tour to a single destination. Fourth, the nominal consumer, who fields one guidebook and does not supplement with other printed information but may supplement with digital devices (apps, maps on smartphone/tablets, etc.). Information retrieval from the guidebook may include both ‘answers’ and ‘knowledge’, but the guidebook is only read sporadically. The nominal consumer displays a low degree of involvement when assessing his or her guidebook. For some nominal consumers, the guidebook serves as a backup for unexpected situations. Jane1144 wrote in a blog about carrying just a few pages photocopied from a guidebook while travelling, particularly the safety and consular advice. For others, bringing along a guidebook is a customary but insignificant part of the holiday equipment. Examples of this style of nominal consumer were evident among the student group on a field trip to Fiji described in Chapter 7 who had routinely purchased a guidebook to the destination even when it was not seen as essential because of the packaged nature of the trip. In both cases, the involvement is minimal, although at times this might be more reflecting an assumed attitude by the respondent. Fifth, the guidebook trusty, who fields one guidebook and only rarely supplements with other textual information. Both ‘knowledge’ and ‘answers’ are retrieved from the guidebook which is read comprehensively or in a focused manner. The guidebook trusty displays a high degree of involvement when assessing guidebook quality which may be evaluated against perceived correctness as regards ‘answers’, but also against the user’s personal impressions and insight as regards ‘knowledge’. Guidebook trusty informants are most often encountered in locations where other information is not readily available, typically somewhere ‘off the beaten

Towards a Typology of Guidebook Users

143

track’ yet still along backpacker routes. The blogger, SJ, who professes not being able to live without a Lonely Planet guidebook to South East Asia while also feeling suspicious of a ‘snobby’ tone in these texts illustrates well the guidebook trusty. In continuation of this typology, it is relevant to consider whether differences in guidebook reading also mean differences in choice of actual guidebooks. Do the types of guidebook users carry guidebooks different from one another? Conversely, are different guidebooks read by certain types of users only? The data are far from clear. On the one hand, certain guidebooks have more appeal than others to a type of reader. An example of this is where the guidebook trusty somewhere off the digital information grid is more likely to carry a Lonely Planet than a Blue Guide, while the opposite is the case for the belles lettres consumer encountered at a major cultural attraction. But on the other hand, the same guidebook is read in different ways by different users, and some of the guidebooks that appear most frequently in our data have users of all five types. What is at play here is not only the guidebook and the way it is used by the individual, but also the tourist’s personal history of guidebook purchase. As shown by the bloggers in Chapter 7, many guidebook users are loyal to a specific publisher, often having purchased several guidebooks from the same publisher for different trips over years even when the organisational or spatial characteristics of such trips differed markedly. A particular style of guidebook may thus be carried out of habit although failing to meet the demands of the actual trip. It may then be used to its best abilities for that trip even though it did not contain enough ‘answers’ to fully serve the vade mecum user. We, the authors, recognise this in our own guidebook purchase and use history.

Reflections A key finding throughout this book is that certain characteristics of the guidebook only materialise through tourists’ actual use of the text. This led to the identification in Chapter 2 of the guidebook as a genre whose distinctive and characteristic features presuppose that both text and usage are taken into account. This enables an understanding of the guidebook as a text whose assertions, when consulted, are not necessarily accepted by the user. While distinctive features delimit the genre, the inclusion of usage aspects within these features enables the comprehension of the tourist guidebook genre to move beyond that of prescriptive classification. This, in turn, allows for an appreciation of tourist guidebooks and usage as a more multifaceted subject than that

144

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

which an empiricist understanding of guidebooks and guidebook usage might indicate. The approach presented here appreciates that guidebook users may contest the authority of the guidebook, and allows for the multifaceted impact of this. Such an approach questions whether full insight is derived from simply correlating types of guidebooks and types of tourists. Instead, it seems more profitable to concentrate on the way that tourists make use of guidebooks in order to understand the effect of guidebooks on the tourist experience. In this way, new light is also thrown on conventional assumptions regarding guidebooks and guidebook usage. One such piece of conventional wisdom is, of course, Barthes’ (1972: 76) dismissal of the Guide Bleu to Spain as an ‘agent of blindness’. Although expressed less indomitably, support of such an interpretation can be found in recent publications, both as regards guidebooks’ textual depiction of a country (Bhattacharyya, 1997) and the impact of the guidebook on a distinct type of tourists’ experiences and perceptions of a location (McGregor, 2000). However, the latter case, in which McGregor investigates the influence of guidebooks among Western backpackers visiting Tana Toraja, Indonesia, also illustrates the need to include the particular context in the hypothesising of guidebook impact. For, while not challenging McGregor ’s findings and interpretations, the question remains whether a similarly profound structuring of the tourist gaze and experience can be located in settings where the cultural proximity (Ryan, 2002) between tourist and destination is higher and where the cultural differences bridged by the guidebooks in question are less arresting. Thus, the guidebook users and usage that McGregor depicts – those who are remarkably similar to the guidebook trusty suggested in the above typology – may be less evident in other locations. Likewise, guidebook usage may differ among other types of visitors, such as those visiting the Tana Toraja area on a package tour. Much tourism promotion material and travel information are commonly viewed in terms of management of unfamiliarity (Dann, 1992). However, while guidebooks fall within this description, the actual usage of guidebooks evidenced above demonstrates that a simple linear relation between unfamiliarity and guidebook practice is too simplistic. Firstly, it may not be a matter of unfamiliarity in the strict sense of the term. The guidebook user may know the destination well, yet still purchase the newest edition of a guidebook. The guidebook may contain vade mecum information such as maps and bus routes that is not unknown but requires updating. Or the guidebook may be a symbolic element of tourist equipment, along with travel insurance or a first aid kit: requisites that are not really expected to be used, but are carried for safety’s sake.

Towards a Typology of Guidebook Users

145

Secondly, as noted in Chapter 2 and as indicated in blog commentary evinced in Chapters 6 and 7, the guidebook may serve as a shortcut through the information maze. Currently, only a few guidebooks serve as the only or principal travel information to an area. Most guidebooks cover areas to which other travel and tourism information is readily available, something that is made all the more clear with the impact of the internet, portable digital platforms and social media. And yet, the growing availability of information to the world’s prime tourism sites has not eradicated the guidebook. On the contrary, our recent interviews and the evidence from online commentary indicate that it may well be the reverse for some tourists as massive amounts of information and promotion motivate a need for opinionated selection and vetting of available information and activities. The guidebook thus serves as a valuable filter for some users and/or in some locations. The differences in patterns of use thereby also facilitate surmising which guidebook in its conventional printed version may survive the ongoing changes. In diverse ways, and to various degrees, guidebook users master their guidebook – for the simple reason that it is not fully reproduced through use, but is used selectively and in different ways. Just as the guidebook’s representation is selective rather than exhaustive, so is the user’s usage selective, not exhaustive. Thus, it follows that not only can users of different guidebooks end up performing homogeneous patterns of localised tourism consumption, simultaneously, users of the same guidebook can end up performing heterogeneous patterns of tourism consumption, even though a comparable guidebook edition is their main source of information and main foundation for decision-making. Nevertheless, logically, guidebooks do perform some regimentation of some users, at least the users who are not indifferent to the advice found in the guidebook. The challenge, then, is on the one hand to avoid a hypothesising that presupposes a deterministic relation between guidebook and patterns of usage, while on the other hand identifying what types and styles of information are likely to wield some influence on actual choice and consumption. For instance, it is likely that guidebook users who are attentive to the guidebook’s advice may agree or disagree on a specific positive review in the guidebook, thus interacting with the guidebook. Likewise, it is possible that the user may discover something not mentioned in the guidebook (whether the tourist reviews the discovery positively or not). However, it is less likely that the guidebook user consciously ignores a negative review (‘don’t waste your time on that attraction’) in a guidebook with which he or she is otherwise partial. Thus, on the one hand, the guidebook user does not take over the evaluations in

146

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

the guidebook blindly. On the other hand, the character of the evaluation in the guidebook is likely to be influential in how that evaluation is absorbed by the reader/user.

Conclusion This chapter has reported findings from an exploratory study of guidebook use. The subject of tourists’ actual usage of guidebooks is remarkably absent from the literature. The conceptual perspective that we created in Chapter 2 facilitates the analysis of actual tourist usage of guidebooks, since this perspective enables the analysis to move beyond the simplistic causal view of tourist practice as simply caused by the guidebook. Supported by that, in Chapter 7 we questioned the popular view that tourists are slaves to their guidebooks, finding instead that the guidebook and guidebook usage should be viewed as a complex and varied totality. Only in this way is it possible to understand a number of apparent contradictions such as the use of the same guidebook differently by different persons, diverse representations of place in different guidebooks that are apparently consumed in a similar manner, and supplementation of guidebooks by some users with other information while others choose to rely fully on their guidebook. This study did not find that consumers’ readings of guidebooks were undertaken homogeneously. The collection of empirical data intentionally pursued a varied respondent profile, but even so, any pervasive homogeneity across the sample would still be observable in the data. However, while homogeneity is absent, indications of patterns and consistencies are nevertheless evidenced. This facilitates the construction of a typology, which supplies an initial understanding of guidebook users and usage. The approach implemented in our research allows for a large degree of coincidence or accident in the individuals tourist’s choice of guidebook. In other words, it presupposes that the tourist may master his or her guidebook, and does not presuppose that the guidebook necessarily masters its tourist! The tourist experience may, in the end, be the same, regardless of the different choices of guidebook. Likewise, the tourist experience may be different despite the usage of the same guidebook. The present study did not search for data on tourist’s guidebook selection and purchase behaviour, yet the overall findings clearly suggest this as worth investigating. Given that the present study displays both a wide selection of guidebooks and disparate types of usage of the same guidebooks, and given that not all informants was able to reason why one specific guidebook instead of another was purchased, while many reasoned

Towards a Typology of Guidebook Users

147

in favour of a particular publisher, this suggests the complexity of the topic of guidebook acquisition behaviour. Many aspects, including brand loyalty, guidebook composition, first-time/repeat guidebook purchase, reputation among specific visitor segments and of course range of titles available, potentially affect guidebook acquisition behaviour, but the topic needs further scrutiny. The informants in the present study were all classifiable as holiday tourists according to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) definition (World Tourism Organization, 1995), yet business travellers and meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions (MICE) visitors may also field guidebooks. Indeed, the potentially blurred boundaries between work and pleasure in MICE tourism have been recognised by organisers and participants at some tourism research conferences where participants have found the usual tourism promotional material in their conference pack to be supplemented with a travel guidebook to the destination. The use of travel guidebooks among business travellers and MICE visitors is a subject worthy of further investigation, not only because of the potential impact of guidebooks upon the ‘off-duty’ consumption in connection to the visit, but also because the presence of a guidebook in itself signals a dedifferentiation between hitherto ostensibly distinct travel motivation.

9 Permission to Coast? Travel Guidebooks and Tourism Businesses What guidebooks are definitely not good for is food. When you’re on the road, any restaurant that proudly proclaims it was “mentioned in Lonely Planet” is to be avoided like a Qantas business class toilet. A write-up in a major publication like Lonely Planet is like a gift from above for these restaurants. It guarantees a steady stream of gullible tourists for the next two years and basically means they can stop trying. Ben Groundwater, 2007 We are not yet in the Lonely Planet as we are a new hotel. ‘Himalayan Guesthouse Jaisalmer’ flyer, collected April 2008 We don’t spend that much time worrying about guidebooks. I am sure that they have some influence but I don’t think that they have much influence on our customers. Instead of checking guidebooks, we check Tripadvisor, to make sure that we respond to negative reviews. Jacob Rais, general manager, Hotel Sankt Petri, Copenhagen, interviewed September 2011

Introduction In the previous chapter, discussion focused attention on the characteristics and variations of guidebook usage. Our research indicated that many tourists, guidebook users or not, voice strong opinions about guidebooks and guidebook usage. Yet, amid the different patterns of use and conflicting viewpoints concerning guidebooks, users or not, there is one assumption which seems to be shared by many. As identified in our research into media representations of guidebook and data from blogs and interviews, it is routinely conjectured that a good review for a business in a leading guidebook leads automatically to a steady increase in visitation. Such a viewpoint is represented in the quote by Groundwater (2007) which opens this chapter and by Garfors (2013) who asserts that guidebooks: 148

Permission to Coast? Travel Guidebooks and Tourism Businesses

149

(…) tend to influence people into seeing exactly the same things, often even in the same order. That means that service will get worse, prices will go up and you will be surrounded by other tourists. If that is what you are looking for, use guidebooks the way they are intended. If not, use guidebooks to find out where not to go. (Garfors, 2013) We find similar opinions about the impact of guidebooks throughout our fieldwork data and in the online commentary explored in Chapters 6 and 7. As noted before, this assumption of the power of guidebooks to drive business is especially prevalent among self-professed ’travellers’, such as backpackers or other independent tourists on multiple destination journeys. Yet, it is certainly not limited to these as, throughout our research, tourists of many persuasions tended to share the basic tenet that a good guidebook review increased tourist traffic. Our intention in this chapter is therefore to explore this assumption which is surely one of the most clichéd interpretations of the impact of the guidebook on contemporary tourism. At first sight, it seems selfevident: a good review in the latest edition of a guidebook from Lonely Planet, Michelin or Frommer will increase the business volume, which in turn enables a tourism-dependent business to reduce service and quality, in other words, to ‘coast’. Certainly, the first part of this assumption is supported by many of our conversations with small-scale tourism business operators in various locations who commonly expressed the opinion that the right review in the right guidebook could make or break the business operation. However, such anecdotal evidence serves only confirmatory angles and does not enable any analysis to be conducted. We have not found empirical evidence in our own research or in the literature to support assumptions that all positive reviews, even in the most popular guidebooks, automatically cause an increase in numbers of customers/visitors to a business. Nor have we found evidence to support the assumption that a positive review in a popular guidebook makes tourism businesses slacken their efforts and coast. It is our contention therefore that, as with elements of guidebook use described in Chapter 7, the apparent effect of guidebook recommendations may once again be a fallacy of perspective. Do researchers and commentators only observe that behaviour which appears to confirm rather than refute this opinion? We suspect as much. Moreover, the examples of such positive business effects and negative quality effects are almost invariably connected to particularly popular or high-profiled guidebooks. While this is not surprising, it does leave to speculation any understanding about the cumulative influence of the multitude of guidebooks from different

150

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

publishers and in diverse languages. As commented upon throughout this book, especially in Chapter 6, guidebooks generally, but also specific brands can attract strong derision. This pillorying is of such a character as to merit further reflections in Chapter 12. Overall, there is a dearth of published scholarly knowledge about the effect of guidebook appraisals on tourism businesses. This lacuna unfolds in several directions since there is almost nothing to be found either about the actual effect of a business achieving or losing a reference in a major guidebook. Adding to this paucity of understanding, the voices of the tourism business operators themselves are strikingly absent from the research. In this chapter, therefore, we look into what is a triple inconsistency. It exists across, firstly, the popular wisdom that a good guidebook review of a business leads to an automatic increase in visitation; secondly, the lack of research into the impact of travel guidebook appraisal on businesses; and, thirdly, the very mixed views from diverse tourism business operators in different places around the world on the issue of how important guidebooks are for their business success. This is achieved by means of an appraisal of the limited body of extant research followed by a series of empirical studies in which we investigate business perceptions of guidebook influence in Melbourne, Copenhagen, Bali and Fiji. We add to this a distillation of findings on the business impact of guidebooks from locations that particularly appeal to independent tourists.

Literature Review A thorough search of the research literature reveals only patchy evidence on guidebooks’ influence upon destination development, users’ choices and businesses. The information is fragmentary, and frequently collected and reported as part of other topics rather than as focused research on guidebooks. In particular, we find very little explication of the routine assumption that guidebooks assist in individual business growth. Some findings indicate a notable impact of travel guidebooks on the matter of tourists’ choice of service. Such research is often based on data from survey questionnaires with guidebooks as an answer option, and do not indicate consequences for specific businesses. For instance, in a study of tourism distribution channels in Wellington, New Zealand, Pearce et al. (2004: 407) found guidebooks to be the most important source of information for accommodation arrangements for both domestic and international visitors and for international visitors in visiting attractions and activities. In extension of this, Pearce and Schott (2005) reported similar findings in

Permission to Coast? Travel Guidebooks and Tourism Businesses

151

a study of independent travellers and their use of distribution channels and information sources to two destinations in New Zealand. More generally, Mader (2002: 277) argued that guidebooks are a much better source than government offices or environmental groups for finding information about ecotourism destinations in Latin America, thereby also indicating the importance of these guidebooks for the ecotourism operations in question. More anecdotal information can be found concerning business adaptations to guidebook representations such as Salazar’s (2006: 844) observations that travel guidebooks asserted influence on the business of professional tour guiding in Tanzania. Salazar notes how tourism students in Tanzania who aspire to guide tourists are warned to get their facts right since tourists often bring a guidebook and check information. While guidebooks are frequently included in backpacker research, there is little evidence of focused analysis on the business impacts of backpackers’ guidebook use. Most offer generalised commentary, such as Westerhausen and Macbeth’s (2003: 76) observation that the combined influence of Lonely Planet guidebooks and word-of-mouth recommendations among backpackers create ‘a mini-gold rush atmosphere among local tourism operators’ in destinations emerging to meet the needs of this group. For tourism in general, a few writings demonstrate testing of these claims, such as Zillinger’s (2006: 245) analysis of German tourists in Sweden, which found guidebooks to have ‘the highest direct influence on the choice of tourist site and activity’ followed by personal experience and then tourist brochures. Work by Paris (2012: 1094), however, identified that internet marketing to backpackers by small businesses improved competitive positioning and reached more people faster than was enabled through traditional channels of word of mouth or guidebooks. The assumed influence on pricing when a business is referenced in a guidebook, particularly of tourist accommodation and restaurants, has been explored in a few studies. Zillinger (2006) found a direct correlation between the destinations described in guidebooks and those displaying the highest lodging rates in a Swedish case study. Abrate et al. (2011) investigated the Michelin guidebook as one of several quality indicators with the potential to influence pricing of hotels in Turin, Italy. The quantitative research did not show that a business’s representation in the Michelin guidebook increased room prices although the applicability of the findings to hotels cheaper than those usually found in the Michelin guides is unknown. Thus, the study cannot be taken to indicate the extent to which representation in guidebooks affects accommodation price across the spectrum of guidebooks and tourist markets. The work of Henley et al. (2004) adds further intrigue to the connection between an

152

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

accommodation reference in a guidebook and price. They investigated the influence of the Mobil Guide (now Forbes Travel Guide) ‘check’ indicator, which signalled particularly ‘good value’, on hotel pricing (Henley et al., 2004: 198). When comparing hotels that received a ‘check’ indicator with hotels that did not or had lost the indicator, the researchers found that the presence of the ‘good value’ indicator had the effect of keeping prices stable. In order to retain the recommendation for good value, hotels did not raise their prices. There is also uncertainty about the terminology used in research which identifies links between mentions in a guidebook and tourism businesses. For example, when Hernandes-Maestro and Gonzalez-Benito (2014: 91) find that ‘it is not advisable for authorities or rural tourism establishments to invest further in paper guidebooks’, it is not clear whether commercial guidebooks or local promotional printed listings of facilities are meant. In Chapter 2, we identified how a lack of delineation of the guidebook in the academic literature has influenced understanding of its place in the tourism system. Combined with the assumption that all guidebooks have the same essential influence on consumer use and destination development, this failure to delimit the guidebook under study inevitably affects the quality and generalisability of findings. It is noteworthy, however, that while the influence of guidebooks on tourism businesses is rarely investigated, guidebooks are nevertheless utilised by researchers for the function of identifying traders to be examined for other purposes. Karanasios and Burgess’s (2008) study of the use of unstable or expensive internet access by entrepreneurial businesses in Malaysia and Ecuador offers an example. Other research undertaken by Weidenfeld et al. (2010) on the use of guidebooks as one of several sources for identifying attraction clustering in Cornwall, UK, or Osland and Mackoy’s (2004) identification of a sample of ecolodges in Costa Rica and Mexico, offer further illustration of this approach. Such use of guidebooks, based on the implicit assumption of their influence in identifying businesses for investigation, underscores the necessity for specific research into the relationship between guidebook recommendations and tourism business success. In summary, our review of the literature indicates that the putative impact of guidebooks on tourism businesses is all but unstudied from a business point of view. The scant extant research mostly adopts the perspective of guidebook influence on tourists’ choices and thus its presumed effect on tourism businesses. No focused research on business operators’ views on guidebooks has been located. It is primarily to this matter that we turn in the following brief case studies of tourism businesses

Permission to Coast? Travel Guidebooks and Tourism Businesses

153

and guidebooks in Melbourne, Copenhagen, Bali and Fiji. The results of each case study are given in the following sections, and a further section adds insights into guidebooks and tourism businesses in areas with less tourism volume, before the salient themes of these findings are brought together in a concluding discussion. Together they offer diverse insights into business owners’ perceptions of the significance of the guidebook to their operations with implications for understanding the assumed relationship between guidebook mention and business success.

Case Study 1. Melbourne: Perceived Impact of Lonely Planet Guidebooks Among Tourism Operators in a Tourist Precinct The aim of this case study was to investigate the perceived importance and relevance of a prominent guidebook as a communication and marketing tool from the tourist business perspective. We conducted a small survey of tourism establishments located in the Melbourne suburb of St Kilda, which were mentioned in the Lonely Planet Australia (2009, 2011) guidebook. Since the 1880s, the Fitzroy Street precinct in St Kilda has been recognised as a tourist hub and, since the late 1980s, has operated as a backpacker enclave of Melbourne. Lonely Planet guidebooks are frequently evident in the hands of tourists in the St Kilda environs. A preponderance of cafes and bars, a beachside location, close proximity to the Melbourne central business district (CBD) and a large stock of affordable accommodation have proven to be a magnet for young international tourists. We examined the 2009 and 2011 editions of the Lonely Planet Australia guidebook and identified tourism operators in each edition. Table 9.1 indicates the number of venues identified under each business category for each year and the number of venue operators who participated in the faceto-face survey. Several operators mentioned in the 2009 edition were not listed in the 2011 edition, which may have been as a result of the rise of online accommodation booking services in competition with the print guidebook. Of those in the sights and activities group, four operators had closed down while four of the operators in the accommodation group did not respond to our contact. When approached, a number of operators in the eating and drinking groups declined to participate or claimed to not have been at the venue long enough to offer informed commentary. Given the low number of responses from operators in the eating and drinking

154

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

Table 9.1 St Kilda venues in Australia 2009 and 2011 and number of participant operators No. of venues

Sights and activities Accommodation Eating Drinking Total

2009

2011

Participated

6 12 8 6 32

4 6 8 3 21

5 5 1 2 13

groups, these were not included in our analysis, leaving data from a total of 10 businesses. The participating operators were subjected to a brief interview, during which they were asked five questions. These addressed their business in relation to a mention in a guidebook, perceived impact where a mention did or did not exist and their perception of the value of guidebooks in relation to other market communication. While these questions were close-ended, at the end of the interview operators had the opportunity to share their views. The first question asked whether the operator was aware of his or her business being referenced in the Lonely Planet guidebook. Four of the accommodation providers and two sights and activities operators indicated their awareness of such a mention. The positive response was less than might have been expected given the significance of international backpackers attracted to the area for which Lonely Planet’s Australia is a leading publication. In the second question, the operators were asked the degree of importance they attached to achieving a positive reference in a guidebook. Five options were given, spanning from very important to unimportant. The distribution of the 10 responses is shown in Table 9.2. Seven of the 10 respondents felt it to be important or very important that they achieve a positive reference in a guidebook. While no general lessons can be drawn from such a small sample, these findings reflect a noteworthy inconsistency in responses. While in the previous question, 4 out of the 10 respondents were unaware of their business being mentioned in any guidebook, only 1 found it unimportant to be mentioned. The inconsistency continues in the answers to the third question in which the operators were asked to rank eight forms of market communication where 1 indicates the most important. The forms do not express mutually exclusive categories, and no participants ranked all

Permission to Coast? Travel Guidebooks and Tourism Businesses

155

Table 9.2 Response rate to the question ‘what degree of importance do you attach to achieving a positive reference in a guidebook’? Response

Response no.

Very important Important Neither Unimportant

1 6 2 1

eight forms, meaning that quantitative treatment of the data would be meaningless. Instead, the purpose of the question was to collect insights into operators’ perceptions of guidebooks when viewing these in relation to other forms of market communication. Table 9.3 shows this ranking according to operators who are designated by the letters A to J. The curious regularity in Operator A’s answers indicates that the ranking instruction might have been misunderstood. Of the remaining nine responses, none ranked five or more forms of market communication, and only two ranked four forms – in both cases ranking the guidebook as 4 and last of those ranked. Only one other operator apart from Operator A ranked guidebooks at all. Thus, while overall the data in Table 9.3 are anomalous, they reflect a noteworthy inconsistency. While 7 out of 10 in the previous question found guidebooks to be important, only 4 out of 10 actively selected guidebooks in their ranking. The fourth question asked the operators to indicate the proportion of customers they thought had come to the business because of references Table 9.3 Operators ranking of forms of advertising and marketing from 1 (most important) Operator

Form of advertising/ marketing

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

Radio

1

 

 

2

 

 

 

 

 

 

Print

2

1

 

3

1

 

3

3

3

 

Guidebooks

3

2

 

 

 

 

4

 

4

 

Television

4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Billboards

5

 

 

 

 

3

 

 

 

 

Social media

 

 

1

1

 

 

 

 

 

 

Internet

 

 

2

 

2

2

1

2

1

2

Word of mouth

 

 

 

 

3

1

2

1

2

1

156

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

given in a guidebook. Three of the operators declined to comment on the question as they did not have any data on which to give an informed opinion. Of the seven operators who did comment, none thought that a large number of customers had selected his or her business because of the guidebook review. Four operators thought that a small but significant number had come because of the guidebook, while three operators thought that only a very small and insignificant number of clients had come as a result of the guidebook review. Finally, the operators were given the chance to further comment, in their own words, on the importance or role of guidebooks in relation to their business. Five of the respondents offered additional comments regarding their view of the current importance of the printed guidebook. Operators described how guidebooks were once an important source of business but that this importance has declined in recent years; ‘guidebooks have been an important vehicle for growing the business in the past’. Guidebooks were ‘critical 5 or 6 years ago but not now ... Their time has come and gone’. This was widely assumed to be because of internet-based peer-to-peer platforms; ‘[Our] clients mainly come from TripAdvisor and wotif’.

Case Study 2. Copenhagen: Perceived Impact of Guidebooks Among Hoteliers and Other Service Providers Data collection in Copenhagen, Denmark, took place in 2011–2012. Compared to the study site of St Kilda in Melbourne, the Lonely Planet guidebook is less ubiquitous and a range of guidebooks can be seen in tourist areas. Given the closer proximity of foreign markets on the one hand, and the pervasive domestic market position of Copenhagen on the other, the composition and characteristics of visitor types and their travel planning also differ from that of Melbourne. Although on the seasonal European backpacker routes, Copenhagen, unlike Melbourne, does not have a distinct backpacker environment. It is therefore our impression that, while there is a broader variation of visitor types to Copenhagen and a more extensive selection of guidebooks are utilised, the ‘heavy users’ of guidebooks are relatively fewer. As a consequence, the direct business impacts of guidebooks may be much less directly discernible for researchers or businesses. Data collection in Copenhagen thus adopted a more open, fully qualitative method than that in Melbourne. The main focus was on the

Permission to Coast? Travel Guidebooks and Tourism Businesses

157

accommodation sector which was sampled opportunistically by exploiting the personal networks of the authors. The only sampling criteria were data collected from serviced accommodation operators of a size above that of B&B, small guesthouse or similar, in various price ranges and both hotels that were present and hotels that were not present in major guidebooks. Hostel-like accommodation was therefore included. Half-hour interviews with senior staff from seven accommodation establishments were obtained. Other service providers (not food and beverage) were identified selectively and opportunistically in order to get perceptions from operations most likely to be influenced by guidebooks. Interviews were held with a guide from the tour guide group for the ‘Freetown Christiania’; a curator from Rosenborg Castle, the repository of the Danish crown jewels; and a bicycle rental agency. Rosenborg Castle appeared in the guidebooks to Copenhagen we checked, as did Freetown Christiania, for which the guidebooks mainly recommended tourists to use the tour guide group. The five guidebooks checked also suggested that tourists visiting in summer should hire a bicycle to experience a local perspective. Several listed rental agencies were referenced in the guidebooks including that of the operator interviewed for this study. Restaurants were also included in the initial research. However, although operators in various price ranges were contacted as identified in generic (i.e. not food specialised) guidebooks, most were disinclined to participate. As a consequence, restaurants were necessarily removed from the Copenhagen data collection, as in Melbourne. A first finding was the type of awareness and perceptions that hoteliers displayed. All claimed knowledge about references to their operation in one or more guidebooks. In all but two cases, however, the information was not actively sought, but passed on by clients. The two exceptions were budget accommodation providers who claimed to actively check on the existence and nature of a listing in multi-country or continental guidebooks from Lonely Planet, Rough Guides and Let’s Go, aiming to capitalise on the seasonal backpacker market. These two operators believed that ‘budget travel guidebooks’ had some influence on building clientele although it was difficult to discern the extent of influence since most customers booked online. They also asserted that knowledge of how/if they were reviewed would forearm them in case of queries from possible customers. Neither operation indicated there was any direct link between reviews and price. Both operations utilised a season-based pricing system rather than a flexible yield management system. The remaining five comparatively more expensive hotels displayed only limited guidebook awareness. These operators duly noted a reference

158

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

to their business when informed by clients although this information was not actively sought. Several reasons were given for this. One indicated that guidebooks were not important (yet the operation stated that the hotel did take pleasure in a positive reference in a guidebook), while another stated that there were so many guidebooks in so many languages that such scrutiny was practically impossible. A third operator explained that such guidebook references were not actionable knowledge since the review was fixed and there was no opportunity to respond to negative reviews with follow-up commentary as was possible with online review sites. All seven accommodation providers stated that they had not actively sought inclusion in guidebooks and that they had not been contacted by publishers or authors for the purpose of soliciting payment for a positive mention in a guidebook. A second finding was the operators’ perceptions of online reviews. Seven accommodation providers were of the opinion that online reviews were very important, citing hotel intermediary sites such as agoda.com, booking.com and hostels.com, the travel agency site kayak.com and travelocity.com and the travel review site TripAdvisor.com. Several of the operators volunteered that the focus on online reviews was based on common sense and that they felt they had a chance to influence matters. While a guidebook was ‘just there, nothing you can do’, a bad review on an online platform could be acted upon by correcting the review or apologising. A third finding was that the hoteliers strongly disagreed with the assumption that a good guidebook review enabled providers to relax since customers would automatically seek out their business. The two operators who attributed importance to guidebooks appeared almost insulted by this assertion. One stated that a good review in an influential guidebook, rather than allowing a business to ‘coast’, instead raised the bar of performance since clients’ expectations were now higher. Additionally, as most bookings were taken online, clients were also likely to take recent reviews into account. Because of this, the hoteliers argued, the ability to ‘coast’ without consequences until a new edition of the guidebook appeared was obviated. To our initial surprise, guidebook references had a larger presence among the three non-accommodation operations interviewed than among the accommodation providers. The bicycle rental agency recounted anecdotal evidence of a situation when they were caught unaware of being included in a guidebook and experienced a sudden increase of customers from one Asian country. The guide from the Freetown Christiania guide group mentioned that tourists were often seen consulting their guidebooks

Permission to Coast? Travel Guidebooks and Tourism Businesses

159

during the tour despite being invited to ask questions of the guide. The respondent believed that a mention in Lonely Planet guides particularly and on the Lonely Planet website definitely attracted visitors that would otherwise not have known about the opportunity for a guided tour. These views were partly shared by the curator from Rosenborg Castle who observed tourists frequently consulting their guidebooks on-site in addition to other information sources. However, Rosenborg Castle management paid little attention to the nature of a guidebook’s reference to their attraction unless information such as prices or opening hours were incorrect. It was believed by the curator that the significance of Rosenborg Castle as a major attraction in Copenhagen was unlikely to be affected by a particular guidebook review, whether good or bad. Still, a good review in a guidebook was also viewed as a matter of pride to staff.

Case Study 3. Bali: Perceived Importance of Guidebooks Among Quality Accommodation Providers Interviews with tourist business operators in Bali took place in 2010– 2014, with most interviews conducted in 2010–2011. The interviews supplement data collection that has been ongoing since 2002. The original intent of the interviews was to obtain insights into guidebook perceptions from several sectors of the Balinese tourism industry. As in the Melbourne and Copenhagen case studies, participation from restaurant operators was difficult to achieve, resulting in interview data from eight upper-range hotels of the kind frequently understood as 4 or 5 star. Upper-range accommodation has a significant presence in many guidebooks to Bali in addition to services for the island’s conspicuous backpacker patronage and predominantly mid-range packaged tourist market. This is the case not only for Bali-specific guidebooks, but also for guidebooks that cover more of Indonesia, generally aimed at affluent independent travellers. Our interest was also to broaden the range of businesses covered in the case studies by investigating awareness of guidebook referencing among upper-range accommodation providers in the Bali context. Interviews were conducted by means of an interview guide with the following results. The majority of hotels were aware of their presence in major Englishlanguage guidebooks. Several also knew they were referenced in guidebooks in other languages, including German, French and Japanese. The hoteliers were generally of the opinion that such references to their business did not

160

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

automatically increase their clientele and that even a glowing review would not alone generate many bookings. Concurrently, such reviews were also recognised as important in driving some customers’ decision-making and therefore could not be ignored. As an example, one hotelier from Oberoi in Seminyak, Bali, reflected that the combination of a well-known chain of luxury hotels and a well-known brand of guidebooks, such as Lonely Planet, would possibly generate bookings. It was felt that the independent review of the guidebook would appeal to the type of visitors that could aspire to pay the rates of Oberoi. All hoteliers saw guidebooks as representing a small part of their overall marketing, which did not attract particular focus from them. Guidebook reviews were valued when management came across them serendipitously as no effort was made to track these references. As in Melbourne and Copenhagen, these Balinese hoteliers viewed online reviews as holding significant importance in their market presentation. Two of those interviewed did reflect, however, that while this focus on online reviews was justified, it was important to understand how potential customers identified their hotels online and that guidebooks might well be playing an important role in this. The informants demonstrated notable confusion over what constituted a guidebook. Several claimed to have paid to be represented in a guidebook although further investigation found these to be accommodation listings compiled and distributed to travel agents, tour operators or individual customers. The informants all viewed such publications as something of the past. When queried more specifically about guidebooks as we have defined them in Chapter 2, none had paid for representation. Two had heard stories, however, about offers of free accommodation at their hotel to ‘travel writers’ from guidebook publishers, but there were no recent examples. When asked whether free accommodation might in future be provided for a positive review, none of the informants could provide an unequivocal answer.

Case Study 4. Fiji: Perceived Importance of Guidebooks Among Centrally and Peripherally Located Accommodation Providers Case Study 4 in Fiji was conducted with four accommodation businesses only. Two of the accommodation providers, identified as Property 1 and Property 2, are located on the main Fijian island of Viti Levu. The other two

Permission to Coast? Travel Guidebooks and Tourism Businesses

161

accommodations are on the remote Yasawa archipelago off the north-west coast of Viti Levu and are identified as Property 3 and Property 4. Data was collected in 2012. Of those on the main island, Property 1 is an upperrange five-star hotel in an enclave of similar properties which attracts a substantial international family and honeymoon market. Property 2 is a mid-range hotel which had experienced strong visitor numbers when backpacker travel to Fiji grew rapidly in the late 1990s. The third and fourth properties located in the Yasawa archipelago are accessible only by boat from Viti Levu. Property 3 is an indigenous Fijian-owned business offering modest accommodation ranging from backpacker dormitories to beachfront bures at a mid-range price. Property 4 is a newer foreign-owned property. Like Property 3, it attracts a mixed clientele including backpackers and budget families although the few luxury beachfront bures are offered at high-end prices. The marketing manager interviewed at Property 1 was convinced that the family four- or five-star market for his hotel would not rely on a guidebook mention for their choice and so there had never been any interest in monitoring guidebooks for this purpose. Instead, online mentions of the hotel through TripAdvisor were most keenly monitored for marketing purposes as this interface was regarded as the information resource of choice for the hotel’s principle market. As in the case studies of Melbourne and Copenhagen, the owner operator at Property 2 indicated that guidebook referrals had been significant for business development from the late 1990s but had waned over the last five years with the increasing use of online social media. The operator followed TripAdvisor, Facebook and Twitter to access guest commentary about his hotel while also keeping ‘an eye on what Lonely Planet is saying about us’. The management of Properties 3 and 4 were asked about their reliance on, and management of, mentions both on peer-to-peer platforms and in guidebooks. In the case of Property 3, there was knowledge of the business being referenced by Lonely Planet but no monitoring of that editorial as to whether it is positively or negatively framed. TripAdvisor was monitored occasionally for commentary. This contrasted significantly with the approach of Property 4 where management intensively monitored peerto-peer traffic through TripAdvisor, Twitter and Facebook. The positive referral of Property 4 in a number of guidebooks was dismissed with the claim ‘we don’t care about guidebooks but we do care about TripAdvisor’. In this remote destination, business-based reliance on guidebooks was all but non-existent.

162

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

Tourism Businesses in Guidebook Trusty Areas: Further Evidence As part of fieldwork on emerging variations of backpacker tourism and other subjects tangential to that of guidebooks, we solicited interviews on the relevance of guidebook recommendations from various business operators. While acknowledging the cursory nature of this evidence, and its focus predominantly on budget tourism businesses, the evidence provides interesting insights into the use of guidebooks in locations with only limited marketing alternatives to the guidebook or very few competing guidebook publications. One example of such a business was a B&B at Cape Tribulation, north of Cairns, Australia. Having lodged at the B&B for a week in 2006 there were opportunities to interact and converse with other lodgers as well as the owner and some of his business colleagues in the area. The chief market for this accommodation was independent tourists on a flexible itinerary with few pre-booked items on their Australia agenda. However, they could not be classified as mainstream backpackers as they demonstrated more spending power, less travelling time, less inclination to seek the company of backpackers and a higher age than mainstream backpackers. If classifiable, this market might be described as senior or short-term backpackers. When questioned on the influence of guidebooks on his business, the accommodation operator stated that being favourably reviewed in the Lonely Planet Australia guide was very important. In his words, the review could ‘make or break’ a small business. The operator noticed a strong connection between a positive review in the Lonely Planet guidebook and the growth of his business and argued that, while being mentioned in the guidebook was better than not being mentioned, the actual wording of the review had a lot of influence on business. However, while the author saw no reason to doubt the operator’s assessment, he nevertheless observed that less than half the lodgers during his stay appeared to carry a Lonely Planet guide. The Rough Guide to Australia was carried by some, while others again had brought guidebooks in other languages than English. More confusingly, the B&B was not mentioned in all of these guidebooks indicating that for some of the clients, information about the business had come from other sources. A similar illustration came from a restaurateur/hotelier and tour operator from Boracay, arguably the best known beach tourism location in the Philippines, encountered in 2002. He complained during discussion

Permission to Coast? Travel Guidebooks and Tourism Businesses

163

about the unfairness of a Lonely Planet guidebook referencing some but not other hotels and restaurants. He suspected that ‘payment’ in the form of either commission or ‘freebies’ was needed to get a business mentioned. Morsels of data, comparable to that from Boracay, have also been collected in India since 1997. In enclaves catering to budget-orientated international tourists including backpackers, one can regularly observe signs proudly announcing ‘Recommended by Lonely Planet’ or similar statements. When conversing with Indian tourism operators who target the backpacker market, grievances of not being mentioned in the Lonely Planet guidebook were frequently voiced. Conversely, however, operators who were mentioned in the Lonely Planet guidebook did not necessarily use this in their promotion to the backpacker market. A few unsystematic items of empirical evidence clearly cannot be used to investigate actual guidebook impacts. What the data can be used for, however, is to invite speculation on what business operators observe and comment upon regarding guidebooks. The data suggest that, while a distanced observer might infer that an operator’s business is influenced by a number of guidebooks, the operator noticed only the most ubiquitous guidebooks. The popularity of Boracay ensures it is covered in almost all guidebooks to the country, yet the operator’s objections in our example were explicitly directed at Lonely Planet. It was similar for the operators in India where no signs have been encountered that boast of recommendation by other guidebooks, nor has any grievances of not being mentioned in other guidebooks been heard. Since these instances were logged, online information availability has increased and now covers most places where in the past only a few guidebooks provided information. Yet, that does not mean the demise of guidebook use in such areas. Evidence collected during fieldwork in 2011–2014 in South and South East Asia suggests that many operators on and off the backpacker trails still vie for presence especially in Lonely Planet guidebooks to the area. This is despite many backpackers carrying guidebooks from other publishers or using older versions of guidebooks for belles lettres knowledge while acquiring vade mecum information online. Previously, technical challenges such as roaming charges, expensive data access and lack of coverage limited the ability for this form of combined information search. It is now more commonplace, even in quite remote locations, to be able to access the internet by means of wi-fi or local SIM card with reasonably priced data, and to store maps and Global Positioning System (GPS)-based information on devices to be used when visiting areas outside of mobile coverage.

164

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

The implication of these issues is further explored in Chapter 11 when we examine the guidebook as a driver of tourist destination development, but they are worth mentioning here. Operators demonstrated a strong tendency to focus on Lonely Planet only when asked about guidebooks and TripAdvisor similarly as the exemplification of all peer-to-peer online review platforms. This was despite many clients carrying other guidebooks and/or informing that they had found opinionated online information elsewhere than TripAdvisor. Scattered cases in the backpacker literature of the last decade support the ongoing influence of guidebooks on individual businesses as an independent marketing channel. Cole (2008) describes how local tourism development in remote areas of Flores in Indonesia flourished through the publicity provided by guidebooks and word of mouth only. One example of a guest house proprietor’s understanding of the effect on business of a poor review from a guidebook is especially insightful. The guesthouse had been very successful until a television was installed and a guidebook author stayed to review (Cole, 2008): ...When someone from Lonely Planet came to check out the hotel, there must have been something popular on and someone might have turned the volume up. In the next edition we were described as ‘very noisy’ and tourists started going to Elizabeth or the Kornia. (Cole, 2008: 117) Local guides working from the accommodation also blamed their downturn in custom indirectly as a result of this review. Cole (2008) also describes the influence of guidebooks such as The Rough Guide to Indonesia (1999) and Periplus’ East of Bali (1991) which gave the names of specific guiding businesses. Our research in the Yasawa archipelago in Fiji also yielded a useful example of the influence of guidebooks on individual business development. On one island, a beachside coffee and cake stand accessible only by walking 2 km from the nearest accommodation was established by an indigenous operator. This indigenous-owned enterprise was first identified in the 2005 edition of Lonely Planet’s Fiji and mentioned in each new edition as growing in visitation. By 2013, there was clear evidence of enhanced commercial viability when the makeshift chairs and tables were replaced by a built shade for patrons who could now purchase a more substantial range of food. Aside from word of mouth from the accommodation establishments on the island, the guidebook provided the only commercial promotion of this business and without charge.

Permission to Coast? Travel Guidebooks and Tourism Businesses

165

Tourism Businesses and Travel Guidebooks: Discussion While first-hand current knowledge on the influence of guidebooks on specific businesses is interesting, the value lies not in the compilation of knowledge based on potentially outdated information, but in the comprehensive understandings afforded by such data. Collectively, the four case studies together with anecdotal evidence from the guidebook trusty tourism trails raise a number of interesting themes concerning the relationship between guidebook referencing and tourism business success as outlined below. Some perspectives on future research approaches are also given. Firstly, our findings suggest little wholesale support for the popular wisdom which equates a positive guidebook review with inevitable significant increases to a facility. Certainly, there is evidence to this effect on the trails of independent, particularly backpacker travel where tourists carry either one or a few guidebooks available to the area. Businesses in these destinations sought by the kind of user described in Chapter 8 as the ‘guidebook trusty’ are more likely to achieve such heightened visitation. Yet, there is little evidence to support such an impact in other types of locations where information and tourist characteristics are significantly more composite as was evident in the case studies of Bali, Melbourne and Copenhagen. Secondly, the larger the scale of business, the less unequivocal was knowledge on the significance of a relevant guidebook reference. Drawing on the apocryphal adage – ‘I know that 50% of my marketing doesn’t work; problem is, I don’t know which 50%’ – such a trend might be easily explained. It is likely easier for the smaller enterprise to keep interpersonal track of how/where customers have acquired knowledge of them than the larger business. Correspondingly, for the larger business involved in various promotional activities, it is progressively more difficult to tease out consumer information sources and drivers in a clear manner. Yet, we note that many larger businesses in the Denmark and Melbourne case studies were unaware of their presence in the more popular guidebooks. Their rejection of the influence of guidebooks on their business success was not based on data or research, but on perception. Operators in Denmark also indicated that guidebook references were problematic in that they were ‘one-way communication’ and could not be ameliorated for customers by a response from the business as was possible with TripAdvisor. Perhaps then it is easier simply to ignore them. Thirdly, we find that while operators may profess knowledge of the existence and nature of a reference to their business in various guidebooks,

166

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

this is inconsistently valued in terms of driving visitation. In the Melbourne case, the majority regarded a positive mention in a guidebook as important or very important but it was not something they monitored. At the same time, operators uniformly objected to the deprecatory notion found in travel blogs and popular writing that a good review allows a business to ‘coast’. Rather, they argue convincingly that a good review requires them to continue maintaining and improving their business to avoid disappointing future clientele who may rely on the review. In this sense, a good review in a guidebook is possibly more valuable to customers in terms of enhancing service motivation than in suggesting an automatic decline in service owing to increased visitation. Fourthly, there is a clear impression that for both guidebooks and online review sites, the business operators have a uniform focus on the marketleading or most highly profiled players, Lonely Planet and TripAdvisor, respectively, almost to the exclusion of others. This is an attitude shared in tourism research which, as we have suggested in Chapter 2, draws frequently on Lonely Planet as the universal exemplification of guidebooks. The comments of business operators on the significance of Lonely Planet and TripAdvisor also highlight the impressionistic nature of their views. In all cases, it was their impression of the significance of one form of information source over another that drove such assessments and not structured research. Fifthly, some businesses are highly dependent on being mentioned in a certain travel guidebook or guidebooks. They provide evidence that the presence and review of their business in a travel guidebook can have significant effect on their success. Conversely, it is also clear that this does not apply to all tourism businesses, either in terms of size, sector, customer segment, geographical location or setup of distribution. It is therefore possible that the make-or-break dependency of guidebook referencing for a tourism business is most keenly felt in small- or micro-size operations, although not all operators are entangled in such dependency. Sixthly, we note that, while restaurant operations are most frequently mentioned in the critique of guidebook influence on tourist choice, these businesses were the least likely to engage with our discussion. In addition, the frequently changing restaurant scene in tourist destinations like those described in our case studies suggests rather an alternative critique of the assumed impact of a favourable guidebook review. Clearly, a business can survive by ‘coasting’ for only a limited time. Finally, what has been investigated here has primarily been the impact of the vade mecum elements of guidebooks on tourism businesses. Indeed, this is the case for much of the fragmentary research on guidebooks and tourism

Permission to Coast? Travel Guidebooks and Tourism Businesses

167

businesses and is to be expected since the concrete recommendations of specific businesses is vade mecum par excellence. In contrast, the business influence of the belles lettres component of guidebooks is much more difficult to discern since the normative, opinionated, often moralistic and certainly differentiating elements of a guidebook have more to do with ‘how’ to consume than with ‘what’ to consume. Nevertheless, it can be postulated that the belles lettres elements of a guidebook may have a more lasting and profound business impact than the basic reviews of tourist services which we have examined here. The preliminary and exploratory work presented here is a first necessary step towards more general knowledge on the nexus of tourism businesses and travel guidebooks. The initial findings suggest a wide dispersion of guidebook influence, from highly dependent to non-influential. Tentatively, a number of factors have been suggested. These include matters such as business size, business sector, customer segment, geographical location, setup of distribution, number of different guidebooks available, availability of other sources of information, although the list is clearly much longer. A conceptually anchored framework of future research would seem essential to gauging the collective if multifaceted influence of a range of guidebooks on individual businesses in varied locations. The indubitable influence in many locations of one or a few guidebook titles seems to be most substantial in locations where the guidebook(s) in question leads the market. A similar influence is not immediately important in locations with a number of competing guidebook titles without any one having acquired market dominance. However, the latter case does not mean that the combined influence of the various guidebooks is not as imposing but that it isn’t as unilateral as in the location with one or few dominating guidebooks.

Conclusion In this chapter, we contend that understanding the nexus between individual businesses and guidebook use is especially significant. While the role of guidebook information on tourist motivation and choice factors remains largely unexplored, limited evidence demonstrates that while guidebooks do play a part in the success of some tourism businesses, in most cases they seem to have little impact. However, as outlined, this relationship is significantly more complex and multidimensional than is immediately evident. There is a seeming contradiction between the degree of influence on tourist behaviour exercised by travel guidebooks and the often casual approach exhibited by tourism operators towards

168

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

the guidebook coverage of their business. However, we found nothing to support the popular assumption that a good guidebook review is a general permission to coast. In Chapter 11, we take a closer look at the e-competition to guidebooks, thus pursuing some of the explorations that this chapter has suggested the need for. Before then, Chapter 10 takes our discussion of guidebook influence on tourism infrastructure further with a focus on guidebooks and tourism destination development.

10 ‘Countdown to Doomsday’? Guidebook Agency in Destination Development There’s no way you can keep it out of the Lonely Planet and once that happens it’s countdown to Doomsday Garland, The Beach, 1997: 139

Introduction In 2006, the English press reported that leaders in Moscow’s tourism industry were fearful that the depiction of their city in a recently published guidebook would result in dramatically declining tourist numbers. Insinuations that the Russian capital is rife with prostitution and criminal activity, and shops ‘awash with counterfeit vodka’, were regarded as particularly damaging (Osborn, 2006: 3). Regardless of the real effect of such claims on visitation to Moscow, important assumptions underlie this concern, chiefly the power of guidebooks to shape destination identity and consumer behaviour with a flow-on effect on tourism growth. This assumption likewise underpins the words of warning from the character in Garland’s novel, The Beach, quoted at the start of this chapter. In this case, Lonely Planet publications are referenced as powerful agents of a harmful style of tourism development engendering a kind of ‘doomsday’ in travel experience; the end of the world for the adventurous traveller. In Chapter 9, we cast serious doubt on the popular wisdom that a positive reference in a guidebook means a tourism business will automatically enjoy an increase in visitor numbers, thereby enabling the business to coast. In this chapter, we further explore this theme on an increased scale by examining the effect of the guidebook on tourist destination development. In particular, we interrogate both established knowledge about, and popular perception of, the power of guidebooks to drive or derail the tourism agenda of destinations. By exploring some of the fragmentary evidence of guidebook impact on destination change evident in the popular and scientific literature, it is

169

170

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

possible to tease out the wider complexity of the implicit cause-and-effect relationship between guidebooks and tourist demand. Our purpose, therefore, is to dissect the interplay between destination development and the guidebooks that promote it. Most frequently, the connection between guidebook and tourism development is evident in explanations of destination branding as a component of image construction. Young (1999: 374) advocates all place promotional material, including guidebooks, as building capital accumulation in the construction of complex meanings about those destinations which drive marketing and investment strategy. As a component of promotional literature, guidebooks therefore have the capacity to generate a ‘destination image in our perception of place and in the creation of desire and recognition of need for such places’ (Andersen & Robinson, 2002: 45). We would also add that a specific guidebook’s image of a destination is not necessarily in accordance with the overall destination image or, as shown in the Moscow example cited above, in accordance with the desired image of destination marketers. Foundation work undertaken by Gunn (1988) identified that destination image is formulated ‘organically’ over time through media and popular culture media sources or from exposure to advertisements and guidebooks, resulting in ‘induced’ image creation. Refining Gunn’s structure further, Gartner (1993) identified eight categories of information contributing to destination image. Word-of-mouth information from individuals with experience of the destination and understanding of its attributes was defined as ‘unsolicited organic’ while word-of-mouth information elicited from a source credible to the user was defined as ‘solicited organic’. In terms of destination image creation, guidebooks fall into the category of ‘solicited organic’ information given that the experience of the author is relied upon by the user to facilitate his or her immersion in that destination. Gartner (1993) argued that popular culture information sources such as guidebooks can alter destination imagery in a relatively brief time frame. Conversely, induced image sources, such as advertising and commercially produced brochure material, were significantly less meaningful particularly for independent tourists, and image alterations by these means necessitated a longer time frame. There is only patchy linking of guidebooks and tourism development beyond the destination marketing literature. One recent exception worthy of mention in the context of guidebooks as defining tourism place is that of Antonescu and Stock (2014) whose methodological approach to guidebooks as signifiers of tourism development is unusually guidebook focused. In order to generate a geo-historical profile of tourism development on a global scale, Antonescu and Stock (2014: 78) described their dilemma at identifying the emergence

‘Countdown to Doomsday’? Guidebook Agency in Destination Development

171

of tourism in a given destination at a specific point in time. Pondering which source of measurement should be applied, they finally turned to guidebooks as a dating tool. In their framing, a location included in a guidebook series or referred to in a guidebook as a place of visitation is a ‘recognition of a place as tourist destination by a social configuration constituted by tourists, editors and redactors’ (Antonescu & Stock, 2014: 78). Echoing MacCannell (1976), to whom a sight not mentioned in a guidebook is therefore unmarked, Antonescu and Stock (2014) maintain that guidebooks provide incontrovertible evidence that tourism has arrived. Framed in this way, the assumption that a mention in a guidebook is indicative of a popular identification of the existence of tourism in a destination becomes largely self-evident. Throughout this chapter, we treat guidebooks as dynamic texts with varied influences on the behaviour of users, and therefore on the destinations they travel to. Our intent is to problematise this relationship through exploring what can be described as three implicit assumptions entrenched both in the research literature and popular perception. These are that: (1) guidebooks create paths to new destinations and thereby instigate change; (2) guidebooks wield significant influence during certain stages of destination development; (3) guidebooks are responsible for an influx of mass tourism. Most often, these three assumptions are conveyed as one interwoven point. Yet, we find that each needs to be explored separately since they rest on separate foundations. By building on the understanding of guidebook use and users discussed in Chapter 7, we approach Assumption 1 by exploring whether any differences to destination impact are discernible according to the nature of the guidebook user. In particular, we examine the role of the independent tourist for whom the guidebook has been found to wield the strongest influence in shaping choice of destination and concomitantly the consumption of local services. In investigating Assumption 2, we address when the guidebook might be regarded as having the greatest impact on destination growth. The discussion draws on Butler ’s familiar tourism area life cycle (TALC) and a number of destination development case studies which problematise popular understanding about when and how guidebook users are most likely to influence tourism growth. This leads to an examination of the third assumption that a guidebook’s existence in the marketplace automatically causes the kind of (negative) influx of mass tourism

172

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

derided by the bloggers whose views on guidebook use were referenced in Chapter 7. What foundation is there for the popular notion encapsulated by the quote from Alex Garland’s novel at the start of this chapter that guidebooks are agents of destination destruction? The following discussion of these three assumptions is not based on empirical evidence specifically collected for that purpose. Instead, we utilise findings and insights developed in the previous chapters together with critical readings of popular and scholarly literature in order to problematise further routine assumptions about guidebook use and impact. The intent therefore is less to provide decisive answers to complex issues, and more to develop a foundation for asking better questions.

Assumption 1: The Role of Guidebook Users in ‘Beating the Path’ As discussed previously in this book, the style of tourism undertaken, either as a package or an independent arrangement, is likely to affect how and to what extent guidebooks directly influence destination development. Nishimura et al. (2006a: 294) highlighted the importance of guidebooks to Japanese package tourists to Australia, observing that ‘the most commonly referenced sources of travel information are not necessarily those over which the destination exercises direct control’. How then does the use of guidebooks by these tourists significantly impact destination development? Certainly, their visitation of sites referenced in the guidebook they field contributes to the building of tourism in the destination. Yet, the explorations in the previous chapter imply that the impact of guidebooks on tourism businesses is likely to increase with greater trip flexibility and to more geographically remote destinations. This in turn suggests that guidebook users with the greatest influence on the development of tourism infrastructure in a destination are those travelling independently. The link is plausible. Research focused on the use of guidebooks by independent tourists such as that by Jayne et al. (2012: 226) emphasise the role of guidebooks in building ‘imaginative geographies’ defining the important experiences for backpackers which are then ‘crossed off the list’. Hanlan and Kelly’s (2005) analysis of place construction in Byron Bay and McGregor’s (2000) research on backpackers in the Indonesian province of Tana Toraja attest to the dynamic relationship between text and tourist experience ‘and the consequent mental constructions of place’. This conception of use parallels that discussed among the bloggers recounted in Chapter 7 whose consumption of guidebooks was intrinsically caught up with ‘doing place’

‘Countdown to Doomsday’? Guidebook Agency in Destination Development

173

and the cultural status such doing afforded the individual (Jayne et al., 2012: 226). While the reflexivity of popular guidebooks in creating destinations has yet to be critically analysed, the bulk of research emphasises the authority of these texts and their power to drive visitation (Bhattacharyya, 1997; Iaquinto, 2012; Kenny, 2002; McGregor, 2000; Sørensen, 2003; Welk, 2008; Westerhausen & Macbeth, 2003). However, as also shown in Chapter 9, while the link between independent tourists utilising guidebooks and destination impact is plausible, it does not necessarily follow that guidebooks, or a particular guidebook, unambiguously, inevitably or causally impacts destination change in the way the quote from Garland suggests. At the very least, the foundations of this assumption need further discussion. Invariably it is the Lonely Planet guidebooks and the independent youth travellers who use them which form the basis for these assumptions in the literature. Hanlan and Kelly (2005) applied Gartner’s (1993) information categories to backpackers in the Australian coastal town of Byron Bay, discovering that 52% of those interviewed mentioned the Lonely Planet Australia as assisting the construction of their image of Byron Bay, while just 24% described brochures in their accommodation as influencing destination image unprompted by the interviewer. In the case of independent tourists in Tana Toraja, the Lonely Planet Indonesia Travel Survival Kit (the ‘travel survival kit’ series title has since been discarded) was carried by almost 60% of the sample and described by one consumer as ‘the last thing I’d give away’ (McGregor, 2000: 34). McGregor (2000) found that just over 50% of the sample were influenced in their understanding of Tana Toraja ‘by both talking to other people and reading their guidebooks’ and 40% claimed to be influenced by their guidebook only (McGregor, 2000: 34). These findings drove McGregor (2000) to conclude that: The guidebooks were found to exert an inordinate amount of power over them and their destinations. This included both how they construct places and, more powerfully perhaps, which places are discussed as potential destinations. (McGregor, 2000: 34) This is borne out in the fragmentary mentions and brief descriptions of guidebooks as agents of development in the tourism literature and particularly in reference to backpacker tourists. Backpackers have been described as motivated to carefully plan their tourism route according to a broadly predetermined programme set out in the guidebooks published for this market (Pryer, 1997; Riley, 1988). Adopting a systems approach to analysing the influence of backpacker guidebooks on destination

174

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

development, Iaquinto (2012: 145) styled this connectivity as ‘making each irreducible’; a kind of self-perpetuating feedback loop leading to exponential mutual growth. Guidebook references linked with word of mouth ensure that meeting places along the backpacker trail acquired unique status among tourist sub-cultures with concomitant growth in tourism-related infrastructure (Slaughter, 2004; Westerhausen & Macbeth, 2003). Pryer (1997: 228) referred to the possession of the Lonely Planet guidebook among this group as ‘one of the truly distinguishing characteristics of the majority of travellers’ and to the role of the first Lonely Planet guidebook, Across Asia on the Cheap published in 1973, in defining an Asian independent traveller route. Likewise, Binder (2004: 98) noted that tourist infrastructure specifically designed for the use of backpackers is ‘mainly formed by the Lonely Planet guidebooks’. Bhattacharyya (1997: 371) noted that such is the prominence of these guidebooks for international travellers to India that Calcutta taxi drivers greet Western tourists immediately asking if they wish to be taken to the tourism hub of Sudder Street, the location where Lonely Planet had identified the cheapest hotels. These observations were also borne out in our own research on the changing morphology of youth tourism destinations and itineraries as constructed by Lonely Planet Australia over a quarter of a century as analysed in Chapter 5. While these scattered pieces of evidence do suggest some guidebookrelated influence on destination development, we remain uncertain about its extent and importance. The mythology of guidebooks significantly contributing to the ‘beaten path’ assumes that without the guidebook there would have been no tourist destination development or at least very little. There is no generalisable evidence that we have uncovered to describe such a unilinear evolution across backpacker destinations globally. Kuta in Bali, Cairns in Australia, Goa in India and Ko Samui in Thailand as examples might well have developed as tourist destinations without significant guidebook influence although somewhat variably and at a different pace perhaps. Guidebooks and speed of destination development is a factor addressed in the influence of guidebooks at particular stages in destination development, the second assumption which we turn to next.

Assumption 2: Guidebooks and Stages of Destination Development In addition to the examples given above by Pryer (1997) and Binder (2004), is that of Welk (2004: 87) who describes guidebooks as central to backpacker

‘Countdown to Doomsday’? Guidebook Agency in Destination Development

175

destinations during the foundation or exploratory period because these tourists are especially motivated by ‘undiscovered’ places. They therefore serve as ‘scouts for the tourism industry’ bringing mainstream tourism in their wake. For Westerhausen and Macbeth (2003: 73), the influence of Lonely Planet guidebooks specifically at the earliest stages of destination development, combined with word-of-mouth recommendations from the traveller peer group, is indisputable: Once declared a desirable destination by both Lonely Planet and word of mouth alike, visitor numbers can expand almost exponentially. This tends to be accompanied by a mini-gold rush atmosphere among local tourism operators until the destination becomes established as a fullyfledged subcultural centre. (Westerhausen & Macbeth, 2003: 73) It is easily understood that guidebooks play a role in destination development, particularly with regard to independent tourists, while also doubting the inevitability or singularity of their influence. At what stage then might the guidebook be regarded as having the greatest impact on destination growth? What is the evidence that guidebooks play a significant role in developing destinations in their earliest phases or later once tourists are demonstrably present? Butler’s seminal TALC offers a useful framework for our reflections. Proposing a general tourism destination development theory, the model identifies an initial exploratory stage followed by involvement, development, consolidation, stagnation and decline or rejuvenation (Butler, 1980). A trickle of explorers or independent tourists are described as the tourist forerunners in the early exploration stage of the life cycle with their needs increasingly met by interested local operators during the involvement stage. With time, package tourists begin arriving at what is identified as the development stage of the destination when extensive marketing of the region and external control of infrastructure and services become increasingly obvious. At this stage, the independent tourists presumably have moved on to less-popular destinations leaving the destination to the package tourists. Much debated, the TALC model seems to be the concept that underlies both scholarly and popular assumptions of how travel guidebooks, in the hands of self-organised tourists, assist in driving that development. Closely connected with the ‘path-making’ assumption dissected in the previous section, and illustrated by the Westerhausen and Macbeth (2003) quote above, guidebooks in the style of Lonely Planet, Let’s Go and Rough Guide are implicitly and explicitly viewed as having a particularly strong

176

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

impact in the early stages of the TALC progression. However, the research literature provides examples to contradict the uniformity of this pattern. Examining accounts of the tourism history of three destinations, Bali in Indonesia, Kathmandu in Nepal, and Antarctica can effectively underscore the complexity of this question of when guidebooks play a pivotal role in destination development. In the case of Bali, package tourism emerged during the 1920s when the Dutch Navigation Company (KPM) opened a tourist bureau and built a hotel in the capital city of Denpasar. Bali, and especially the erstwhile fishing village of Kuta, became a popular destination for young independent travellers on the hippie trail through South East Asia in the 1960s (Yamashita, 2003). Lonely Planet published Across Asia on the Cheap, which included Bali, in 1973. A similar pattern of tourism development is evident in the case of Kathmandu. After the reinstatement of the constitutional monarchy in 1951, Nepal received its first modern international tourists, largely wealthy middle-aged North Americans on round-the-world package tours (Liechty, 2005). Between 1965 and 1970, however, the average annual growth rate in tourist numbers increased from 15% to 40% with the influx of predominantly young independent travellers, adherents of Western countercultures, establishing the hippie route overland from Europe to South East Asia (Liechty, 2005). Thus, the first waves of tourism, beyond that of an exploration stage to each of these destinations, were not supported by the existence of relevant guidebooks aimed at backpackers or their predecessors. Instead, guidebooks served to expand access to an existing destination which had only been reached via a tour group to those who subsequently arrive independently. A similar evolutionary pattern is evident in the case of Antarctica. Stonehouse and Snyder (2010) describe the foundation stage of tourism to Antarctica in European exploration parties from the mid to late 19th century. A genesis of commercial tourism to Antarctica had to wait until the mid1950s when tourists and operators realised that ‘safe, commercially viable visits to the Antarctic region would be possible only for large organised parties in dedicated ships or aircraft’ (Stonehouse & Snyder, 2010: 46). Visitation patterns remained scattered and visitor numbers low from the mid-1950s until the 2000s, although small independent operators began servicing the destination by plane and boat in conjunction with the larger-scale cruise industry. Small numbers of independent tourists arriving by private boat or aircraft are now also evident. The example of Antarctica is illuminating to the extent that the vast majority of visitors to this destination arrive on packaged cruises with independent tourism a minor element. At the same time, there are five English language guidebooks to Antarctica currently

‘Countdown to Doomsday’? Guidebook Agency in Destination Development

177

available through Amazon from publishers including Bradt, Cadogen and Lonely Planet with apparently little effect on the generation of tourism development in the destination. These guidebooks contextualise the experience for the packaged consumer. They are not, however, key drivers of visitation which is heavily dependent on other promotional sources, such as online tour companies, since inaccessibility bars access beyond the very few. Insight into the role of the guidebook in destination development can also be found when two alternative destination development models are compared such as the mass package tourist destination of Cancun in Mexico, and the more incrementally developing destination of Bali. In the case of Cancun, external capital enabled tourism development to leapfrog the first steps of the TALC model to quickly create a high tourist volume destination. In the case of Bali, development has also been swift but geographically more dispersed over the island with different areas attracting different types of tourists with different degrees of guidebook use. The arrival of independent tourist explorers in the earliest phases of the TALC model established Kuta Beach as a backpacker haven while the Sanur Beach area was set aside as the first package tourism hub. Local capital in tourism was subsequently joined by government and external capital resources with the provision of an international airport and major hotel chains designed to capitalise on the resources initially experienced by a few. In both cases, tourism would have occurred in these destinations with or without the intermediary of a guidebook, despite different models of TALC development. A key factor which drives the continued development of tourism in a destination is the existence of tourist infrastructure and attractions which, in turn, make the guidebook a commercial possibility. In the case of the tourism development of Bali, visitation through South East Asia in the 1960s was made possible by the existence of guest houses which served markets other than the young Western tourists establishing what would become known as ‘the hippie trail’, and by modes of transport servicing domestic commuters (Yamashita, 2003). The arrival of these new tourists meant both the development of new infrastructure centred, in the case of Kathmandu, on ‘Freak Street’ where hashish could be legally bought and consumed, and also the adaptation of existing hotels and restaurants for tourist purposes. Restaurants catering explicitly to these tourists opened from the mid-1960s generating a well-known food centre known among tourists as ‘Pig Alley’. In the case of Australia, the burgeoning international backpacker market moving beyond the capital cities had at their disposal a wealth of tourism infrastructure which

178

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

had been used by package and domestic tourists for decades. In the development of Lonely Planet, publisher Tony Wheeler saw a market and his guidebooks expanded the accessibility of visiting these destinations to independent tourists. As he argues, Lonely Planet didn’t initiate tourism to these destinations as it was already in existence although on a smaller scale (Wheeler & Wheeler, 2006). We contend that while guidebooks do stimulate tourism growth in a destination, other factors are more prominently at play in determining the strength of that evolution. The example of tourism development in the northern Australian city of Cairns is a case in point. Here, the existence of guidebooks highlighting the destination for international backpackers coincides with significant growth in the region among this segment of visitors. However, the installation of an international airport to service the region from 1984 and rapid development of mostly environmental products are arguably stronger influences on destination growth. As well as extant tourism infrastructure, positive word of mouth is commonly identified as a strong and indeed growing driver of destination development. Describing the relatively early days of backpacker travel in the 1980s, Riley (1988) found that word of mouth provided faster and more effective communication among youth travellers than the guidebooks they carried. This finding was more recently reproduced by Iaquinto (2012) whose 2006 study of the influence of Lonely Planet guidebooks on backpackers in Australia found them to be significantly less regarded than word-of-mouth advice from other backpackers and locals. Lonely Planet guidebooks were viewed as approximately comparable in value as an information source to the internet in general. Iaquinto (2012: 149) draws from this finding that Lonely Planet plays an ‘ancillary role’ in the information system of backpackers. It was also deduced from this study that guidebooks were now less influential than suggested in earlier research. Qualitative evidence from the study suggested that guidebooks serve best as an information source for consumers at the beginning of the journey when places are more unfamiliar or in combination with several sources of information. However, they are to be seen as ‘only one influence amongst many that collectively influence tourists’ (Iaquinto, 2012: 149). Although intuitively attractive, the assumption that backpackers wielding Lonely Planet guidebooks in particular stimulate progression from the involvement to the development stages of the TALC is not supported. While there are random examples where guidebooks and rapid tourism development coincide, there is little evidence to support a direct causal relation where it is possible to rule out alternative factors. Thus, while not necessarily driving a process of change, guidebooks can be seen as important

‘Countdown to Doomsday’? Guidebook Agency in Destination Development

179

in ascertaining the continuous popularity of some destinations by certain types of visitors. Continuity of patronage is maintained at the destination despite the changes which can occur over time when destinations grow tourist numbers. Bali illustrates this point where, despite rapid growth and change, the island still looms large on the backpacker circuit. In this way, it can be argued that, rather than creating an ultimately destructive path causing young independent tourists to abandon the destination, their guidebooks enable these visitors to continue frequenting the destination, by illuminating destination features and locations particularly attractive to this segment. At the very least, guidebooks serve as a shortcut through the mass of facilities and information that the growth in tourism volume has generated.

Assumption 3: Guidebooks as Agents of Destruction In arguing that the impact of guidebooks on destination development, even at the early stages, is far from given, we also question the validity of the third assumption. This holds that in driving new demand, guidebooks are responsible for an influx of destructive mass tourism which is the result of inevitable destination development. A popular notion expressed in the blog data we reviewed, a destination’s assured ‘countdown to doomsday’ after being mentioned in a guidebook, merits some reflection. Westerhausen and Macbeth (2003: 73) observed that backpacker centres are frequently overtaken by mass tourists, in ‘an onslaught of unbridled growth’, which subsequently drives the backpackers to search for destinations less frequented by package tourists. If guidebooks are not causing the development, however, might their existence in the marketplace then at least be taken to signify rapid tourist growth in a destination? For Antoenescu and Stock (2014: 80) ‘guidebooks are the means by which a tourist place is defined, with all the strengths and limitations such a status entails’. Their approach frames the continued mention of destinations in a guidebook series as representative of their status in the marketplace as recognised tourist destinations while places removed from later editions of a guidebook are marked as a ‘tourist failure’. In other words, mentions of a place in a guidebook verify its ongoing status as a recognised tourist destination. Yet, as indicated in Lonely Planet’s Australia examined in Chapter 5 of this book, individual destinations referenced in an early edition of a guidebook series are not always included in subsequent editions. This does not mean that these destinations have ceased to exist, nor that they are not visited by tourists, but that for editorial reasons they no longer feature

180

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

and have failed to capture the ongoing attention of a guidebook market. In later editions of Australia, as the number of indexed destinations decreased, lengthier place descriptions of ‘must see’ places concomitantly increased in number together with associated accommodation options and activities. These changes could emanate from the rapid development of a product suitable to the backpacker market over time as well as experimentation by the publishers in an attempt to optimise the product overall. In the case of Australia, there are notably fewer changes to indexed destinations from the 1990s possibly as a result of a maturing backpacker product and the creation of identifiable backpacker routes and the kind of traveller hubs described by Pryer (1997). Evidence therefore exists that guidebook mentions do not automatically ensure an avalanche of tourism to the destination although further empirical research is needed in this area. Closely tied to the idea that a guidebook signals tourism growth is the concomitant anxiety among some about the agency of guidebooks in the apparent ‘destruction’ of destinations. The guidebook as an agent of destruction heralding ‘doomsday’ for destinations previously untouched by tourism is an enduring trope underpinned by Western nostalgia for a mythical ‘unbeaten path’. The desire for an idealised and ahistorical ‘undiscovered destination’ reflects a fundamental anxiety of the late-modern world. At its core lies the motivation to experience a perceived authenticity of culture and place beyond the mediated accounts of guidebook authors. Oakes and Minca (2004: 284) describe how this tension arises from the consumer’s striving ‘for ever more reliable forms of representation’ while simultaneously regarding ‘all forms of representation with suspicion’. Indeed, such is the popular understanding of the guidebook as a universal and largely pejorative object of contemporary tourism that the publication of a pastiche of the genre titled Molvania: A Land Untouched by Modern Dentistry (Cilauro et al., 2003) elicits the following comment from a writer: It was probably just a matter of time – as the world metamorphoses into a pre-digested Let’s Go/Lonely Planet theme park, the travel guidebook has attained a level of ubiquity crying out to have the piss taken. (Jeffrey, 2003: 29) The guidebook as both facilitating commodification of place while espousing an ethic working against the routine experiences understood as mass tourism is overtly evident in the case of Lonely Planet and similar publishers and is akin to an ‘heroic irony’ according to Buzard (1993). In the quote from Garland’s book The Beach leading this chapter, the protagonist asserts that place mentions in Lonely Planet’s Thailand series

‘Countdown to Doomsday’? Guidebook Agency in Destination Development

181

will not simply act as a spur to tourism but that they will ultimately destroy the destination; a ‘countdown to doomsday’. Yet doomsday for whom? In this and other variations of the widespread ‘from traveller to tourist’ elegy, the derogatory framing of the presumably destructive mass tourists who are gullible enough to be satisfied with a ‘destroyed’ destination is evident in the lamentation. We would argue, so is the persistent stigmatisation of the guidebook. However, where the traveller–tourist dichotomy has been subjected to much critique and deconstruction, the guidebook as the silent partner in this, has not. This negative framing of the impact of guidebooks on destination development turns on the views of those who articulate a desire to be free to experience a destination without the presence of other tourists. Among the independent tourist segment, these ‘other’ tourists have been derisively framed as ‘the LP crowd’ by the blogger cohort referenced in Chapter 6. It is their supposed blind following of the guidebook which allegedly facilitates the destructive ‘LP effect’ where tourism businesses mentioned in Lonely Planet guidebooks allow declining standards because they are guaranteed a flow of gullible guidebook-wielding tourists. Evidence for this claim is almost entirely anecdotal, and has been criticised for lack of substance and rigour in Chapter 9. Defending their role as one small component in the engine driving globalisation of tourism, Lonely Planet’s Maureen and Tony Wheeler recall the Mexican artist Miguel Covarrubias who wrote in his classic work on the art and culture of Bali published in 1937, of his fear that too many tourists would ultimately destroy the beauty of the island. Despite shared sympathy with those who would favour a less crowded travel experience, the Wheelers advocate tourism as bringing benefits to Bali which outweigh its detractions and of the role of their publishing house in the touristification of Bali as relatively minor. Caricaturing the alleged effects of Lonely Planet guidebooks, Wheeler and Wheeler (2008) write that Somehow our little guidebook-publishing company has expanded the airport, bought the aircraft, increased the flight frequencies, sold the package tours, built the hotels and restaurants, equipped the rent-a-car fleets and convinced all the visitors to go there. (Wheeler & Wheeler, 2008: 344) In Chapter 9, we focused on the impact of guidebooks on tourism business development where it was observed that the kind of localised commercial enterprise benefitting developing economies could be assisted through the free advertising of guidebooks, although this far from always

182

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

seems to happen. There is strong evidence in the literature suggesting that independent tourists have played a positive role in facilitating local entrepreneurial activities in developing economies (Hampton, 1998; Jarvis & Peel, 2010; Scheyvens, 2006; Visser, 2004). These tourists were found to contribute to the exchange of foreign earnings across larger areas than tourists reliant on mainstream mass package arrangements as they tended to visit more isolated regions. Guidebooks can therefore be seen to play a significant role in growth in the early stages of an organically evolving destination through their free support of local businesses. These initial grass-roots interactions can also provide local communities with enhanced opportunities to engage with the potentially highervolume tourism to come. However, there is some evidence that the link is not always wholly positive for community-level tourism in destinations which rely acutely on the information available through guidebooks for key source markets. In an examination of localised tourism development in remote areas of East Indonesia, Cole (2008) describes guidebook publishers as ‘distant actors who influence events locally’ with the effect that destinations can either flourish under the supportive publicity of a guidebook editorial or fail to attract. Cole (2008) presents the case of two villages, Wogo and Bena, vying for tourism development on the island of Flores. Guidebook representation was found to be highly influential to destination development: All the guidebooks mention both, but all mention Bena before Wogo… Bena is variously described as the most beautiful, traditional and even the best. It is therefore no surprise that tourists ask their guides to take them to Bena. As one guide told me ‘They believe what they read in the guidebooks, they all want to see Bena for themselves. Transport is too expensive and it takes too long to go to Wogo as well. Most tourists have made up their minds from what the guidebooks say. Even more poignantly, it can be suggested that guidebooks may actually impede development and change in a tourism destination. Nost (2012) provides evidence of the guidebook’s negative impact on development in the case of a peripheral area in Costa Rica. Guidebooks covering this area emphasise relaxed beach tourism, which together with corresponding representation in other tourism material about the same area has actually stifled or denounced development. Tourists and expatriates who do not want change in the shape of growth proliferate in the area while the representation further hampers the use of other nontourism potential the area possesses. Nost thus questions the frequently

‘Countdown to Doomsday’? Guidebook Agency in Destination Development

183

held view that tourism is the resource for peripheral areas by arguing that the power of tourism and place representations may actively repress other developments. Relevant to our point, Nost also seems to be arguing that the inevitability of more tourist volume and higher-level capital and organisation in a destination is not a certainty, even when the potential for such a development is present. These ideas give an interesting closing twist to our contemplations on guidebook impacts on destinations. Far from speeding up unwanted change, guidebooks may have helped stymie development, touristic or otherwise, by assisting the attraction of visitors who want no change.

Conclusion The signature role of modern tourism in place production is widely accepted and the influence of an existing guidebook on those destinations frequently assumed. In exploring the implicit cause-and-effect relationship between guidebooks and tourist demand, several points emerge from our discussion. Firstly, the impact of guidebooks on destination development is significantly more complex than is often supposed. Our analysis suggests that the legacy of guidebooks in developing tourism destinations is both greater and lesser than what is frequently understood and that this is dependent on a range of intersecting factors contributing to the overall development of tourism in that place. In addition, the existence of a guidebook, or guidebook mention, does not automatically signify a destination’s rapid growth as a site of mass tourism. Mass package-style tourism may occur following an initial stage of guidebook-led independent tourism development in the destination, before independent tourists have arrived in any number, and also concurrently. The stereotype of the guidebook as an inevitable Trojan horse of deleterious mass tourism simply does not hold. Furthermore, and as a corollary of the first point, the user and the type of guidebook usage in which he or she engages, appears to have significant influence on the extent to which guidebooks stimulate tourist demand and concomitant provision of supply infrastructure in the destination. The scant scientific evidence pointing to the effect of guidebooks on destination development once again highlights the effect of youthoriented independent guidebook publishers with an emphasis on localised infrastructure development over corporate businesses. Indeed, the doubts raised against the three assumptions elicit a more fundamental question. Although easy to deconstruct, why do these assumptions continue to loom large in popular writing and maintain an

184

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

implicit scholarly presence, both in and out of the tourism research domain? We suspect that there are other more fundamental issues at play here. As we expand upon in conclusion in Chapter 12, the derogatory ‘take’ on travel guidebooks that is often promulgated popularly, and intimated scholarly, is itself a key phenomenon worthy of further exploration. It is our broad contention that the treatment of this subject in popular communication has a tendency to mistake correlation for causality in the view of guidebook agency on destination development. Further, extant research has not sufficiently corrected the approach. New analysis of destination change, with ample inclusion of grand developments beyond the destination in question, may throw a more nuanced light on the role of guidebooks in tourism development.

11 Transformations in the Age of e-Tourism: The End of the Guidebook As We Know It? The death of the guidebook has been predicted for some time. And if the roaming charges go, the final nails will be hammered in. Lanyado, 2010

Introduction This chapter continues our problematising of the guidebook in tourism through an examination of the guidebooks’ intersection over the last decades with online technology. Guidebook publishers have entered the digital realm in various ways. Before the internet, guidebooks variously used peer review as a source of updating text. Guidebooks for backpackers and the like travelling to information-scarce parts of the world encouraged readers to help alleviate information scarcity. Lonely Planet invited readers to provide information through a written letter or postcard to receive a copy of the next new guidebook edition, in this way also tapping into the ‘community of travellers’ sensibility among backpackers of the 1980s and 1990s (Sørensen, 2003). The practice evolved into Lonely Planet’s peer-topeer communication platforms online for the exchange of travel advice, the ‘Thorn Tree’ webpage forum (1996), apparently named after a thorn tree in a hotel garden in Nairobi on which traveller information and questions were routinely posted. Later, online versions of print editions were made available to take advantage of the mobile opportunities provided by smartphones and tablets. The success of conventional-style guidebooks online or in downloadable versions, however, is highly variable. Parallel to this, the growth of Web 2.0 and online social media has enabled peer-to-peer dissemination and retrieval of information which allows participants to contribute to and tap into a global electronic word of mouth (e-WOM), packed with current information. The rapidly increasing availability of portable electronic platforms has enabled access to online information, positioning and communication opportunities. 185

186

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

Hypertext permits the conventional linear character of a printed book to be transcended, enabling alternative textual materialisations of travel information. With instant information ever more readily available on handheld digital platforms, it would seem that the odds are stacked against guidebooks, and that guidebooks as we used to know them will be going the way of the dodo, into extinction. Certainly, the volume of guidebook printing is declining. However, new guidebook titles are still being published, and existing series are regularly updated. To invert the question then, rather than asking when guidebooks will be extinct, perhaps greater insight may be given by asking why and how they are still here? What are the implications for traditional guidebooks given the rise in travel information on mobile internet platforms? The growing influence of the internet in tourists’ information search is well recognised in the extensive academic literature on the subject (e.g. Buhalis & Law, 2008; Fodness & Murray, 1997; Rosier-Rich & Santos, 2011; Vogt & Fesenmaier, 1998; Wong & Liu, 2011; Xiang & Gretzel, 2010). A number of studies have included guidebooks in the context of destination-specific information sources in addition to advice provided by friends and relatives, professional travel agents and online sources (Cai et al., 2004; Vogt & Fesenmaier, 1998). Yet, as Ho et al. (2012) observe, there is little empirical analysis of how tourists use multiple information sources, particularly combinations of online and offline materials. Hyde (2009) is one of the few to assess how tourists’ use of different kinds of information, particularly the internet and guidebook usage, is combined. Together with Beritelli et al. (2007), he finds that the internet supplements traditional sources of information rather than replaces them. This is a particularly important observation in the context of our argument, which we return to later in the chapter. While thorough knowledge on the subject is yet to be developed, research has indicated that different types of information are sourced by the consumer at different stages of his or her trip (Hyde, 2009). Studies to date indicate that tourists are more likely to use non-personal information at the initial planning stage of a trip, while more personal information is sought in the later stages of planning and while at the destination. As we observed in Chapter 7, distance from the source country and length of stay are also variants which affect the use of different types of travel sources, as are the cultural practices of the tourist. From a destination marketing perspective, Rozier-Rich and Santos (2011: 404) observed in their analysis of the persuasiveness of advertising narratives that for many consumers ‘reading promotional travelrelated information from a computer screen may not have the same

Transformations in the Age of e-Tourism: The End of the Guidebook As We Know It?

187

transportative, persuasive effect as reading the information on paper’. It is easy to conclude that the impact of peer-to-peer opportunities on the web will significantly outshine the guidebook as an engine of tourist destination growth. Yet, to date there is also little evidence of how tourist information in print or electronic form influences the way place is consumed and tourism is performed. Certainly, electronically sourced information is not accused, either popularly or in the research context, of contributing to an impoverished tourism experience in the same way as the guidebook is accused, something we have touched upon several times in the preceding chapters. The discussion in this chapter therefore reveals the key themes of an argument that is frequently dominated by untested assumptions and a positive appraisal of social media over guidebooks with little scrutiny of the latter. In the next section, ‘The Guidebook: Internet Nexus in Information Search’, we begin with an outline of recent events in the commercial world of online information provision and printed guidebook publication. While the specifics of the information in this section will quickly become outdated, the underlying dynamics of this power struggle, and the media commentary which accompanies it, offer useful insights. This is followed in ‘User Perspectives on Internet Resources and Printed Guidebooks’ where, once again, we draw on blog commentary to gain insight into how consumers incorporate book and e-platforms into their tourism. These findings are discussed in the next section, ‘Quality, Portability and Convenience: Incorporating Information Resources into Travel’. In ‘The Business of Guidebooks and e-Platforms’, we also introduce evidence by way of commentary from two publishing businesses in Denmark on the respective merits of e-publication and the printed book. Here, we argue that, rather than the popularly conceived end of the guidebook, it may face a repositioning against the avalanche of online travel information. These themes are briefly tied together in the conclusion.

The Guidebook: Internet Nexus in Information Search Media commentary on the publishing industry routinely attests to an identifiable ‘high point’ in the fortunes of printed guidebooks. In the United Kingdom, the combined sales of the seven largest publishers of guidebooks declined by 46% between 2005 and 2012 (Clampet, 2013). North American sales from the five leading travel book publishers, Frommers, Dorling Kindersley, Lonely Planet, Fodor’s and Avalon’s Moon/Rick Steves, also

188

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

fell by 40% over the same time (Clampet, 2013). In 2007, BBC Worldwide bought 75% of Lonely Planet for £130m, selling in 2013 to North American NC2 Media for just £50m (Robbins, 2014). The recent waning fortunes of the printed guidebook are routinely attributed to the rise of online travel information. Media pundits assert that specialised tourism information can now be had in such quantity and distributed so widely by mobile technologies that the conventional guidebook is rendered superfluous (Clampet, 2013; Lanyado, 2010; Robbins, 2010; Rushby, 2013). Indeed, guidebook content is being purchased by powerful online corporations to develop a stake in the commercial provision of travel information. The shift of digital search engine giant Google into the control and delivery of travel information, and their use of the traditional North American guidebook publication Frommer’s in this venture, is illustrative of this trend (Benoit, 2012; Clampet, 2013). In addition, the creation of the internet has widened word-of-mouth opinion flows beyond immediate contacts to unknown persons globally. Leading social media sites such as Facebook and TripAdvisor, the latter bearing the slogan ‘get the truth, then go’, offer direct peer advice to replace information provided by the guidebook. Arndt (1967:190) defines word of mouth as a verbal exchange ‘between a perceived non-commercial communicator and a receiver concerning a brand, a product, or a service offered for sale’. Peer-to-peer information has an important role to play in tourism decision-making as tourism as an experience packaged for users is difficult to understand before purchase (Pan et al., 2007). Researchers have identified that it is the personal connection provided by word of mouth which makes it more credible as a source of information for consumers who disdain advertising and other descriptive detail provided through the mass media (Crotts, 1999; Pan et al., 2007). In 2012, an estimated 31 million blog sites existed on the web (OECD, 2012). Access to electronic word of mouth has been supported by developments in mobile telephony which has paralleled the growth of online information communication. The smartphone’s capacity to access remote information sources and location-based data is identified as having significant implications for consumers and providers of tourism (Dickenson et al., 2012). A range of mobile internet and application (app) options, integrated photographic and video content, geographic location services and transmission technologies such as Bluetooth are available to the 40% of tourists who, in 2013, were known to have access to the internet through a smartphone (Egger, 2013). Undoubtedly, the number is now higher and increasing. Image recognition applications such as Google

Transformations in the Age of e-Tourism: The End of the Guidebook As We Know It?

189

Goggles are championed as providing consumers with ‘more information than exists in any guidebook ever written – perhaps more even than the combined wisdom of all guidebooks ever written’ (Robbins, 2010). One area of particular dramatic growth and relevance to how tourism is performed is in the provision of mobile applications (apps) for tourism. According to Mickaiel (2011 in Kennedy-Eden & Gretzel, 2012), travel apps are the seventh most popular category of apps downloaded by consumers. TripAdvisor estimates 60% of handheld device users have downloaded travel apps of whom 45% intend to undertake planning and research (Mickaiel, 2011 in Kennedy-Eden & Gretzel, 2012). The role of travel apps in decision-making during travel is demonstrated in consumer tendency to purchase most within three days of travel or while travelling (Mickaiel, 2011 in Kennedy-Eden & Gretzel, 2012). In an attempt to classify travel apps using drivers of technology use experiences as a frame, Kennedy-Eden and Gretzel (2012) identified seven categories of travel-related apps in their taxonomy. These comprised usage for navigation, social interaction, mobile marketing, security/emergency services, transactional, entertainment and information. Two current examples of mobile apps for tourists are Schmap, a geo-positioning service provider and publisher of real-time city guides, and Spotted by Locals, a city blog network edited by locals living in the city about which they write. In the case of Schmap, online material includes venue descriptions, photographs, local events and deals, and peer reviews with events collated from Twitter. Spotted by Locals founded in the Netherlands in 2008 is designed to address the needs of those who consider themselves ‘non-tourists’ and seek local information outside the traditional tourist destinations. An increasing number of travel apps are overtly challenging the guidebook market. Tiplist claims to enable consumers to ‘build beautiful city guides in minutes’ by the downloading of tips via Facebook onto a personalised dashboard which can be shared. These apps extend the importance of verifiable trusted information in tourism. Another, Tripwolf, aims to provide updated social travel guides written by travellers themselves and was, according to the company’s chief executive officer (CEO), ‘started out of frustration with traditional travel guidebooks’, bypassing the reliance on the process of updating every two years (Alistairmck, 2012). Minube also sells themed guides with the purchase price going to the author with the intention of building ‘the most important travel writers community for our guides’ (Alistairmck, 2012), enabling a traveller to also earn money while travelling. This practice once underpinned the independent guidebook publishers.

190

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

User Perspectives on Internet Resources and Printed Guidebooks For this discussion on popular perceptions of guidebook usage in relation to electronic information sources, we turn again to our data sources. Information was collected among guidebook users and nonusers encountered in Copenhagen, Melbourne, Fiji and Bali as well as the community of English-speaking consumers of guidebooks introduced in Chapter 6 and their online commentary on travel information preferences and use. The bloggers offer a useful framework for eliciting user concerns in relation to the effectiveness of electronic media in comparison to traditional guidebooks, although as usual limitations need to be drawn for the use of this secondary data. Nevertheless, while recognising that the issue of self-presentation is unavoidable – the blogs being, after all, personal travel narratives and comments on those narratives – they do enable insight into the breadth of viewpoints on the issue. A total of 93 individual comments were identified in the dataset, which referenced the relationship between guidebooks and electronic media and the preferences of individual bloggers for either or both information resources. Individual blogs were coded according to the main theme and analysed for topics of which three were evident. The highest proportion of responses were categorised as ‘guidebooks are irrelevant, or are inferior to the internet’ (45%). The second largest category (42%) was ‘printed guidebooks are better than electronic resources’ with ‘both electronically generated information and traditional guidebooks are complementary sources of information’ the smallest category (13%). While such percentages do not add much to our overall understanding, they do impart, however, a sense of the polarisation that this topic elicited from bloggers and online commentators. With regard to the first topic, ‘guidebooks are irrelevant in tourism because of, or are inferior to, the internet’, bloggers identified that peer-topeer services such as blogs and discussion rooms were more accurate, current and relevant than guidebooks. Mark Wabster’s post suggests that electronic information provision is preferable as a current source of communal information compared to the dated content of a guidebook: Have a look at the Forums [sic] for cities all over the planet on www. tripadvisor.com, great way to find what is happening NOW : -). You’ll never go back to guidebooks and you can glean info before you go and answer questions when you come back – like a hostel gathering in your house.

Transformations in the Age of e-Tourism: The End of the Guidebook As We Know It?

191

The timeliness of online information was also applauded by Chamborres who disliked paying for obsolete information in a guidebook: Why pay so much for information that is out of date before it is even published? We find that online forums provide much more accurate and useful information. The cost of these: FREE (sic). Internet information searches were also regarded as more convenient to use during travel as well as in the planning stage. For those most positive about electronic information sources over the guidebook, any current technical challenges facing the widespread availability of web sources would soon be swept away as a matter of course. Gary Arndt commented: one of the things holding back change right now are roaming charges. This too will not last forever. Already you are seeing roaming wifi in the latest spec for 802.11, more hotspots for services like Boingo and eventually I think you [will] see peering arrangements between mobile providers. Madhu Nair believed that guidebooks would become obsolete although identified a consumer’s need for guidance through the mass of online information, perhaps a way to ‘consolidate blog posts by destination at one common website’. Amused Female believed that guidebooks provided unreliably biased advice while blogs and other peer electronically or personally sourced information was, somehow, less prejudiced: I do the majority of my research on wherever I’m travelling to on the internet or word of mouth. When it comes to being on the road… I leave the guidebook at home…the guides *can* [sic] be biased in the best places to go. Electronic devices also provided a shield against critical onlookers and the stigma associated with both guidebook use and the mass popularisation of destinations which they referenced. According to Marli, ‘nothing says tourist more, than a lonely planet [sic] opened up on a street corner ’. Andrea advocated electronic media as directing the tourist to a greater variety of options: When it comes to specific accommodation, restaurant, bar and culture info I use the internet. I prefer travel blogs, Wikitravel, Trip Advisor and local online magazines when available. Because we find, especially with Lonely Planet, the ‘LP effect’ can completely ruin places.

192

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

Guidebooks were also criticised for their perceived audience of affluent travellers according to maryellen1952 who believed that guidebooks were biased towards the needs of those with a large budget: The most useful guide I’ve found especially for real accounts is virtualtourist.com especially if you travel to more exotic destinations. Frommer’s and others generally focused on the more affluent traveller rather than the budget conscious. With regard to the second topic evident in the blog analysis, ‘printed guidebooks are better than electronic resources’, opinions were inevitably the reverse of those outlined above. Bloggers in support of traditional guidebooks over electronic sources maintained that they were easier to use because all information needed for travelling was located in one location and that they were easier to carry than either e-readers or printed pages from an internet site. Echoing Madhu Nair’s desire for a consolidation of information, Bara describes the convenience of having succinct information in a printed book: I still use paper guides, because it saves my time. I hate going through tens of websites to find travel info, it’s much easier to just buy a book. Simon Veness likewise described the benefits of being able to ‘cut through’ the mass of online information to get information he determined as ‘real’ and what the user needs through a book. Once again, saving time was viewed as important: It just isn’t possible to refine, say, the Orlando experience into a few hours online (the time it might take to read a book), especially when the online info is so varied and confusing…In some ways, the more info that is available online, the BETTER some guides will do, as many people will feel it’s hard to cut through the internet ‘noise’ to the REAL info. This commentary attests to confusion by the mass of information online prompting the framing of the guidebook as a refuge from overwhelming excess. Guidebooks were also appreciated as enabling escape from the everyday, a core agenda of leisure tourism, notably ‘e-fatigue’. Julia noted the joy of escaping from electronic devices while on holiday, which ‘allow you to unplug from your damned computer/ iphone/tablet for a while’. Fiona Heavey also identified the everyday

Transformations in the Age of e-Tourism: The End of the Guidebook As We Know It?

193

world with technological connectivity and during her preparation for travel the overload of information she encountered and from which she wished to escape: Too many tweets, blogs, top tens, reviews. So much history, power shifts, religion, myths. I got cross eyed and overwhelmed but I still seemed to be uninformed. So I ordered the Lonely Planet book for Egypt… I have read pages of websites, blogs, reviews, top tens, and everything else thrown in …they didn’t satisfy my need for a comprehensive overview. But what about trip advisor apps and widgets and google…? I am on holidays, my phone will be mostly off. I want to look around me, not into a screen. David Whitley offered a similar perspective with insight into the impact of online resources on time-poor but choice-rich tourists: The ‘guide’ part is crucial for guide books. Sure, you can get all the information you want from the internet, but finding your way through the mass of it is horrendous. Time counts – people will increasingly find that they don’t want more choice; they want concise, expert guidance toward the ‘right’ choices. The technical reliability of electronic information sources was regarded as an impediment to use by bloggers who viewed the cost of internet access as too high and connectivity unreliable, particularly in economically developing destinations. Jeqp stated that those who believed solely in using electronically sourced information should ‘Try travelling outside the first world for once’. Flanneruk perceived the restricted online connectivity specifically at museums, archaeological sites and in accommodation as too restrictive to make the carrying of a tablet worthwhile. Likewise, Aquamineral complained of the limited access to electronic media in the developed world as inconvenient: I have tried using Kindle 3g/internet features on trains in Europe and the connection keeps dropping. (Too many tunnels or mountains). I do a lot of my travel planning on trains, in motion. I need a guidebook to do that. Outside the blogosphere, similar viewpoints have been frequently encountered in our data collection since 2011. For some tourists, the guidebook provides a surety against the uncertainties of foreign

194

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

connectivity. In Fiji, we spoke to three British tourists who were relying on Lonely Planet Fiji which they bought in Australia as they were not sure if they would have regular access to the internet. A similar view was expressed by tourists encountered in several countries including Egypt, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. It is notable that the perspective was almost exclusively found in developing world countries, while perceived risk of unconnectivity as a reason for carrying a guidebook is less stated in the blogosphere or in personal encounters with tourists in Europe or Australia. It seems as if a risk of unconnectivity is taken to be a developing world issue, even though public complaints about faulty connectivity and ‘non-spots’ is a recurrent topic in European and Australian media. Incorporation of guidebook information with online resources, particularly Facebook, was a standard approach for those of European, Australian or North American origin who were interviewed, although the online resources were traced prior to travel. Hints at cultural differences in these approaches were also found, however, in the experience of three young Chinese tourists who were engaged in conversation about their travel experience and guidebook information sourcing in Mandarin. None of these tourists had guidebooks with them in Fiji, but were entirely reliant on online resources. They managed the ‘fear ’ of poor data connection in remote Fiji by planning well in advance, booking their accommodation before leaving the mainland, which also meant reducing their ability to freely ‘island hop’ from resort to resort as promoted in advertising of the region. As we noted in Chapter 7, data from guidebook usage in locations with less information density, whether this be because of lack of online access or because of lack of information (or both) showed, not surprisingly, a much higher degree of reliance on the vade mecum information in the guidebook. Indeed, the variability of online access in remote locations also had an effect on whether a guidebook was carried in the first place. Lack of online access, or rather concern at being left without advice if online access isn’t available, may continue to drive guidebook carriage and use in such areas. Returning to the blog data, electronic text and maps were criticised for being difficult to read, scroll through or hard to navigate. PegS disliked reading from a screen, especially when wishing to move rapidly between content sections: I still can’t rely on just my tablet. I find it easier to use paper if I’m going to be flipping back and forth. Electronic text is good when I’m just

Transformations in the Age of e-Tourism: The End of the Guidebook As We Know It?

195

reading in a linear fashion, but I find it a pain if I’m doing any sort of research such as consulting a guidebook for a destination or restaurant I hadn’t already had on my itinerary. Guidebooks available online were also difficult to read according to Annhig who claimed that ‘I’ve tried using guides on Kindle and trying to navigate round them drove me mad. Bring a book’. David Whitely chose not to use apps and electronic books because of failed usability, instead preferring a book despite acknowledged limitations: they’re far easier to flick through and annotate. And if you’re anything like me, you end up scrawling asterisks and information culled from other sources all over maps. Now that should be easier electronically – but it isn’t yet. Aquamineral also tried using a guidebook on an e-reader but found it difficult to navigate while travelling: I especially find Kindle useless for map reading or travel research on the road because it is so much easier to flip through a book when you are standing at a train station and need to know something, or looking for something like a restaurant recommendation or how to catch a bus in the middle of Rome. Quality and rigour of online information was also questioned by some of these bloggers. Peer-to-peer resources were regarded as unverified individual opinions while guidebook content was perceived as vetted by knowledgeable authors. Online information was viewed with suspicion as being unreliable and also somewhat incongruously, out of date. Stracciatella remarked that ‘what you read on the internet about France and Italy is 99% untrue. Lots of misinformation’. Jack was also unconvinced by arguments that social media provided more reliable travel information, preferring the assumed objectivity of a traditional guidebook: I know [guidebooks have] been researched well…even if parts can be out of date by the time the book’s published. I’ve no idea how subjective advice is on TripAdvisor or Twitter. Katie Going Global found it difficult to ascertain the currency of information gleaned from the internet, asserting that ‘guidebooks give me a level of trust’:

196

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

There’s something about a recommendation from a guidebook that just carries more weight for me over an anonymous poster in the TripAdvisor or Lonely Planet forums. Likewise, there are so many websites out there, it can be hard to know which ones are the most reliable and the most up to date, especially when it comes to travel destinations. Stuart also believed that online peer-to-peer services were too anonymous, plentiful and of poor quality to be of use: Sure TA [TripAdvisor] fits the bill if paging through hundreds of reviews by complete strangers ranging from loons to luminaries works for you, then more power to you – just be sure to take a look at TAs history/ culture/societal sections before you start digging that grave – they’re generally appalling. The tangibility of the physical guidebook was valued by bloggers as contributing to the experience of travel. For Jeremy Head, not only was the guidebook a user-friendly medium, it was an essential component of the travel experience: For me part of the excitement and fun of a trip is the planning and buying a guidebook is a[s] fundamental to it as packing my bag and passport [sic]. The scribblings and jottings in the margin create something that is actually uniquely yours – memories of a great trip that scraps gleaned from 20 different websites will never retain in the same way… sometimes the vast amount of user generated info available on Trip Advisor etc. is just too difficult to and frustrating to navigate. Guidebooks serve as souvenirs of travel experiences. They can be loaned and borrowed from others, written on, torn and marked and don’t break. For some bloggers, the destination information gained online concentrated on well-trodden paths while guidebooks facilitated a less inhibited form of travel. The same disparaging tone used by some bloggers towards others using their guidebooks to help them navigate a destination was also reserved for users of electronic devices. Booboo111 responded belligerently: Throw all your nerdy little objects away…and when you arrive somewhere, TALK TO THE NATIVES!!!! (sic).

Transformations in the Age of e-Tourism: The End of the Guidebook As We Know It?

197

It was the view of some blog posts that Global Positioning Systems (GPS) contained in apps were less reliable or accurate than paper maps and that e-readers and other devices were themselves magnets for theft and signalled the inexperienced tourist or ‘flashpacker’. Backpacking in the news described tourists who carried their technology as ‘a walking Price Is Right Showcase for third-world muggers’. Farremog suggested that, contrary to the opinions expressed by some internet enthusiasts, e-devices carry a stigma of stupidity for a traveller: You won’t be able to use your smartphone in public for fear of being assaulted and robbed and/or considered ‘stupid’ by ‘savvy’ travellers, and you’ve already organised your accommodation, so why bother? The third topic, ‘both electronically generated information and traditional guidebooks are complementary sources of information’, contained commentary on how the combination of both electronic and traditional guidebook information best met tourist needs. These bloggers were of the view that the internet is better for some information provision and the guidebook is useful for other information provision. Eriksmith’s reliance on both electronic information and guidebook enabled access to destinations he describes as ‘inbetween sights; I mean those places that have fallen between the cracks in blogs and normal travel websites’: An example of this would be smaller markets or shops, and the onestar hotels that often do not have their own websites. For example, my awesome hotel in Jerusalem. The Hotel Hashimi has its own website, but it didn’t show up when I was doing web searches on “Jerusalem Budget Hotels” before the trip. I was drawn to it by the recommendations in a couple of guidebooks, then was able to find out more information by looking it up specifically on the internet. Many other hotels, especially in areas of the world that have less reliance on the internet for marketing than we do as Americans, would be missed if not for their inclusion in guidebooks. Greg took the opposite course, relying on electronic information while travelling, including a smartphone and e-reader with guidebooks downloaded. Use was determined by the nature of the destination, length of time spent there and previous level of knowledge: And what is useful depends on the type of info you seek which may be completely different from what others think. While some have the

198

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

same way of doing things for all trips, I use different media depending [on] the objective of the trips, familiarity of the destination, how much time I have at the destination to be able to use resources. Flanneruk found the internet a useful adjunct to guidebook use as ‘it’s just possible to find online material to rival decent guidebooks like the Blue Guide about half the time’: So it’s guidebooks mostly, the lightest weight laptop or tablet with decent functionality as well, and if you’re not staying in hotels frequent pitstops at internet cafes or the like to check on exactly what that quote from Racine was. The idiosyncratic nature of the approach to information sourcing, and then the carriage and use of this information during a trip, is also evident in the case of Mark for whom the internet was used to verify or expand on guidebook information: I tend to type up the info from the guidebooks as well as from various websites, and take the typed sheets with me on the trips. If I want to find a good restaurant, for example, this info can at the very least give me a head start on figuring when a local is just trying to steer me to a place where they’ll get a kickback. This sample online community is divided over the future of guidebooks with almost equal numbers having a distinct preference for guidebooks or information sourced from electronic platforms. Given that these bloggers are already internet users, it might be anticipated that they would value the electronic provision of information, particularly peer to peer in which they themselves engage, over the traditional book, or at least a preference for mixed usage. Fewer described the complementarity of the two forms, although it is unlikely that those who attested to valuing guidebooks would at no stage use the internet in trip planning or while travelling. It is not unexpected that those whose guidebooks had failed them might be more inspired to public condemnation via a travel blog. It is also reasonable to suppose that those who post blogs would be more technically savvy and therefore more likely to find fault with traditional media. Guidebooks are, to some extent, generic in nature and unlikely to satisfy every specific consumer need. What the blog responses do provide is indications of the influence of guidebooks and e-platforms on the tourist experience, a core focus of this book. Their critique identifies two

Transformations in the Age of e-Tourism: The End of the Guidebook As We Know It?

199

essential aspects of use which attract diverse value judgements concerning the benefits or otherwise of each information source. These can be summarised as, firstly, the type and quality of information available in either format; and secondly, the incorporation in tourism activity of the physical object through which information is conveyed. These elements broadly coalesce with the issues of guidebook usage covered in Chapter 6, and are addressed specifically in the following section.

Quality, Portability and Convenience: Incorporating Information Resources into Travel The type and quality of information provided as identified in the blog analysis can be distilled into the tourist’s desire for accurate sources. This is framed in terms of maximising the correctness of information on prices, locations and other factors for the functional use of tourists. An obvious benefit of online resources in this regard is the possible immediacy of new information ahead of that provided by the printed guidebook, which is affected by long publishing times. Users of online resources also valued their own capacity to control the parameters of the search and seek out information tailored to their individual need. This was seen to have practical benefits in that the consumer was not also paying for information suited to the wants of others, such as those with less or more affluent tastes, which might be included in a guidebook with a broad target audience. The relevance of the information to the needs of the individual consumer was also identified as a reflection of its overall quality. In addition, the individualised nature of information gathered online somehow undermined the ‘group think’ or ‘LP effect’ commonly identified among intensive guidebook users. When online resources drove decision-making, the kind of passive following of guidebooks which was claimed to ‘completely ruin places’, was not understood to be at work. Yet, perceived obsolescence is not the consumer’s only understanding of information (in)accuracy. The blogs reveal that accurate information relates also to the authority of the source. While those who relied on online sources over guidebooks valued personal agency in selecting resources, they routinely preferred peer-based information. Egger (2013) claims that the primary consumer’s demand for ‘convincing and relevant content in the right context of use’ is increasingly met through social media and online peer-related sources. Lazarsfeld et al. (1944, cited in Pan et al., 2007) described a two-step process where ‘opinion leaders’ within

200

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

these community groups mediate messages obtained from mass media sources for the ‘opinion seekers’ who sought his or her advice. This is the basis of word-of-mouth exchange where opinion leaders are held in high regard by opinion seekers and their perspective is trusted. While the veracity of internet advertising is routinely questioned, online wordof-mouth (e-WOM) sources such as blogs, commentary from online communities and the rising number of mobile apps offering peer-to-peer travel advice represent widespread validation of this kind of information transfer (Cyr et al., 2005). The independence of views posted on social media sites, however, raised suspicion among consumers who valued guidebooks. The printed guidebook enthusiasts among the bloggers examined here viewed peerto-peer advice as too ‘subjective’, plentiful and confusing. The dispersed viewpoints on these sites were suspected of self-interest or liable to poor judgement in comparison to the trusted guidebook author/publisher. TripAdvisor raised particular reservations in this regard because of the commercial dominance of its parent company, the travel giant Expedia, and of rumours that businesses give visitors benefits such as future discounts or coupons for writing positive reviews. Consumers of online travel information routinely question the reliability of TripAdvisor and similar sites when the information they contain is mostly stimulated by the need to praise or condemn a business or experience. In response, TripAdvisor now fields various trust-enhancing mechanisms such as third-party control, readers’ evaluation of contributions, contributor status depending on the number of contributions and registration of users. It is also noteworthy that, just as business operators in Chapter 9 were found to focus almost exclusively on TripAdvisor, so does the blogger critique of online review sites. Hardly any other review platforms are criticised in the blog sample identified for this study. Also importantly, the quality of information for those who valued the printed guidebook did not solely relate to the perceived independence of views provided online. A notion of quality information was also connected to the belles lettres component of guidebooks, which was perceived by some as offering a more considered appraisal of destination culture. This was identified in Stuart’s reference to the unsatisfactory information on such material if sourced on a review site like TripAdvisor and in David Whitely’s remark that ‘the guide part is crucial for guidebooks’. Simon Veness claims that it is the complexity of destinations which still make the printed guidebook the first source for many. The second theme identified in the blog analysis was that of incorporating printed guidebooks or electronic devices into the physical

Transformations in the Age of e-Tourism: The End of the Guidebook As We Know It?

201

conduct of travel. The bloggers’ commentary identified a range of ways in which the physical attributes of these information resources are valued including portability, speed of use, convenience, connectivity and tangible ‘feel’. With regard to convenience and portability, guidebooks were perceived by supporters as convenient in saving time which might otherwise be spent on lengthy and confusing online searches. Guidebooks were regarded as physically easier to use for text and map navigation given the non-linear needs of the tourist. Scrolling through an online guidebook edition in search of information was frequently described as challenging. In addition, personalised information collation was possible with a guidebook through the scribbled annotations of the user. Alternatively, adherents of electronic resources valued the physical ease of carrying a mass of information via a single, portable device. Current albeit restricted connectivity and the promise of rapid advances in this area through innovations such as cheaper wi-fi roaming enhanced the opportunities of online information searchers. Information specific to the individual could also be sourced online for off-line referencing when needed. Nonetheless, technical barriers preventing online resources from widely and consistently serving the communication needs of all tourists remain a substantial impediment. Fragmented connectivity beyond urban hubs in many destinations is a principle reason for the proliferation of online apps and blogs which address tourism in cities over regional destinations. Roaming costs are also a consistent roadblock. However, this latter problem has declined rapidly within a short time frame. The decline is not just because of decreasing roaming costs but also because of the evermore widespread access to free wi-fi, and the increased ability of portable devices to capture and store online information for later off-line usage. In addition to functionality in the field, the guidebook as artefact also retained significant personal meaning for some consumers and it was not seen as replaceable by an electronic device. Iaquinto (2012) notes that independent tourists’ increased use of the internet, and the portability of accessible devices such as smartphones and e-readers, radically alters the tourist experience. Consumers’ sense of being overwhelmed by the mass of available information, and the desire to retreat to simplicity through a conscious limitation of choice, was reflected in discussion over how print or electronic advice supports a desired experience of travel. Escape from the pervasiveness of technology in everyday life was identified as a reason for choosing printed sources of information as ‘I want to look around me, not into a screen’.

202

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

It must be noted that carrying either a guidebook or an e-reader while travelling divested users of social capital. Thus, for some bloggers, while ‘nothing says tourist more’ than a guidebook opened up on the street, the same was also said of those relying on smartphones and other devices during travel. In both cases, the term ‘tourist’ signified a classification to be avoided if at all possible.

The Business of Guidebooks and e-Platforms In 2013, Google sold Frommer’s back to original founder, Arthur Frommer who, with New York-based publishing company Perseus, recommenced publishing a new series of printed guides (Bosman, 2013). According to a press release, Frommer’s EasyGuides ‘will not have to rely on the amateur, easily-faked, user-generated views of persons who have only casually visited a particular city and stayed in only one hotel in it’ (Martin, 2013). Instead, they are marketed as quick to read, light to carry, providing expert advice and covering all price ranges. The new guides will also be available in digital format. Likewise, Dorling Kindersley Publishing combine their print versions of the DK Eyewitness Travel and Rough Guides series with electronic resources such as the free mobile app, DKTripPlanner, and the Rough Guides website (Robbins, 2014). Avalon’s Moon and Rick Steves’ series also offer niche travel publications as leading products to online content. As an early adopter of e-books, Lonely Planet applied the strategy of providing specific content for each device rather than blanket availability. This timely awareness of the opportunities in online provision, particularly delivery of the guidebooks in e-reader and app formats such as the ‘private walking tour’ app without maps or guidebooks to ‘give you away’, is designed for the visitor to blend in ‘like a local’ and has been described as central to maintaining Lonely Planet’s dominance in the market (Clampet, 2013). These current commercial trends are certainly indicative of a more universal tension between the traditional book format and electronic production. However, as explored in Chapters 5 and 6, consumers’ use of the guidebook differs substantially from how they consume fiction writing in ways which challenge their total replacement by electronic media. In particular, guidebooks are not routinely read in linear fashion but are designed for quick and sporadic access with practical usability of visual elements such as maps a core quality. As of now (middle of 2015), the printed book still excels against the various e-platforms on matters of simple usability, including the capability to read a screen in sunshine and to leaf through sections, and in the ease of use of maps and fixed pagination.

Transformations in the Age of e-Tourism: The End of the Guidebook As We Know It?

203

This has resulted in the only partly successful shift of the guidebook verbatim to an online format. There is a commercial argument which maintains that producing and distributing digital books is cheaper than printed books which should therefore provide much lower retail prices for consumers. This viewpoint has not least been stimulated by Anderson’s (2004) seminal paper on long tail economics and his subsequent book on the same subject (Anderson, 2009). However, Steffen Sørensen, managing director at Publizon, the largest e-book producer and distributor in Denmark, argued in an interview conducted in September 2014 for this book that the assumption is far from correct. The Danish book trade has an approximation of just 20% of the total production cost of printed books to be ascribed for printing, physical handling, storage and distribution. The rest of the production cost, in particular royalties, editing, proofing and promotion, remains largely unchanged. In terms of retail price, this may translate into slightly less than 80% of the printed version, since retailers of digital books may operate with a slightly lower profit margin. Yet, this is still far from the supposed halving or lower of retail prices that Anderson (2004, 2009) claims. While this example relates to the Danish book trade, it is not unreasonable to assume a similar cost structure elsewhere. In addition, Steffen Sørensen asserts that for electronic versions of reference tools such as guidebooks, there is currently no singularly successful business model in use. The same point was raised in another interview we conducted with Søren Sattrup, former editor-in-chief of the largest and longest-running Danish guidebook series, Turen Går Til (‘The Trip Goes to…’), which has published guidebooks in Danish since 1952. Søren Sattrup explained that the basic issue for developing a workable business model remained unsolved, chiefly finding the right practical–technical solution. Interviewed in May 2014, Søren Sattrup argued that there was as yet no clear replacement for the printed guidebook. The current options all had weaknesses. A key strength of the digital guidebook is routinely claimed to be the opportunity to deliver more frequently updated information. A recurrent subject in the blogs and blog comments analysed above is precisely that of the printed guidebook being outdated already before being published, and this viewpoint has been encountered again and again among guidebook users and commentators. However, this may be a fallacious argument in favour of the digital guidebook, since we detect a decline in the importance of practical vade mecum information in guidebooks in general. Broadly viewed, newer editions of a guidebook series (printed or digital) now seem to include less information about matters such as accommodation options, air

204

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

transport and fares, opening hours etc., information readily available online in up-to-date versions. Another alternative development, the online peer-to-peer opportunities to co-produce open-source travel guides, as seen for instance on wikitravel, is currently being researched by us. The first results are that the seemingly attractive structuring of peer advice is suffering in trustworthiness, partly because of the commercial element involved in such websites, but in particular because of lack of authority caused by the absence of author identity and publisher curatorship, issues also covered in the conceptualisation in Chapter 2. In online discussions and in field interviews, the scepticism voiced towards the open-source travel guide often amounts to the viewpoint that ‘it is not a real guidebook’. However, might there be a syncretistic third way to foresee the future of guidebooks? Is it possible to envisage the guidebook online that is not a fixed text but which evolves in accordance with the consumers’ use patterns, perhaps even changing through life with the individual? The current practice among printed guidebook publishers in their encouragement of users to submit their comments and findings for use in the next edition is potentially an early stage of a closer merger between print and online resources. Online guidebooks may therefore change from reproduced print versions to resources which specifically address the need for a distillation of information which is continuously updated. Such a guidebook would not require a new edition in the current sense. Linked to social media sites, such a guidebook would become an individualised travel resource evolving from an understanding of the consumer ’s discrete demand, and in this tailoring the belles lettres education of the user, linking with the vade mecum practical information, would still be embedded with the authority of a sender identity.

Conclusion This chapter has addressed the frequently voiced opinion that the death of the guidebook is imminent. The published guidebook industry is currently facing significant challenges to evolve in an information market dominated by online resources. Recent trends in the guidebook publishing industry point to a rapid downturn in sales of traditional guidebooks and corporate manoeuvring to determine market directions as the old and new information structures continue to collide. Yet, to date the information demands and composition that contemporary guidebooks typify cannot be fully satisfied by travel information communicated either via e-book or by social media. It is feasible

Transformations in the Age of e-Tourism: The End of the Guidebook As We Know It?

205

that guidebook usage undertaken during the planning stages of a trip might be reliably replaced by social media, then supplemented by periods of connectivity using a handheld device during travel. Tourism in urban environments supported by reliable online access and tours with substantial pre-booking or pre-planning elements may be driven entirely by social media-based travel information. However, the trip with a flexible itinerary is less easily accommodated entirely online and the current limitations to connectivity in more isolated destinations remain a barrier. The fragmentary adoption of the internet in developing countries where much tourism takes place means that those tourists heavily reliant on internet resources are not always able to access the information they need in this format.

12 The Stigma of Guidebooks: Causes and Questions And now, the time is come for you to look at Giotto’s St. Louis, who is the type of a Christian king. You would, I suppose, never have seen it at all, unless I had dragged you here on purpose. It was enough in the dark originally—is trebly darkened by the modern painted glass—and dismissed to its oblivion contentedly by Mr. Murray’s “Four saints, all much restored and repainted,” and Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcasella’s serene “The St. Louis is quite new.” John Ruskin, Mornings in Florence: Being Simple Studies of Christian Art for English Travellers, 1881 In Santa Croce with no Baedeker. E.M. Forster, A Room with a View, 1908

Introduction Prominent 19th-century art critic and social commentator John Ruskin viewed modern guidebooks as part of a general ‘ruinous trend of antiaesthetic tourism’ which he urged his followers to avoid (Hanley & Walton, 2010: 52). From 1878, Ruskin produced his own guides to the architecture and fine art of Italy including Mornings in Florence from which comes the excerpt opening this concluding chapter. The aesthetic of Ruskin’s guidebooks was part of a self-described ‘planned attack on Mr Murray’s guides’ (Hanley & Walton, 2010: 79), whose necessarily brief and sometimes superficial interpretations of the great European art works and buildings, he believed, eroded the travellers’ cultural enrichment. Ruskin’s ‘alternative values’ of sightseeing were also reflected in the rich lettering and binding of his works in contrast with the spare mass-produced style of German Karl Baedeker and Englishman John Murray’s popular handbooks (Hanley & Walton, 2010: 52). To author Henry James, however, Ruskin himself could not be excused from the pedagogical tone he himself denounced in Murray’s handbooks. Writing of Ruskin’s (1881) approach in Mornings in Florence, James mockingly asserted that ‘Nothing in fact is more comical than the familiar asperity of the author’s style and the pedagogic fashion in which he pushes and pulls his unhappy pupils about, jerking their heads towards this, rapping their knuckles for that’ (in Parsons, 2007: xv). 206

The Stigma of Guidebooks: Causes and Questions

207

In the second quote which introduces this chapter, we are alerted to the anxiety troubling the fictional heroine Lucy Honeychurch from English author E.M. Forster’s 1908 novel A Room with a View. Her copy of Baedeker’s Handbook to Northern Italy has inadvertently been taken by an acquaintance just when she feels herself most in need of being told what she ought to see and how to see it in Florence’s renowned Santa Croce. Yet, in being without her Baedeker’s at this point in the story, Lucy is introduced to experiences which ultimately empower her to abandon the conventions of her middle-class English upbringing and embrace freedom of expression. Forster’s message is clear; the journey through life unfettered by the guidebook may seem perilous but will be significantly more rewarding. Forster’s theme, as well as Ruskin’s (and James’) sniping criticism of the guidebook giants of his day, reminds us of the deep historical biases and anxieties besetting guidebook use in the enactment of tourism. More recent examples abound in journalistic and fictional representations. For the historian Donald Horne (1984: 1), tourists wielding Michelin guidebooks in the ancient churches of Europe are likened to devotees of a cult. The Australian publication of a pastiche guidebook series to bogus destinations with referential titles such as Molvania: A Land Untouched by Modern Dentistry (Cilaura et al., 2003) and Phaic Tan: Sunstroke on a Shoestring (Cilaura et al., 2004) capitalised on a shared understanding of the guidebook as a pejorative object in contemporary tourism. The impact of the guidebook on destinations seemingly ‘untouched’ by tourism is sharply captured in Alex Garland’s novel The Beach. Reflecting on a busy backpacker hub in Bangkok, Thailand, a protagonist exclaims: ‘One of these days I’m going to find one of these Lonely Planet writers, and I’m going to ask him, what’s so fucking lonely about the Khao San Road’ (Garland, 1997: 194). Fittingly, the title of the chapter is ‘Bible-bashing’. Similar readings have been highlighted throughout our analysis; the bloggers’ testimony to a love–hate relationship with their guidebooks, the ‘countdown to doomsday’ mentality surrounding guidebooks and destination development, the commercial opportunity seized by Tony Wheeler when branding his Lonely Planet publications as different from and therefore eminently better than standard guidebooks. The disdain emanates from the assumed regimentation and superficiality of travel experience found in guidebooks, the use of which automatically brands the user as the diminished ‘tourist’. Thus, according to blogger Ben Groundwater’s (2007) assured claim, ‘Mr Guidebook’s major problem is that he’s never going to have any of the experiences that make travel great’. These unexplored tensions continue to resonate in popular and scientific discourse (including

208

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

by ourselves) with significant influence on the place of the guidebook in the cultural change wrought by tourism. Our purpose in this final chapter is thus to draw together the findings of the preceding chapters and to examine them through the prism of guidebook stigmatisation which we uncover in both popular and scholarly readings. Key themes are the extent to which this approach has influenced understanding of the guidebook as a cultural artefact and how it might influence the continued existence of the guidebook in some recognisable form. Finally, we reflect on the broader insights to be gleaned from a more nuanced reading of the guidebook as a cultural entity. A number of interesting possibilities for research on the guidebook emerge.

Guidebooks and the Power of Stigma In a seminal sociological text, Goffman (1963:4) described the stigmatising of the individual or the group as a term ‘used to refer to an attribute that is deeply discrediting’. Goffman (1963) stressed, however, that individual characteristics were not the determining factor of stigma as these vary in status and importance across cultures, but that it is the relationship between the attribute and the stereotype which holds the essential influence. Building on Goffman’s term, other research has described stigma as conveying ‘a social identity that is devalued in a particular social context’ (Crocker et al., 1998: 505) or indicating a characteristic ‘contrary to the norm of a social unit’ (Stafford & Scott, 1986: 80). The relationship between attribute and stereotype underpinning Goffman’s (1963) conception of stigma is easily understood in a tourism context. The guidebook’s discrediting is a function of the stigma attached to the stereotype of the tourist who, in contrast with the culturally enriched ‘traveller’ (McCabe, 2001), is reduced ‘from a whole and usual person to a tainted, discounted one’ (Goffman, 1963: 3). As we have demonstrated, anti-tourism has a long history. Buzard (1993) argues that the binary of tourist and traveller did not occur gradually but resulted from the start of modernised tourism which was always seen as antithetical to genuine travel. Indeed, the denunciation of guidebooks as both contributing to and emerging from vacuous consumerism is a manifestation of anxieties which Gilbert (1999: 282) describes as ‘a complex cultural phenomenon going to the heart of modern tourism practice’. Yet, the routine assumptions of guidebook use and of textual sameness which are underpinned by this critique of the guidebook (and the tourist) are not supported by our analyses. Instead, the variations of use we have uncovered underpin the dynamic qualities of the guidebook’s material

The Stigma of Guidebooks: Causes and Questions

209

function in tourism, including its transition in the digital age. In advocating that use cannot be determined by text, we find significant evidence of consumer independence of mind and diversity of approach such that a number of types of guidebook users could be identified. Indeed, the more flexible an itinerary and the less certainty of online access the more likely is the guidebook to be used in a less conventional way. Even in a sequence of editions, as evidenced in Chapter 5, the guidebook is likewise found to be a dynamic text reflective of the evolving nature of a publisher’s target audience and the mutability of the destination. However, there is considerably more empirical evidence to collect on both user behaviour and guidebook variation across type and language. The stigmatising of the guidebook also underpins its depiction as a regulator of tourist freedom rather than a democratising agent in tourism. This approach has been echoed in much scientific communication particularly where guidebooks are the subject of frequent casual reference. In more recent research, guidebooks are also often seen as an undesirable force which reduces the independence of the traveller despite publishers’ advertised claims of facilitating an independent travel mode. Lisle (2008: 165) argues of Lonely Planet for example, that their users ‘think they are making active independent choices about their destinations but in fact those decisions have already been framed in advance by [Lonely Planet’s] ethical vision’. This critique of a deceptive liberation for the independent tourist echoes concerns that guidebooks provide choice and ‘independence’ only in so far as that choice conforms to the guidebook structure offering a veneer of independence where none quite exists. We contend that, as guidebooks have evolved so has their critique and inherent stigmatisation. Indeed, guidebook development and production has done little to resolve the traveller–tourist juxtaposition, which instead has been routinely reconstituted. Guidebooks, even those of the most innovative type, have thus made themselves easy prey for such critique and stigmatisation. Yet, guidebooks have and can act to enable the consumer. The guidebook has served as the condenser of information before the online environment and has created and connected the demand and supply of tourism. While few people used guidebooks a century ago, in the last half century many people have gained access which has assisted them in independent travel. In the modern era, guidebooks have helped to mainstream travel, thus opening tourism to those otherwise cautious to do so without a safety net. By imagining their users as adventuresome, guidebook authors encourage the experience of a community of outgoing travellers who share similar goals and ambitions in their travelling.

210

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

These opportunities presented by the guidebook, particularly to the Western baby-boomer tourist, enabled McGregor (2000: 35) to argue that Lonely Planet, Rough Guides and similar publications ‘have managed to escape the stigma travellers associate with most tourist-oriented texts’. Yet, the situation is more complex as revealed by the blogs we investigated in Chapters 6 and 7, which indicated varied response to these guidebooks. It is possible that while this style of guidebook managed to escape significant stigma among a particular tourist community, it may only have been for a brief period. Such guidebooks are now a significant focus of distaste while older brands such as Fodor’s or Michelin are now the subject of less comment. The latter, however, should not be interpreted as if the less criticised brands are more accepted. On the contrary, the brands most criticised are by inference those deemed most worthy of attention, be it negative or positive. There is a double bind, then, for guidebooks of the Lonely Planet independent traveller type. Along with much of the newer tourist information applications and other online resources, they advocate their raison d’etre as one of facilitating tourists to go beyond the mediocrities of tourism. The assertion that a guidebook brand is ‘not for the tourist but the traveller’ is, like the well-examined declarations among backpackers that they are not tourists, easy to attack. What is more, these techniques of distancing from the object of stigma only serve to reinforce the very foundations of the stigmatisation. In this way, something of a double bind is created. The user trying to escape the stigma of ‘tourist’ by seeking out the guidebook, online application or other form of advice is, by his or her actions, accepting the foundations of the stigmatisation. Thus, the only escape from stigmatisation for both guidebook and user is to renounce the tourist/traveller dichotomy which holds them both in thrall. So far, there have been no overt attempts to do so in guidebook publishing, popular commentary or scholarly research. Guidebook stigma is therefore a cliché of tourism similar to a number of other tropes identified in Meethan’s (2001) account of tourism in a global context and expanded upon by Hollinshead (2009). These include the passivity of host cultures and of the tourists frequently fooled into believing that what they consume is ‘the real thing’ and who are situated, in Hollinshead’s (2009: 150) description, ‘at the receiving “done-to” end of the productive commodity chain’. Meanwhile, host communities are depicted as ‘the passive victims of outside processes’ incapable of avoiding the demonstration effect of tourists on their own societies (Hollinshead, 2009: 150). However, while the presence and influence of these clichés in tourism research have been subjected to significant scholarly analysis, we

The Stigma of Guidebooks: Causes and Questions

211

find that the same has not been the case for the cliché of the guidebook in tourism. This may be due to the less obvious condition of the guidebook as yet another cliché of tourism. Furthermore, in the domain of tourism research, the guidebook truism is sustained not by explicit analysis, but by the approach and tone of the numerous remarks and casual asides about guidebooks scattered throughout the tourism literature. It is our contention that the guidebook in tourism is more than an ephemeral ‘agent of blindness’ or a signifying possession of the culturally maladroit tourist. Tourists can be passive consumers of place following guidebook recommendations to the letter but they can also be active acquirers of information selected according to personal need and interests. It is the stigma of the guidebook and of the tourist which ultimately renders these states socially ambiguous.

Stigma and Guidebook Continuity Guidebook stigma is also at work when the future of the guidebook is considered. We observe an uncritical approach to evaluating the guidebook’s importance in contemporary and future tourism as especially marked in the context of rising electronic information sources. At the same time, it cannot be denied that the ever-expanding availability of vade mecum information for tourists online undermines the relevance of the guidebook for this purpose alone. We saw in Chapters 6 and 7 the disdain of the bloggers in our sample for the failure of guidebooks to provide this kind of routine travel information that is up to date and appropriate to their needs. A number of failings in the traditional book mode are present which may be offset by digital publication. The chief advantage of this is a significantly shorter horizon of updating, effectively eradicating the frequent complaint that guidebook advice is outdated by publication date. It is notable, however, that the vade mecum components of the guidebook are becoming less significant in new editions and styles of printed guidebooks. Vade mecum data are now readily available on or via the websites of many guidebook publishers while less is in the guidebook. As observed in Chapter 5, Lonely Planet’s Australia once listed every accommodation option available to backpackers visiting a destination, while in recent printed editions both destination and accommodation listings have been significantly reduced. The growth in travel experience among Western consumers, along with the provision of relatively easily available and updated information from the internet, means that this information is less needed and more easily obtainable.

212

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

The same cannot be said of the belles lettres purpose of the guidebook which remains relevant to consumers in offering ‘discursive modes of apprehension of, and response to, travel and place’ (Seaton, 2002: 148). This is attested to in the highly moralising ongoing critique of guidebooks and guidebook users based on how they ought to behave. It also accounts for the increase in belles lettres style content of guidebooks as we demonstrated in Chapter 5 in the context of Lonely Planet’s Australia and in a preference exhibited by some bloggers for guidebooks which were not necessarily up to date, as described in Chapter 6. It is our expectation that ever-evolving tourist communities in need of belles lettres guidance will be central to the continuation of the guidebook as they have been since the guidebook’s first mass production in the 19th century. Baedeker, Murray, Wheeler and the rest have all argued that their publications were not for the mass of tourists but rather ‘people like us’ – a targeted audience who could identify with the publishers’ specific approach to travel. Ruskin’s followers likewise concurred or wished to learn his way of seeing Italian art while Wheeler’s references to ‘our travellers’ in early Lonely Planet publications suggests an intimate community. When Forster’s Lucy Honeychurch (1908) from Room with a View finds herself without her Baedeker in Florence’s Santa Croce, she is lost in knowing not just what to see but how it should be appreciated by a member of Britain’s educated middle class like herself. Spotted by Locals, Not for Tourists, Time Out City guides and various online offerings work on the same principle of connecting those with like tastes to desirable services. The trusted voice of the publisher and their ‘our pick’ suggestions provide the training ground for how to travel, although, as Harrison (2003) contends, a guidebook’s highly individual approach had to be learned. In a study of Canadian tourists, Harrison (2003: 80) observed that there was a variation of use among Frommer’s, Rough Guide or Lonely Planet publications: But all of the guidebooks required the reader to get to know them; in academic terms they had to learn to deconstruct them. Albert and Sandra talked of learning to know what a “good hotel” meant in the Lonely Planet series which was something quite different from a “good hotel” in a Rough Guide. Throughout our study, the authoritative voice of the guidebook, as both a desirable and undesirable but otherwise inherent feature, is a recurring theme. While the turning to peer resources as the preferred authority might be understood as a rejection of the power of the authorial voice of

The Stigma of Guidebooks: Causes and Questions

213

the guidebook, those who value their guidebooks also expressed belief in content which is vetted by known and apparently knowledgeable authors. Guidebooks, like online tourist resources, find their communities, those ‘people like us’ who share a view of the world and way of travelling in it. This belles lettres sensibility, which causes guidebooks now to be more teaching tool than practical vade mecum, has the capacity to sustain the ideology of a particular audience. In this way, guidebooks may survive in a function which is at least partially recognizable. Additionally, the current technology does not always coalesce with guidebook use patterns. Certainly, some contemporary guidebook usage will come to an end, since the information want can be satisfied by social media-based information or websites where answers to specific questions on schedules, locations and prices can be retrieved. Other use patterns will also change. However, the basic character of a guidebook, the authoritative and comprehensive source with curated information, will not alter only because of different information-accessing techniques. While the high point of the big guidebook publishing houses may have been reached less than a decade ago, sufficient demand for the printed article still remains – for now. Rather than the popularly conceived end of the guidebook, we may thus be seeing its repositioning against the dominance of peer-to-peer online travel information. Guidebooks continue to fill a market for concisely delivered trusted content, available both online and in print, chiefly to distinguish from the mass of peer-shared information (Robbins, 2014). They exist as clearing houses for the mass of destination information confronted by the tourist before and during his or her visit and this role will continue. Publishers are already fielding commercial texts which act as guides across the mass of information available to the traveller on any topic or destination. Examples exist in the content of Lonely Planet’s Code Green (Lorimer, 2006), a collection of ecotourism case studies, and Blue List publications providing 26 top-10 lists under themes such as sustainable tourism and wildlife watching which relies heavily on lists of accessible websites (Buckley, 2008). The introduction of specialist titles and the diversification of guidebook consumer markets remain notable also in the case of series such as the Bradt Travel guides and Cicerone guidebooks designed for walkers, cyclists, climbers and trekkers. Is it possible then to imagine future guidebooks as necessary tools of navigation through electronic word of mouth; a kind of reliable ‘filter’ from an independent third party? We tentatively suggested this in Chapter 11, and this theme concurs with Björk & Kauppinen-Räisänen’s (2011) observation that guidebooks are utilities for risk-reduction in travel.

214

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

It also builds on Hyde (2009) and Beritelli et al. (2007) who observed in their case studies that rather than replacing traditional sources of information such as guidebooks, tourists’ use the internet chiefly as a supplement. A major challenge continues to be the issue of developing a commercially viable business model where users pay for the cost of vetting and curating content. Jamal and Robinson (2009) identified the theme of communication in tourism as a significant gap in the extant literature. They note particularly the need for questions addressing the ‘circulation of knowledges’ which inform tourist decision-making and ‘play out through all parts of tourist experience’. While exploring the future of the guidebook may seem almost a contradiction in terms, and something that invites fanciful conjecture rather than empirically grounded research, we argue that not only is it possible to conduct evidence-based research on the future of travel guidebooks, it is also highly necessary. It is at least important for the purpose of bringing guidebook use research into play when contemplating whether guidebooks are facing imminent demise brought about by the technological revolution. In addition, the plethora of research interest in e-tourism prompts the question why guidebooks, and particularly the influence of their reviews on businesses and destinations, have failed to attract the same scrutiny.

The Guidebook and the Tourism Researcher Throughout this book, we have argued that unrealised stigmatisation of the guidebook has proven significant in academic understandings of the place and agency of the guidebook in past, present and future tourism. This stigmatisation underpins the unarticulated binary approach evident across representations of the guidebook with significant influence on our understanding of the cultural agency of the guidebook. On the one hand, the guidebook is represented as either an unchanging peripheral entity with only superficial influence on the conduct of tourism. This was especially evident in many accounts of tourism history discussed in Chapter 3, of the ‘end is nigh’ attitude towards the guidebook in the context of the web in Chapter 11 and in the offhand manner of its definition in both popular and scientific discourse discussed in Chapter 2. On the other hand, guidebooks are represented as wielding substantial, mostly malevolent, influence on the tourism system. This was apparent in the untested areas of tourism development discussed in Chapter 10 and of the influence of guidebooks in driving tourist cognition and behaviour evident in much textual reading of guidebooks addressed in

The Stigma of Guidebooks: Causes and Questions

215

Chapter 4. Similarly, the consumer response to guidebooks uncovered in the blogosphere in Chapters 6 and 7 offered a complex melange of attitudes across a spectrum with guidebooks framed as highly influential in tourism development and behaviour at one end, and as ephemeral and archaic at the other. The status of the guidebook as a marker of the low esteem in which the tourist is held is evident not only in popular commentary, but also in scholarly writings. Attempts to mark these trends have been overtaken by a view of the guidebook which is persistently dismissive despite the deconstruction of the tourist/traveller dichotomy by a number of researchers (e.g. McCabe, 2005; Uriely et al., 2002). It is possible that the status of the guidebook also expedites a fallacy of perspective notable in guidebook research. This was particularly observed in the apparent effect of guidebook recommendations on businesses in Chapter 8 and on the assumed behaviour and usage of guidebooks by tourists in Chapters 9 and 7, respectively. If the tendency has been to only observe that behaviour which appears to confirm opinions, without simultaneously pursuing data that might refute them, then considerably more focused empirical analysis is required in order to rebalance the scholarly perspective on travel guidebooks. Yet, in defending the guidebook against a critique that we find to be implicitly present in much scholarship, we are keenly aware of sharing the cultural bias of the research community. As middle-class and middleaged Western academics, we too are representative of the Lonely Planet generation and have struggled against our own culturally embedded bias in this research. In reflecting on the dominance of Lonely Planet, we find its supremacy in both popular conceptions of the guidebook and in the academic literature as intriguing and worthy of further investigation. Throughout our exploration, we have noted how publications from Lonely Planet are routinely taken to represent the whole genre. This is possibly not only because of their clear commercial success in publication run as well as number of titles. Lonely Planet publications are so frequently the only English-language guidebooks to a remote region or country that researchers, who have English as a first language themselves, perhaps do not see whatever guidebooks there might be in other languages. From personal communication, it is found that many tourism researchers, when venturing outside their own countries, carry a Lonely Planet guidebook, whether the trip is for a personal holiday or academic research. We can speculate that, in this way, tourism researchers reflect what also seems to be the case more broadly in allowing Lonely Planet to stand for all guidebooks.

216

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

Researchers’ personal acquaintance with Lonely Planet or Rough Guide may ensure their more frequent passing mention in academic writing. It is also possible that guidebook analysis is influenced by researchers seeking to distance themselves from the tourists they study. In the struggle for tourism to achieve scientific legitimacy, it is perhaps not unreasonable to suggest that an admission to using guidebooks as a part of academic work may also attract, or be perceived to attract, condemnation. Yet, how many of us, prior to embarking on first-time field research in a new location at least, do not turn to a guidebook for the maps, to find lodgings cheap enough for a meagre research grant, to find food familiar to our taste and to obtain our spatial bearings in the temporary area of residence? Our work on the guidebook reminds us of the need for a more reflexive approach to tourism scholarship as advocated by proponents of ‘the critical turn’ and also of themes advanced under the heading of ‘hopeful tourism’. Scholarly approaches based on the ‘critical turn’ aim at unsettling the influence of Western thinking and knowing, enabling diverse voices to be heard. ‘Hopeful tourism’ research offers a ‘values led humanist approach’ which necessarily privileges indigenous knowledge alongside dominant Western discourse as ‘co-created learning’ (Pritchard et al., 2011: 949). Critics of this approach, such as Chambers and Buzinde (2015: 3), describe the kind of Western self-reflexivity which is pivotal to the ‘hopeful tourism’ agenda as ‘still complicit in the profane conventions of Enlightenment thinking’ and which remain colonial in the sense that Western epistemologies dominate research approaches. For Hollinshead (2013), the colonialism inherent in most tourism research is bound together by customary disciplinary approaches and tourism academia’s predominantly Western perspective which influences knowledge creation. Yet, awareness among scholars of the Eurocentric nature of tourism knowledge which negates interpretations from other cultural and sociolinguistic groupings is growing (Chambers & Buzinde, 2015). The central tenet of ‘hopeful tourism’, that of reflexive and inclusive research practice to solve tourism problems, is sound and pertinent to our consideration of the guidebook. We have found a dearth of analysis of guidebooks written or consumed in languages other than English and also acknowledge our own failure to give weight to texts other than those in English. Linguistic limitations have contributed to the lack of understanding about guidebooks across cultures especially given that the bulk of published tourism history emanates from a Western perspective. We suspect that guidebooks in foreign languages of non-Western origin may be different in marked ways from those designed for a Western audience. We also ponder whether

The Stigma of Guidebooks: Causes and Questions

217

patterns of usage and perception of the value of guidebooks differ across cultures but will await further research on this area. At the same time, we maintain the value of our work as offering a limited foundation for more thorough and diverse deconstructions and knowledge of the guidebook. Bianchi’s (2009) call for more attention to the realities of the labour market in tourism is a useful reminder here of the breadth of understandings and approaches necessary to understand the working of complex cultural artefacts such as guidebooks. We agree that there is much more to be done in evaluating the political economy of tourism and the position of components within it, such as the guidebook, than is possible simply through the discursive approach offered by the ‘critical turn’ or the ‘cultural turn’. Bianchi (2009) advocates that connections between ‘structural forces, discourse and agency’ have the power to reveal much about the workings of contemporary tourism. Without this wider lens, it remains impossible to universally claim the impact of the guidebook in diverse ways including in perpetuating or alleviating socio-economic injustices. While the guidebooks which we viewed might be read as reinforcing a dominant Western paradigm in terms of the cultural binaries of visitor and visited in their texts, the proof of impact beyond the text itself is yet to be fully revealed. As we emphasise throughout this book, empirically tested understandings of the use of text, not the interpretation of text itself, will uncover the impact of guidebooks for good or ill on destinations, people and culture. Thus, our rejection in Chapter 10 of the standard maxim of guidebooks as ‘countdown to doomsday’ for a previously ‘untouched’ destination is not a rejection of guidebook influence on such developments, but a call for research from a more nuanced foundation. Finally, it is possible that the status of the guidebook also expedites a fallacy of perspective notable in guidebook research. This was particularly observed when examining the apparent effect of guidebook recommendations on businesses and on the assumed behaviour and usage of guidebooks by tourists in Chapters 9 and 7, respectively. If the tendency has been to only perceive that behaviour which appears to confirm rather than refute opinions then considerably more focused empirical analysis is required in order to rebalance the scholarly perspective on travel guidebooks.

Conclusion: The Guidebook and Cultural Change Hollinshead (2009) maintains that the complexity of tourism as a global force cannot be contained by repetition of unverified assumptions. Throughout this book, we have tested understandings of the guidebook

218

Exploring the Use and Impact of Travel Guidebooks

in search of a more subtle approach to the role of guidebooks in tourism and cultural change than is typically conceived. In order to interrogate the guidebook as a real-life artefact of tourism, and as an entity understood and described in both popular and scientific fields, we have necessarily cast our net broadly in terms of methodology, empirical evidence and theory. In centralising the guidebook in the performance of tourism, and extrapolating its possible future, we have drawn on the ideas of sociologists, historians, geographers and literary theorists as well as tourism economists. We acknowledge weaknesses in our approach, especially that an eclectic collection of data necessarily bypasses conventional aspects of methodological rigour in order to develop an argument. Answers have not always been provided to the questions raised but we have sought to contest conventional wisdoms which are poorly evidence based. In conclusion, we contend that both the guidebook as a dynamic entity in tourism and the fragmentary popular and academic commentary on guidebooks offer a complementary lens through which to view wider cultural change associated with tourism. Indeed, a full understanding of the cultural influence of the guidebook is only possible when both perspectives are in play. As a foundation for this assertion, we have examined the way in which understanding of guidebooks and their use in both popular and scientific writings has been rarely questioned while a number of contradictions remain. Our interrogation of the guidebook resonates in the recent trend in tourism research known as the ‘critical turn’ in that we have aimed to challenge previously established ‘givens’ about the guidebook and its impact through tourism. However, our critique of that analysis has also demonstrated a commonality of approach across the tourism academy which has perpetuated half-truths and propounded supposition as fact. We therefore locate the guidebook within tourism as both an engine of change and the result of change. In doing so, we reject the implicit unilinear causality of guidebooks and cultural change. The use, production and representation of guidebooks have not occurred in a spatial or temporal vacuum, but are instead dynamic processes interacting with the multiplicity of tourism realities and identities. The guidebook is thus a dynamic and interactive element in travel, moving, changing and reflecting shifts in tourism itself. Building on Jack and Phipps’ (2005: 283) insightful assertion that guidebooks ‘index, in language, ideological struggles over the purpose and meaning of travel itself ’, we would add that the guidebook is a significant artefact of tourism essential to understanding tourism culture and mobility over the last two centuries. It can certainly be argued

The Stigma of Guidebooks: Causes and Questions

219

that the guidebook publisher Lonely Planet has had a larger impact on the development and state of tourism in the last 40 years than the entire mass of published tourism research in the same period. Yet, at the same time, we also maintain a critique of the tacit assumptions of guidebooks as the change agent, and we reject assertions that guidebooks alone have opened the door to massive social, cultural and economic change. Instead, we propound a view of the guidebook as a critical component in the use and reuse of cultural capital which defines a tourist destination, contributing directly and indirectly to the political, economic, social and ethical consequences of that process. In the context of globalisation and new media, the mass commercialisation of place and culture, and the diverse human mobilities contributing to what we understand as ‘tourism’, the guidebook takes on fresh complexity. In addition, there is a much richer depth of meaning to be found through examining the element of critique. We contend that the longstanding critique of guidebooks evident in the 19th-century commentary which begins this chapter, disdain in the blogosphere towards those dubbed ‘Lonely Plonkers’ with noses buried in their ‘travel survival kit’ and the unexamined popular journalism which holds that the guidebook is dead in the face of digitisation is significantly more interesting perhaps than the guidebooks themselves as a window on tourism and social change. MacCannell’s (1976: 10) statement that ‘the modern critique of tourists is not an analytical reflection on the problem of tourism – it is a part of the problem’ resonates across our understanding of the guidebook and its influence. The stigmatisation of the guidebook cannot be treated as a thing apart but is itself a rich vein of evidence on society, tourism and culture. In this way, guidebooks take centre stage as a key phenomenon in the analysis of an ambivalent approach to tourism and the tourist which still lingers.

References Abrate, G., Capriello, A. and Fraquelli, G. (2011) When quality signals talk: Evidence from the Turin hotel industry. Tourism Management 32 (4), 912–921. Aduchamp1 (2010) Guidebooks for Spain. [blog post] 25 August. See http://www.fodors. com/community/europe/guide-books-for-spain.cfm (accessed 20 April 2013). AlexandraZoe (2012) Would you bring a guidebook to France or Italy or just rely on the web [blog post] 30 August. See http://www.fodors.com/community/europe/wouldyou-bring-a-guide-book-to-france-and-italy-or-just-rely-on-the-web.cfm (accessed 9 April 2013). Alistairmck (2012) Social travel guides. How the web is changing the travel book. [blog post] 29 May. See http://twiwired.com/a+interesting+post+futu-21284343 (accessed 20 April 2013). AllesandraZoe (2013) Would You Bring a Guide Book to France and Italy or Just Rely on the Web? [blog post] 30 August. See http://www.fodors.com/community/Europe/ would-you-bring-a-guide-book-to-france-and-italy-or-just-rely-on-the-web.cfm (accessed 18 July 2013). Amused Female (2007) Why your guidebook is ruining your holiday [blog post] 9 March. See http://blogs.smh.com.au/travel/archives/2007/03/why_your_guidebook_is_ ruining.html (accessed 20 April 2013). Andersen, H.-C. and Robinson, M. (2002) Literature and Tourism: Reading and Writing Tourism Text. London: Continuum. Anderson C. (2004) The long tail. Wired 10, 170–177. Anderson, C. (2009) The Longer Long Tail: How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand (2nd edn). London: Random House Business Books. Anderson, S.C. and Tabb, B.H. (eds) (2002) Water, Leisure and Culture: European Historical Perspectives. Oxford: Berg. Andrea (2011) [blog post] Confessions of a guidebook junkie [blog post] 6 July. See http://katiegoingglobal.com/confessions-of-a-guidebook-junkie/ (accessed 20 May 2013). Andrew (2007) Why the guidebook is ruining your holiday. [blog post] 14 March. See http://blogs.smh.com.au/travel/archives/2007/03/why _ your_ guidebook_is_ ruining.html?page=fullpage#comments (accessed 29 April 2013). Andsager, J.L. and Drzewiecka, J.A. (2002) Desirability of differences in destinations. Annals of Tourism Research 29 (2), 401–421. Annhig (2012) Would You Bring a Guide Book to France and Italy or Just Rely on the Web? 29 August. See http://www.fodors.com/community/Europe/wouldyou-bring-a-guide-book-to-france-and-italy-or-just-rely-on-the-web.cfm (accessed 20 May 2013). Antonescu, A. and Stock, M. (2014) Reconstructing the globalisation of tourism: A geo-historical perspective. Annals of Tourism Research 45, 77–88. Appadurai, A. (ed.) (1986) The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

220

References

221

Appadurai, A. (1996) Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Aquamineral (2012) Would You Bring a Guide Book to France and Italy or Just Rely on the Web?29 August. See http://www.fodors.com/community/Europe/would-you-bringa-guide-book-to-france-and-italy-or-just-rely-on-the-web.cfm (accessed 20 May 2013). Aramis (2013) Guidebooks for Spain [blog post] 25 August. See http://www.fodors.com/ community/europe/guide-books-for-spain.cf (accessed 20 April 2013). Arndt, J. (1967) Role of product-related conversations in the diffusion of a new product. Journal of Marketing Research 4, 291–295. Arnould, E. (2006) Consumer culture theory: Retrospect and prospect. European Advances in Consumer Research 7 (1), 605–607. Atkinson, P. and Hammersley, M. (1994) Ethnography and participant observation. In N.K. Denzin and Y.S. Lincoln (eds) Handbook of Qualitative Research (pp. 248–261). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Augé, M. (1995) Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity. London: Verso. Backpacking in the news (2010) Things I hate about backpacking [blog post] 21 December. See http://www.thingsihateaboutbackpacking.com/?p=1723 (accessed 9 April 2013). Baedeker, K. (1867) Italy. Handbook for Travellers. Part Third: Southern Italy, Sicily, the Lipari Islands. Coblenz: K.Baedeker. London: Williams and Norgate Baedeker, K. (1898) Egypt and the Sudan: A Handbook for Travellers. Leipzig: Baedeker. Banyai, M. and Glover, T.D. (2012) Evaluating research methods on travel blogs. Journal of Travel Research 51 (3), 267–277. Bara Travel (2012) Guidebook on the verge of extinction. [blog post] 16 February. See http://www.travelblather.com/2012/02/travel-guidebook-on-the-verge-ofextinction.html (accessed 9 April 2013). Barranowski, S. and Furlough, E. (eds) (2001) Being Elsewhere: Tourism, Consumer Culture, and Identity in Modern Europe. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Barthes, R. (1972) Mythologies. New York: Hill and Wang. Beck, W. (2006) Narratives of World Heritage in travel guidebooks. International Journal of Heritage Studies 12 (6), 521–535. Becken, S. and Wilson, J. (2006) Trip planning and decision making of self-drive tourists: A quasi-experimental approach. Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing 20 (3/4), 47–62. Beckerson, J. and Walton, J.K. (2005) Selling air: Marketing the intangible at British resorts. In J.K. Walton (ed.) Histories of Tourism: Representation, Identity and Conflict (pp. 55–70). Clevedon: Channel View Publications. Bender, J., Gidlow, B. and Fisher, D. (2013) National stereotypes in tourist guidebooks: An analysis of auto-and hetero-stereotypes in different language guidebooks about Switzerland. Annals of Tourism Research 40, 331–351. Benoit, D. (2012) Google’s plan to buy Frommer’s hitting review site. Wall Street Journal 13 August. Berghoff, H. (2002) From privilege to commodity? Modern tourism and the rise of the consumer society. In H. Berghoff, B. Korte, R. Schneider and C. Harvie (ed.) The Making of Modern Tourism: The Cultural History of the British Experience, 1600–2000 (pp. 133–157). New York: Palgrave.

222

References

Beritelli, P., Bieger, T. and Laesser, C. (2007) The impact of the Internet on information sources portfolios: Insight from a mature market. Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing 22 (1), 63–80. Bhattacharyya, D.P. (1997) Mediating India: An analysis of a guidebook. Annals of Tourism Research 24 (2), 371–389. Bianchi, R.V. (2009) The ‘critical turn ’in tourism studies: A radical critique. Tourism Geographies 11 (4), 484–504. Bieger, T. and Laesser, C. (2004) Information sources for travel decisions: Toward a source process model. Journal of Travel Research 42 (4), 357–371. Big Al (2007) Why the guidebook is ruining your holiday. [blog post] 10 March. See http://blogs.smh.com.au/travel/archives/2007/03/why _ your_ guidebook_is_ ruining.html?page=fullpage#comments (accessed 20 April 2013). Binder, J. (2004) The whole point of backpacking: Anthropological perspectives on the characteristics of backpacking. In G. Richards and J. Wilson (eds) The Global Nomad: Backpacker Travel in Theory and Practice (pp. 92–108). Clevedon: Channel View Publications. Björk, P. and Kauppinen-Räisänen, H. (2011) The impact of perceived risk on information search: A study of Finnish tourists. Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism 11 (3), 306–323. Black, J. (2003) The British Abroad: The Grand Tour in the Eighteenth Century. Stroud: Sutton. Blichfeldt, B.S. and Marabese, M. (2014) A life posted: ‘Netnographic’ approaches to tourists studies. In J.W. Meged, B.S. Blichfeldt, L.A. Hansen and K.A. Hvass (eds) Tourism Methodologies – New Perspectives, Practices and Procedures (pp. 61–76). Copenhagen: Copenhagen Business School Press. Bourdieu, P. (1986) The forms of capital. In J. Richardson (ed.) Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education (pp. 241–258). New York: Greenwood. BooBoo111 (2012) How to Travel the World for 6 Months. With no Guidebook [blog post] Huff Post Travel 12 June. See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nico-pitney/how-totravel-the-world-without-guidebook.html (accessed 19 April 2013). Boorstin, D. (1964) The Image or What Happened to the American Dream. New York: Atheneum. Borsay, P. (2005) A History of Leisure: The British Experience since 1500. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Bosman, J. (2013) Sold back to its founder: Frommer’s to publish anew. New York Times July 14. See http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/15/business/media/sold-back-to-itsfounder-frommers-to-publish-anew.html (accessed 29 January 2014). Box, B. (2014) South American Handbook 2015. Bath: Footprint Handbooks. Brian (2007) Why the guidebook is ruining your holiday. [blog post] 15 March. See http:// blogs.smh.com.au/travel/archives/2007/03/why _ your_ guidebook_is_ruining. html?page=fullpage#comments (accessed 29 April 2013). Brodie, A. (2011) Towns of ‘Health and Mirth’: The first seaside resorts, 1730–1769. In P. Borsay and J. Walton (eds) Resorts and Ports: European Seaside Towns since 1700 (pp. 18–32). Bristol: Channel View Publications. Brown, B. (2007) Working the problems of tourism. Annals of Tourism Research 34 (2), 364–383. Bruce, D.M. (2010) Baedeker: The perceived ‘inventor’ of the formal guidebook – A bible for travellers in the 19th century. In R.W. Butler and R.A. Russell (eds) Giants of Tourism (pp. 93–110). Wallingford: CAB International.

References

223

Buckley, R. (2008) Adventure tourism products: Price, duration, size, skill, remoteness. Tourism Management 28 (6), 1428–1433. Buhalis, D. and Law, R. (2008) Progress in information technology and tourism management. 20 years on and 10 years after the internet – the State of eTourism research. Tourism Management 29 (4), 609–623. Butler, R. (1980) The concept of a tourist area life cycle of evolution: Implications for management and resources. Canadian Geographer 14 (1), 5–12. Buzard, J. (1993) The Beaten Track. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Buzinde, C.N. (2010) Discursive constructions of the plantation past within a travel guidebook. Journal of Heritage Tourism 5 (3), 219–235. Cai, L., Feng, R. and Breiter, D. (2004) Tourist purchase decision involvement and information preferences. Journal of Vacation Marketing 10 (2), 138–148. Callahan, D. (2011) Consuming and erasing Portugal in the Lonely Planet guide to East Timor. Postcolonial Studies 14 (1), 95–109. Cambodge (2007) Why Your Guidebook is Ruining Your Holiday. [blog post]. The Age 15 March 2007. See http://blogs.theage.com.au/travel/archives/2007/03/why_ your_guideb.html (accessed 19 December 2014). Campbell, J. (2008, 13 April) Writer off the Lonely Planet. Sunday Herald Sun, 12. Caruana, R. and Crane, A. (2011) Getting away from it all. Exploring freedom in tourism. Annals of Tourism Research 38 (4), 1495–1515. Carter, S. (1998) Tourists’ and travellers’ social construction of Africa and Asia as risky locations. Tourism Management 19 (4), 349–358. Chambers, D. and Buzinde, C. (2015) Tourism and decolonisation: Locating research and self. Annals of Tourism Research 51, 1–16. Chamborres (2012) Chamborres Expedition, the Story of Our Journey Around the World: Guidebooks: Love ‘em or Hate ‘em? [blog post] 2 September. See http://chamborres. com/2012/08/02/guidebooks-love-em-or-hate-em/ (accessed 3 May 2013). Chapla (2013) Guidebooks for Spain [blog post] 25 August. See http://www.fodors.com/ community/europe/guide-books-for-spain.cf (accessed 20 April 2013). Chen, L.-C., Lin, S.-P. and Kuo, C.-M. (2013) Rural tourism: Marketing strategies for the bed and breakfast industry in Taiwan. International Journal of Hospitality Management 32, 278–286. Cheong, S-M. and Miller, M. L. (2000) Power and tourism: A Foucauldian observation. Annals of Tourism Research 37 (2), 371–390. Choi, S., Lehto, X.Y., Morrison, A.M. and Jang, S. (2012) Structure of travel planning processes and information use patterns. Journal of Travel Research 51 (1), 26–40. Cilauro, S., Gleisner, T. and Sitch, R. (2003) Molvania: A Land Untouched by Modern Dentistry. Melbourne: Hardie Grant Books in conjunction with Working Dog Pty. Ltd. Cilauro, S., Gleisner, T. and Sitch, R. (2004) Phaic Tan: Sunstroke on a Shoestring. Melbourne: Hardie Grant Books in conjunction with Working Dog Pty Ltd. Clampet, J. (2013) Updated. Lonely Planet and the rapid decline of the printed guidebook, SKIFT. 3 March. See http://skift.com/2013/03/04/lonely-planet-and-the-rapiddecline-of-the-printed-guidebook/ (accessed 29 May 2013). Cohen, E. (1973) Nomads from affluence: Notes on the phenomenon of drifter tourism. International Journal of Comparative Sociology 14 (1–2), 89–103. Cohen, E. (1985) The tourist guide: The origins, structure and dynamics of a role. Annals of Tourism Research 12 (1), 5–29.

224

References

Cohen, E. and Cohen, S.A. (2012) Current sociological theories and issues in tourism. Annals of Tourism Research 39 (4), 2177–2202. Cohen, R. (2000) Do postmodern genres exist? In N. Lucy (ed.) Postmodern Literary Theory: An Anthology (pp. 293–309). Oxford: Blackwell. Coleman, S. and Crang, M. (2002) Tourism: Between Place and Performance. New York: Berghann Books. Cocks, C. (2001) Doing the Town: The Rise of Urban Tourism in the United States, 1850–1915. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Cole, S. (2008) Tourism, Culture and Development: Hopes, Dreams and Realities from Eastern Indonesia. Clevedon: Channel View Publications. Coleman, S. and Crang, M. (2002) Tourism: Between Place and Performance. New York: Berghann Books. Coles, T. (2015) Tourism mobilities: Still a current issue in tourism? Current Issues in Tourism 18 (1), 62–67. Cook, S. and Ward, G. (2002) The Rough Guide to Travel Online. London: Rough Guides. Cowboy1968 (2010) Guidebooks for Spain [blog post] 25 August. http://www.fodors. com/community/europe/guide-books-for-spain.cfm (accessed 20 April 2013). Crang, M. (2006) Performing tourist places. Tourism Management 27 (6), 1438–1439. Cresswell, T. (2010) Mobilities I: Catching up. Progress in Human Geography 35 (4), 550–558. Crocker, J. and Lutskey, N. (1986) Stigma and the dynamics of social cognition. In S. Ainlay, G. Becker and L. Coleman (eds) The Dilemma of Difference (pp. 95–122). New York: Plenum Crotts, J.C. (1998) Consumer decision-making and pre-purchase information search. In A. Pizam and Y. Mansfeld (eds) Consumer Behavior in Travel and Tourism (pp. 149–168). New York: Haworth. Culler, J. (1981) Semiotics of tourism. American Journal of Semiotics 1 (1–2), 127–140. Cyr, D., Bonanni, C., Bowes, J. and Ilsever, J. (2005) Beyond trust: Website design preferences across cultures. Journal of Global Information Management 13 (14), 24–52. Dale, D. (2000, 11 March) Going by the book. Sydney Morning Herald, p. 3. Daniel McIssac (2010) Going beyond the guidebook [blog post] 7 July. See http://www. rosettastone.com/blog/going-beyond-the-guidebook/1345185767000/ (accessed 9 April 2013). Dann (2009, 8 February) Odysseys into the unknown. Sunday Herald Sun, p. 6. Dann, G.M.S. (1992) Travelogs and the management of unfamiliarity. Journal of Travel Research 30 (4), 59–63. Dann, G.M.S. (1996) The Language of Tourism. Wallingford: CAB International. Dann, G.M.S. (1999) Writing out the tourist in space and time. Annals of Tourism Research 26 (1), 159–187. Dave Seminara (2012) The Problem with Guidebooks, or How I Came to Hate Lonely Planet on a Sunday in Crete. [blog post] 25 June. See http://www.gadling.com/2012/06/25/ the-problem-with-guidebooks-orhow-i-came-to-hate-lonely-planet-on-a-sundayin-crete.html (accessed 6 May 2013). Davidson, J. and Spearritt, P. (2000) Holiday Business: Tourism in Australia since 1870. Carlton: Miegunyal Press. David Whitley (2012) Guidebook on the verge of extinction. [blog post] 16 February. See http://www.travelblather.com/2012/02/travel-guidebook-on-the-verge-ofextinction.html (accessed 9 April 2013). De Krester (2000, 20 May) Nights of a different kind. Australian, p. 11.

References

225

Denise (2011) Confessions of a guidebook junkie. [blog post] 7 December. See http:// katieaune.com/confessions-of-a-guidebook-junkie/ (accessed 2 May 2013). Denzin, N.K. and Lincoln, Y.S. (2008) The Landscape of Qualitative Research. London: Sage. Dickenson, J, Ghali, K., Cherrett, T., Speed, C., Davies, N. and Norgate, S. (2012) Tourism and the smartphone app: Capabilities, emerging practice and scope in the travel domain. Current Issues in Tourism 17 (1), 84–101. Dolan, B. (2001) Ladies of the Grand Tour. London: Harper Collins. du Gay, P., Hall, S., Janes, L., MacKay, H. and Negus, K. (1997) Doing Cultural Studies: The Story of the Sony Walkman. London: Sage/Open University. Duff, D. (ed.) (2000) Modern Genre Theory. Harlow: Longman. Durie, A.J. (2003) Scotland for the Holidays: A History of Tourism in Scotland 1780–1939. East Linton: Tuckwell. Edelheim, J.R., Lee, Y.L., Lee, S.H. and Caldicott, J. (2011) Developing a taxonomy of ‘award-winning’ restaurants – What are they actually? Journal of Quality Assurance in Hospitality and Tourism 12 (2), 140–156. Edensor, T. (2000) Staging tourism: Tourists as performers. Annals of Tourism Research 27 (2), 322–344. Egger, R. (2013) The impact of near field communication on tourism. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology 4 (2), 119–133. Ellen, R.F. (ed.) (1984) Ethnographic Research: A Guide to General Conduct. London: Academic Press. Elsner, J. and Rubies, J-P. (1999) Voyages and Visions: Towards a Cultural History of Travel. London: Reaktion Books. Elsrud, T. (2001) Risk creation in traveling: Backpacker adventure narration. Annals of Tourism Research 28 (3), 597–617. Emerson, R.M., Fretz, R.I. and Shaw, L.L. (1995) Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Empress Jo (2007) Why Your Guidebook is Ruining Your Holiday. [blog post]. The Age 15 March 2007. See http://blogs.theage.com.au/travel/archives/2007/03/why_ your_guideb.html (accessed 19 December 2014). Eriksmith (2012) On My Feet or in My Mind I’m Always Traveling…Why I Don’t Hate Guidebooks [blog post] 26 February. See http://onmyfeetorinmymind.blogspot. com.au/2012/02/why-i-don’t-hate-guidebooks.html (accessed 19 April 2013). Espelt, N.G. and Benito, J.A.D. (2005) The social construction of the image of Girona: A methodological approach. Tourism Management 26 (5), 777–785. Eysenbach, G. and Till, J.E. (2001) Ethical issues in qualitative research on internet communities. British Medical Journal 323, 1103–1105. Farremog (2012) Would You Bring a Guide Book to France and Italy or Just Rely on the Web? 29 August. See http://www.fodors.com/community/Europe/would-you-bring-aguide-book-to-france-and-italy-or-just-rely-on-the-web.cfm (accessed 20 May 2013). Finlay, H., Murray, J., Tiller, A., Hindle, C., Wheeler, T., Noble, J. and Forsyth, S. (1992) Australia: A Travel Survival Kit (6th edn). Melbourne: Lonely Planet. Finlay, H., Armstrong, M., Chapman, J., Chapman, M., Collins, D. and O’Byrne, D. (1996) Australia: A Travel Survival Kit (8th edn). Melbourne: Lonely Planet. Finlay, H., Brown, L., Humphreys, A., Murray, J., O’Bryne, D., Smallman, T., Valent, D., Eilliams, J. and Womersley, S. (1998) Australia (9th edn). Melbourne: Lonely Planet. Fiona Heavey (2009) Do We Still Need Guidebooks? Seeking Adventure [blog post] 9 September. See http://seekingadventure.blogspot.com.au2012/09/do-we-stillneed-guidebooks.html (accessed 20 April 2013).

226

References

Flanneruk (2012) Would You Bring a Guide Book to France and Italy or Just Rely on the Web? 29 August. See http://www.fodors.com/community/Europe/would-you-bringa-guide-book-to-france-and-italy-or-just-rely-on-the-web.cfm (accessed 20 May 2013). Flat Erik (2012) On today’s travel guides. [blog]. 14 August. See http://www.samizdata. net/2012/08/on-todays-trave/ (accessed 19 December 2014). Flick (2007) Why Your Guidebook is Ruining Your Holiday. [blog post]. The Age 15 March 2007. See http://blogs.theage.com.au/travel/archives/2007/03/why_your_guideb. html (accessed 19 December 2014). Fodness, D. and Murray, B. (1997) Tourist information search. Annals of Tourism Research 24 (3), 503–523. Fodness, D. and Murray, B. (1998) A typology of tourist information search strategies. Journal of Travel Research 37 (2), 108–119. Fodness, D. and Murray, B. (1999) A model of tourist information search behavior. Journal of Travel Research 37 (3), 220–230. Fontana, A. and Frey, J.H. (1994) Interviewing: The art of science. In N.K. Denzin and Y.S. Lincoln (eds) Handbook of Qualitative Research (pp. 361–376) Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Forster, E.M. (1978) [1908] A Room with a View. London: Penguin. Franklin, A. (2003) Tourism: An Introduction. London: Sage. Franklin, A. and Crang, M. (2001) The trouble with tourism and travel theory? Tourist Studies 1 (1), 5–22. Frew, E. (2009) Festival image creation: The role of local and interstate newspapers. Tourism Analysis 14 (2), 221–230. Friend, T. (2005) The parachute artist: Have Tony Wheeler’s guidebooks travelled too far? The New Yorker (18 April) 81 (9), 78–91. See http://www.newyorker.com/ magazine/2005/04/18/the-parachute-artist (accessed 16 October 2013). Fussell, P. (1980) Abroad: British Literary Traveling Between the Wars. New York: Oxford University Press. G.M. (2013) The guidebook industry: Bookend. The Economist 3 April [blog post]. See http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2013/04/guidebook-industry (accessed 15 January 2015). Garfors, G. (2013) Just another 20 travel tips. Gunnar Garfoss Travel and Media. See http://www.garfors.com/2013/08/top-travel-tips-dont-leave-home-without.html (accessed 12 December 2014). Garland, A. (1997) The Beach. London: Penguin. Garrod, B. and Kosowska, A. (2012) Destination image consistency and dissonance: A content analysis of Goa’s destination image in brochures and guidebooks. Tourism Analysis 17 (2), 167–180. Gartner, W.C. (1993) Image formation process. Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing 2 (3), 191–215. Gary Arndt (2012) Guidebook on the verge of extinction. [blog post] 16 February. See http://www.travelblather.com/2012/02/travel-guidebook-on-the-verge-ofextinction.html (accessed 9 April 2013). Genie (2007) Why your guidebook is ruining your holiday [blog post] 9 March. See http:// blogs.smh.com.au/travel/archives/2007/03/why_your_guidebook_is_ruining.html (accessed 20 April 2013). GerryN (2012) On today’s travel guides. [blog] 14 August. See http://www.samizdata. net/2012/08/on-todays-trave/ (accessed 19 December 2014).

References

227

Gilbert, D. (1999) London in all its glory – or how to enjoy London: Guidebook representations of imperial London. Journal of Historical Geography 25 (3), 279–297. Gilford, J. (2006) The Packing Book: Secrets of the Carry-On Traveler. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press. Glasson, B. (2009, 29 November) Toss the guidebook and find yourself. Australian, p. 18. Goffman, E. (1963) Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Gogia, N. (2006) Unpacking corporeal mobilities: The global voyages of labour and leisure. Environment and Planning 38, 359–375. Gordon, B. (1986) The souvenir: Messenger of the extraordinary. Journal of Popular Culture 20 (3), 135–146. Graburn, N. (1978) Tourism: The sacred journey. In V. Smith (ed.) Hosts and Guests: The Anthropology of Tourism (pp. 17–31). Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Greg (2012) Would You Bring a Guide Book to France and Italy or Just Rely on the Web? 29 August. See http://www.fodors.com/community/Europe/would-you-bringa-guide-book-to-france-and-italy-or-just-rely-on-the-web.cfm (accessed 20 May, 2013). Gritti, J. (1967) Les contenus culturels du Guide Bleu: Monuments et sites “a voir”. Communications 10, 51–64. Groundwater, B. (2007) Why Your Guidebook is Ruining Your Holiday. [blog]. The Age 15 March 2007. See http://blogs.theage.com.au/travel/archives/2007/03/why_ your_guideb.html (accessed 12 December 2014). Grønflaten, Ø. (2009) The tourist information matrix - differentiating between sources and channels in the assessment of travellers’ information search. Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism 9 (1), 39–64. Gunn, C. (1988) Vacationscape: Designing Tourist Regions (2nd edn). New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. Haldrup, M. and Larsen, J. (2006) Material cultures of tourism. Leisure Studies 25 (3), 275–289. Haldrup, M. and Larsen, J. (2010) Tourism, Performance and the Everyday: Consuming the Orient. London: Routledge. Hampton, M.P. (1998) Backpacker tourism and economic development. Annals of Tourism Research 25 (3), 639–660. Hanlan, J. and Kelly, S. (2005) Image formation, information and an iconic Australian tourist destination. Journal of Vacation Marketing 11 (2), 163–177. Hanley, K. and Walton, J. (2010) Constructing Cultural Tourism: John Ruskin and the Tourist Gaze. Bristol: Channel View Publications. Hannam, K., Sheller, M. and Urry, J. (2006) Editorial: Mobilities, immobilities and moorings. Mobilities 1 (1), 1–22. Harding, P., Bindloss, J., Connelly, J., Horton, P., Mathers, S., O’Brien, S., Benson, S., Choy, M., Daly, K., Jealous, V., Lane, M., McClymont, D. and Smitz, P. (2002) Australia (11th edn). Melbourne: Lonely Planet. Harrison, J. (2003) Being a Tourist: Finding Meaning in Pleasure Travel. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Hasbrouck, E. (2007) The Practical Nomad: How to Travel Around the World (4th edn). Emeryville, CA: Avalon Travel Publishing. Heidi (2012) The Problem with Guidebooks, or How I Came to Hate Lonely Planet on a Sunday in Crete. [blog post] 25 June. See http://www.gadling.com/2012/06/25/

228

References

the-problem-with-guidebooks-orhow-i-came-to-hate-lonely-planet-on-a-sundayin-crete.html (accessed 6 May 2013). Helena (2007) Why your guidebook is ruining your holiday [blog post] 9 March. See http://blogs.smh.com.au/travel/archives/2007/03/why _ your_ guidebook_is_ ruining.html (accessed 20 April 2013). Henley, J.A. Jr., Cotter, M.J. and Herrington, J.D. (2004) The importance of consumer guide information to management: the Mobil “check” and hotel pricing behavior. Tourism Analysis 9 (3), 197–205. Hernandes-Maestro, R.M. and Gonzalez-Benito, O. (2014) Rural lodging establishments as drivers of rural development. Journal of Travel Research 53 (1), 83–95. Heung, V.C.S. (2003) Internet usage by international travellers: Reasons and barriers. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management 15 (7), 370–378. Ho, C-J., Lin, M-H. and Chen, H-M. (2012) Web users’ behavioural patterns of tourism information search: From online to offline. Tourism Management 33 (6), 1468–1482. Hollinshead, K. (2007) ‘Worldmaking’ and the transformation of place and culture: The enlargement of Meethan’s analysis of tourism and global change. In I. Ateljevic, A. Pritchard and N. Morgan (eds) The Critical Turn in Tourism Studies: Innovative Research Methodologies (pp. 165–193). Oxford: Elsevier. Hollinshead, K. (2009) The ‘worldmaking’ prodigy of tourism: The reach and power of tourism in the dynamics of change and transformation. Tourism Analysis 14 (1), 139–152. Horne, D. (1984) The Great Museum. London: Pluto Press. Hottola, P. (2004) Culture confusion: Intercultural adaptation in tourism. Annals of Tourism Research 31 (2), 447–466. Hyde, K.F. (2009) Tourist information search. In M. Kozak and A. Decrop (eds) Handbook of Tourist Behavior: Theory and Practice (pp. 50–66). New York: Routledge. Hyde, K.F. and Lawson, R. (2003) The nature of independent travel. Journal of Travel Research 42 (1), 13–23. Iaquinto, B.L. (2011) Fear of a Lonely Planet: Author anxieties and the mainstreaming of a guidebook. Current Issues in Tourism 14 (8), 705–723. Iaquinto, B.L. (2012) Backpacking in the internet age: Contextualising the use of Lonely Planet guidebooks. Tourism Recreation Research 37 (2), 145–155. Inglis, F. (2000) The Delicious History of the Holiday. London: Routledge. Jack (2011) Katie Going Global: ‘My Seven Links – Confessions of a Guidebook Junkie’ 6 July. See http://katiegoingglobal.com/my-7-links (accessed 5 April 2013). Jack, G. and Phipps, A. (2003) On the uses of travel guides in the context of German tourism to Scotland. Tourist Studies 3 (3), 281–300. Jack, G. and Phipps, A. (2005) Tourism and Intercultural Exchange: Why Tourism Matters. Clevedon: Channel View Publications. Jacobsen, J.K.S. (1999) Guidebøker og stedsopplevelser. In J.K.S. Jacobsen and A. Viken (eds) Turisme. Stedet i en bevegelig verden (pp. 64–74). Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Jacobsen, J.K.S. (2001) Nomadic tourism and fleeting place encounters: Exploring different aspects of sightseeing. Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism 1 (2), 99–112. Jacobsen, J.K.S., Heimtun, B. and Nordbakke, S.T.D. (1998) Det Nordlige Norges Image: Innholdsanalyse av utenlandske reisehåndbøker. Oslo: TØI. Jacobsen, J.K.S. and Dann, G.M.S. (2003) Images of the Lofoten islands. Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism 3 (1), 24–47.

References

229

Jake (2007) Why the guidebook is ruining your holiday [blog post] 14 March. See http:// blogs.smh.com.au/travel/archives/2007/03/why _ your_ guidebook_is_ruining. html?page=fullpage#comments (accessed 29 April 2013). Jamal, T. and Robinson, M. (eds) (2009) The Sage Handbook of Tourism Studies. London: Sage. Jane1144 (2012) Would You Bring a Guide Book to France and Italy or Just Rely on the Web? 29 August. See http://www.fodors.com/community/Europe/wouldyou-bring-a-guide-book-to-france-and-italy-or-just-rely-on-the-web.cfm (accessed 20 May 2013). Jarvis, J. and Peel, V. (2010) Flashpacking in Fiji: The development of a segmented backpacker industry in an emerging destination. In K. Hannam and A. Diekmann (eds) Beyond Backpacker Tourism: Experiences and Mobilities (pp. 21–39). Bristol: Channel View Publications. Jayne, M., Gibson, C., Waitt, G. and Valentine, G. (2012) Drunken mobilities: Backpackers, alcohol, ‘doing place’. Tourist Studies 12 (3), 211–231. Jeffrey, J. (2003, 15 November) Perfect piss-take pastiche. Australian, p. 29. Jeqp (2007) Why your guidebook is ruining your holiday [blog post] 9 March. See http:// blogs.smh.com.au/travel/archives/2007/03/why_your_guidebook_is_ruining.html (accessed 20 April 2013). Jeremy B (2011) What the Lonely Planet Guide Books and the Bible Have in Common. [blog post] 11 January. See http://www.aswetravel.com/what-lonely-planet-guidebooks-and-the-bible-have-in-common.html (accessed 9 April 2013). Jeremy Head (2011) Travel guidebook on the verge of extinction. [blog post] 16 February. See http://www.travelblather.com/2012/02/travel-guidebook-on-the-verge-ofextinction.html (accessed 9 April 2013). Johnathan Pearce (2012) On today’s travel guides. [blog]. 14 August. See http://www. samizdata.net/2012/08/on-todays-trave/ (accessed 19 December 2014). Jonjon (2007) Why the guidebook is ruining your holiday. [blog post] 16 March. See http:// blogs.smh.com.au/travel/archives/2007/03/why _ your_ guidebook_is_ruining. html?page=fullpage#comments (accessed 18 May 2013). Julia (2012) On My Feet or in My Mind I’m always traveling…: Why I Don’t Hate Guidebooks. [blog post] 26 February. See http://onmyfeetorinmymind.blogspot. com.au/2012/02/why-i-don’t-hate-guidebooks.html (accessed 19 April 2013). Justin (2007) Why your guidebook is ruining your holiday [blog post] 9 March. See http:// blogs.smh.com.au/travel/archives/2007/03/why_your_guidebook_is_ruining.html (accessed 20 April 2013). Karanasios, S. and Burgess, S. (2008) Tourism and internet adoption: A developing world perspective. International Journal of Tourism Research 10 (2), 169–182. Katie going global (2010) Confessions of a guidebook junkie. [blog post] 20 October. See http://katieaune.com/confessions-of-a-guidebook-junkie/ (accessed 19 May 2013). Katie going global (2011) My Seven Links – Confessions of a Guidebook Junkie [blog post] 6 July. See http://katiegoingglobal.com/my-7-links (accessed 5 April 2013). Kelly, M. (1998) Tourism, not terrorism: The visual politics of presenting Jordan as an international tourist destination. Visual Anthropology 11 (3), 191–205. Kennedy-Eden, H. and Gretzel, U. (2012) A taxonomy of mobile applications in tourism – research online. E-review of Tourism Research 10 (2), 47–50. Kenny, G. (2002) ‘Our Travellers’ out there on the road: Lonely Planet and its readers, 1973–1981. Journal of Australian Studies 26 (72) 111–119.

230

References

Kim, S.S., Timothy, D.J. and Hwang, J. (2011) Understanding Japanese tourists’ shopping preferences using the Decision Tree Analysis method. Tourism Management 32 (3), 544–554. Knudsen, D.C. and Rickly-Boyd, J.M. (2012) Tourism sites as semiotic signs: A critique. Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2), 1252–1254. Kopper, C.J. (2009) The breakthrough of the package tour in Germany after 1945. Journal of Tourism History 1 (1), 67–92. Koshar, R. (1998) ‘What ought to be seen’: Tourists’ guidebooks and national identities in modern Germany and Europe. Journal of Contemporary History 33 (3), 323–340. Koshar, R. (2000) German Travel Cultures. Oxford: Berg. Kozinets, R. (2002) The field behind the screen: Using netnography for marketing research in online communities. Journal of Marketing Research 39 (1), 61–72. Kvale, S. (1996) InterViews. An Introduction to Qualitative Research Interviewing. London: Sage. Laderman, S. (2009) Tours of Vietnam: War, Travel Guides, and Memory. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Langer, R. and Beckman, S.C. (2006) Sensitive research topics: Netnograpy revisited. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal 8 (2), 189–203. Lansky, D. (2013) The Rough Guide to First-Time Around the World (4th edn). London: Rough Guides. Lanyado, B. (2010) Are guidebooks facing extinction? The Observer, October 3. Lee, S.Y., Reynolds, J.S. and Kennon, L.R. (2003) Bed and breakfast industries: Successful marketing strategies. Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing 14 (1), 37–53. Lee, Y.-S. (2001) Tourist gaze: Universal concept. Tourism, Culture & Communication 3 (2), 93–99. Lekan, T.M. (2004) Imagining the Nation in Nature: Landscape Preservation and German Identity 1885–1945. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lesley Stern (2012) Lonely Planet I have a bone to pick with you. [blog post] 6 June. See https://realfrance.wordpress.com/category/impressionists/ (accessed 15 April). Lew, A.A. (1991) Place representation in tourist guidebooks: An example from Singapore. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 12 (2), 124–137. Lew, A.A. and Wong, A. (2003) News from the motherland: A content analysis of existential tourism magazines in Southern China. Tourism Culture and Communication. 4, 83–94. Lewin, B.A., Fine, J. and Young, L. (2000) Expository Discourse: A Genre-Based Approach to Social Science Research Texts. London: Continuum. Liechty, M. (2005) Building the road to Kathmandu: Notes on the history of tourism in Nepal. Himalaya 25 (1), 19–28. Lily (2007) Why the guidebook is ruining your holiday. [blog post] 16 March. See http:// blogs.smh.com.au/travel/archives/2007/03/why _ your_ guidebook_is_ruining. html?page=fullpage#comments (accessed 20 April 2013). Lisa (2007) Why your guidebook is ruining your holiday [blog post] 9 March. See http:// blogs.smh.com.au/travel/archives/2007/03/why_your_guidebook_is_ruining.html (accessed 20 April 2013). Lisle, D. (2008) Humanitarian travels: Ethical communication in Lonely Planet guidebooks. Review of International Studies 34 (1), 155–172. little old lady (2007) Why Your Guidebook is Ruining Your Holiday. [blog post]. The Age 15 March 2007. See http://blogs.theage.com.au/travel/archives/2007/03/why_your_ guideb.html (accessed 19 December 2014).

References

231

Looker, B. (2002) Exhibiting Imperial London: Empire and the City in Late Victorian and Edwardian Guidebooks. London: Centre for Urban and Community Research, Goldsmiths University of London. Lorimer, K. (2006) Code Green: Experiences of a Lifetime. Footscray; London: Lonely Planet Publications. Lue, C.-C., Crompton, J.L. and Fesenmaier, D.R. (1993) Conceptualization of multidestination pleasure trips. Annals of Tourism Research 20 (2), 289–301. Löfgren, O. (1999) On Holidays: A History of Vacationing. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. MacCannell, D. (1976) The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class. London: Macmillan. MacCannell, D. (2001) Tourist agency. Tourist Studies 1 (1), 23–37. Mackenzie, J.M. (2005) Empires of travel: British guide books and cultural imperialism in the 19th and 20th centuries. In J.K. Walton (ed.) Histories of Tourism: Representation, Identity and Conflict (pp. 19–38). Clevedon: Channel View Publications. Mader, R. (2002) Latin American ecotourism: What is it? Current Issues in Tourism 5 (3/4), 272–279. Madhu Nair (2012) Guidebook on the verge of extinction. [blog post] 16 February. See http://www.travelblather.com/2012/02/travel-guidebook-on-the-verge-ofextinction.html (accessed 9 April 2013). Marcus, G.E. (1998) Ethnography Through Thick and Thin. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Marigross (2010) Guidebooks for Spain. [blog post] 25 August See http://www.fodors. com/community/europe/guide-books-for-spain.cfm (accessed 20 April 2013). Marine-Roig, E. (2011) The image and identity of the Catalan coast as a tourist destination in twentieth-century tourist guidebooks. Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change 9 (2), 118–139. Mark (2007) Why your guidebook is ruining your holiday [blog post] 9 March. See http:// blogs.smh.com.au/travel/archives/2007/03/why_your_guidebook_is_ruining.html (accessed 20 April 2013), Mark (2011) Travel guidebook on the verge of extinction. [blog post] 16 February. See http://www.travelblather.com/2012/02/travel-guidebook-on-the-verge-ofextinction.html (accessed 9 April 2013). Mark Henshall (2012) Is the travel guidebook on the verge of extinction? [blog post] 16 February. See http://www.travelblather.com/2012/02/travel-guidebook-on-theverge-of-distinction.html (accessed 30 May 2013). Mark Wabster (2007) Why your guidebook is ruining your holiday [blog post] 9 March. See http://blogs.smh.com.au/travel/archives/2007/03/why_your_guidebook_is_ ruining.html (accessed 20 April 2013). Marli (2007) Why your guidebook is ruining your holiday [blog post] 9 March. See http:// blogs.smh.com.au/travel/archives/2007/03/why_your_guidebook_is_ruining.html (accessed 20 April 2013). Martin, G. (2013) The guidebook is not dead: Frommer’s guidebooks relaunch with EasyGuides, Forbes, July 17. See www.forbes.com/sites/grantmartin/2013/07/17/ frommers-easyguides/ (accessed August 10 2013). Martyn, T. (1787) The Gentleman’s Guide in his Tour Tthrough Italy. London: G. Kearsley. Maryellen1952 (2012) How to Travel the World for 6 Months. With no Guidebook [blog post] Huff Post Travel 12 June. See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nico-pitney/ how-to-travel-the-world-without-guidebook.html (accessed 19 April 2013).

232

References

McCabe, S. (2001) Who is a tourist? Tourist Studies 5 (1), 85–106. McCulloch, J. (1991) Backpackers: The Growth Sector of Australian Tourism/ Background Information Brief 21 April. Brisbane: Queensland Parliamentary Library. McGregor, A. (2000) Dynamic texts and tourist gaze: Death, bones and buffalo. Annals of Tourism Research 27 (1), 27–50. Meethan, K. (2001) Tourism in Global Scociety: Place, Culture, and Consumption. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Meg (2007) Why the guidebook is ruining your holiday. [blog post] 14 March. See http:// blogs.smh.com.au/travel/archives/2007/03/why _ your_ guidebook_is_ruining. html?page=fullpage#comments (accessed 20 April 2013). Mehmetoglu, M. and Dann G.M.S. (2003) Atlas/ti and content/semiotic analysis in tourism research. Tourism Analysis 8 (1), 1–13. Mental and Internal (2011) What the Lonely Planet Guide Books and the Bible Have in Common. [blog post] 11 January. See http://www.aswetravel.com/what-lonelyplanet-guide-books-and-the-bible-have-in-common.html (accessed 10 May 2013). Mercille, J. (2005) Media effects on image: The case of Tibet. Annals of Tourism Research 32 (4), 1029–1055. Meta (2007) Why Your Guidebook is Ruining Your Holiday. [blog post]. The Age 15 March 2007. See http://blogs.theage.com.au/travel/archives/2007/03/why_your_guideb. html (accessed 19 December 2014). Metro-Rolland, M. (2011) Tourists, Signs and the City: The Semiotics of Culture in an Urban Landscape. Aldershot: Ashgate. Michael Jennings (2012) On today’s travel guides. [blog]. 14 August. See http://www. samizdata.net/2012/08/on-todays-trave/ (accessed 19 December 2014). Michalski, D. (2004) Portals to metropolis: 19th-century guidebooks and the assemblage of urban experience. Tourist Studies 4 (3), 187–215. Mikeachim (2012a) Clueless (And Loving It) in Berlin. [blog]. 22 March. See http:// feveredmutterings.com/clueless-and-loving-it-in-berlin (accessed 18 December 2014). Mikeachim (2012b) The Problem with Guidebooks, or How I Came to Hate Lonely Planet on a Sunday in Crete. [blog post] 12 June. See http://www.gadling.com/2012/06/25/ the-problem-with-guidebooks-orhow-i-came-to-hate-lonely-planet-on-a-sundayin-crete.html (accessed 8 May 2013). Mills, J. and Law, R. (2004) Handbook of Consumer Behaviour, Tourism and the Internet. New York: Harworth Hospitality Press. Mkono, M. (2012) Netnographic tourist research: The internet as a virtual fieldwork site. Tourism Analysis 17 (4), 553–555. Mkono, M. and Markwell, K. (2014) The application of netnography in tourism studies. Annals of Tourism Research 48, 289–291. Morgan, N. (2004) Problematising place promotion. In A. Lew, C.M. Hall and A. Williams (eds) A Companion to Tourism (pp. 173–183). Oxford: Blackwell. Morgan, N. and Pritchard, A. (2005) On souvenirs and metonymy: Narratives of memory, metaphor and materiality. Tourist Studies 5 (1), 29–53. Morgan, M. and Watson, P. (2009) Unlocking the shared experience. In M. Kozak and A. DeCrop (eds) Handbook of Tourist Behaviour (pp. 116–132). New York: Taylor & Francis. MR (2007, March 15) Why the guidebook is ruining your holiday. [blog post] 14 March. See http://blogs.smh.com.au/travel/archives/2007/03/why_your_guidebook_is_ ruining.html?page=fullpage#comments (accessed 29 April 2013).

References

233

Ms Traveller (2007) Why the guidebook is ruining your holiday. [blog post] 11 March. See http://blogs.smh.com.au/travel/archives/2007/03/why_your_guidebook_is_ ruining.html?page=fullpage#comments (accessed 28 April 2013). Mullen, R. and Munson, J. (2009) The Smell of the Continent: The British Discover the Continent. MacMillan: Sydney. Newman, E. (2000) Going Abroad: The Bathroom Survival Guide (2nd edn) Saint Paul: Marlor. Nico Pitney (2012) How to Travel the World for 6 Months. With no Guidebook [blog post] Huff Post Travel 12 June. See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nico-pitney/ how-to-travel-the-world-without-guidebook.html (accessed 19 April 2013). Nishimura, S., Waryszak, R. and King, B. (2006a) Guidebook use by Japanese tourists: A qualitative study of Australia inbound travellers. International Journal of Tourism Research 8 (1), 13–26. Nishimura, S., Waryszak, R. and King, B. (2006b) The use and perceived usefulness of information sources among Japanese overseas tourists. Tourism and Hospitality Research 6 (4), 284–295. Nishimura, S., Waryszak, R. and King, B. (2007) The use of guidebooks by Japanese overseas tourists: A quantitative approach. Journal of Travel Research 44 (3), 275–284. Nost, E. (2012) The power of place: Tourism development in Costa Rica. Tourism Geographies 15 (1), 88–106. Nugent, T. (1749) The Grand Tour. London: S. Birt. Oakes, T. and Minca, C. (2004) Tourism, modernity and postmodernity. In A. Lew, C.M. Hall and A. Williams (eds) A Companion to Tourism (pp. 280–290). Oxford: Blackwell. O’Byrne, D., Bindloss, J., Sraffen, A., Finlay, H., Harding, P., Horton, P., McGaurr, L., Mundell, M., Murray, J., Ross, H. and Saxton, P. (2000) Australia (10th edn). Melbourne: Lonely Planet. OECD (2012) Internet Economy Outlook. See http://www.keepeek.com/Digital-AssetManagement/oecd/science-and-technology/oecd-internet-economy-outlook-2012/ number-of-blogs-indexed-by-google_9789264086463-graph112-en (accessed 3 July 2013). Okazaki, S. and Hirose, M. (2009) Does gender affect media choice in travel information search? On the use of mobile Internet. Tourism Management 30 (6), 794–804. Oppermann, M. (1995) A model of travel itineraries. Journal of Travel Research 33 (4), 57–61. O’Reilly, C.C. (2006) From drifter to gap year tourist: Mainstreaming backpacker travel. Annals of Tourism Research 33 (4), 998–1017. Osborn, A. (2006, 10 August). Furious Muscovites say ‘nyet’ to Lonely Planet. The Age p. 27. Oscar (2007) Why your guidebook is ruining your holiday [blog post] 9 March. See http://blogs.smh.com.au/travel/archives/2007/03/why _ your_ guidebook_is_ ruining.html (accessed 20 April 2013). Osland, G.E. and Mackoy, R. (2004) Ecolodge performance goals and evaluations. Journal of Ecotourism 3 (2), 109–128. Osti, L., Turner, L.W. and King. B. (2009) Cultural differences in travel guidebooks information search. Journal of Vacation Marketing 16 (1), 63–78. Oz in Ireland (2007) Why Your Guidebook is Ruining Your Holiday. [blog post]. The Age 15 March 2007. See http://blogs.theage.com.au/travel/archives/2007/03/why_ your_guideb.html (accessed 19 December 2014). Palmowski, J. (2002) Travels with Baedeker – The guidebook and the middle classes in Victorian and Edwardian Britain. In R. Koshar (ed.) Histories of Leisure (pp. 105–130). Oxford: Berg.

234

References

Pam (2012) Fevered Mutterings I Came, I Saw, I Suffered Immensely Clueless (And Loving It) in Berlin. [blog post] 25 September. See http://mikesowden.org/ feveredmutterings/clueless-and-loving-it-in-berlin (accessed 20 April 2013). Pan, B., MacLaurin, T. and Crotts, J.C. (2007) Travel blogs and their implications for destination marketing. Journal of Travel Research 46 (1), 35–45. Paris, C.M. (2012) Flashpackers: An emerging sub-culture? Annals of Tourism Research 39 (2), 1094–1115. Parsons, N.T. (2007) Worth the Detour: A History of the Guidebook. Stroud: Sutton. Pearce, D., Tan, R. and Schott, C. (2004) Tourism distribution channels in Wellington, New Zealand. International Journal of Tourism Research 6 (6), 397–410. Pearce, D.G. and Schott, C. (2005) Tourism distribution channels: The visitors’ perspective. Journal of Travel Research 44 (1), 50–63. Peel, V., Sørensen, A. and Steen, A. (2012) ‘Unfriendly, unfunny, and tyrannical’: An exploratory study of the travel guidebook in the Australian print media. Tourism Analysis 17 (3), 299–309. Pegontheroad (2012) Would you bring a guidebook to France or Italy or just rely on the web. [blog post] 30 August. See http://www.fodors.com/community/europe/would-youbring-a-guide-book-to-france-and-italy-or-just-rely-on-the-web.cfm (accessed 9 April 2013). PegS (2012) Would You Bring a Guide Book to France and Italy or Just Rely on the Web? 29 August. See http://www.fodors.com/community/Europe/would-you-bringa-guide-book-to-france-and-italy-or-just-rely-on-the-web.cfm (accessed 20 May 2013). Pels, D., Hetherington, K. and Vandenburghe, F. (2002) The status of the object: Performances, mediations and techniques Theory, Culture and Society 19 (5–6), 1–21. Pelton, R.Y. (2003) The World’s Most Dangerous Places (5th edn). New York: Harper-Collins. Peres, R., Correia, A. and Moital, M. (2011) The indicators of intention to adopt mobile electronic tourist guides. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology 2 (2), 120–138. Peterson, R. and Merino, M. (2003) Consumer information search and the Internet. Psychology and Marketing 20 (2), 99–113. Phipps, A. (2005) Learning the Arts of Linguistic Survival: Languaging, Tourism, Life. Clevedon: Channel View Publications. Piven, J. and Borgenicht, D. (2001) The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Travel. San Francisco: Cronicle Books. Popper, K. (1959) The Logic of Scientific Discovery. New York: Basic Books. Prideux, B. and Shiga, H. (2007) Japanese backpacking: The emergence of a new market sector – a Queensland case study. Tourism Review International 11 (1), 45–56. Pritchard, A. (2001) Tourism and representation: A scale for measuring gendered portrayals. Leisure Studies 20 (2), 79–94. Pritchard, A. and Morgan, N.J. (2001) Culture, identity and tourism representation: Marketing Cymru or Wales? Tourism Management 22 (2), 167–179. Pritchard, A., Morgan, N. and Ateljevic, I. (2011) Hopeful tourism: A new transformative perspective. Annals of Tourism Research 38 (3), 941–963. Pryer, M. (1997) The traveler as a destination pioneer. Progress in Tourism and Hospitality Research 3 (3), 225–237. Rageh, A., Melewar, T.C. and Woodside, A. (2013) Using netnography research method to reveal the underlying dimensions of the customer/tourist experience. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal 16 (2), 222–236.

References

235

Ramsay, N. (2010) Rematerialising tourism research through visual ethnography. In P. Burns, J.-A. Lester and L. Bibbings (eds) Tourism and Visual Culture. Volume 2 Methods and Cases (pp. 181–191). Wallingford: CAB International. Rawlings-Way, C., Atkinson, B., DÁrchy, J., Dragicevich, P., Harding, P., Maxwell, V., St Louis, R., Watson, P. and Worby, M. (2011) Australia (16th edn). Melbourne: Lonely Planet. RBL (2007) Why the guidebook is ruining your holiday. [blog post] 21 March. See http:// blogs.smh.com.au/travel/archives/2007/03/why _ your_ guidebook_is_ruining. html?page=fullpage#comments (accessed 29 April 2013). Reiner, V. and and Stapleton, J. (2000, 15 June) Guidebooks under fire after abseiling tragedy. Australian, p. 3. Richards, G. and Wilson, J. (2004) Widening perspectives in backpacker research. In G. Richards and J. Wilson (eds) The Global Nomad: Backpacker Travel in Theory and Practice (pp. 253–279). Clevedon: Channel View Publications. Rickley-Boyd, J.M. and Metro-Roland, M.M. (2010) Background to the fore. The prosaic in tourist places. Annals of Tourism Research 37 (4), 1164–1180. Riley, P.J. (1988) Road culture of international long-term budget travellers. Annals of Tourism Research 15 (3), 313–328. Robbins, S. (2014) After several grim years, signs of (cautious) hope, Publishers Weekly, 14 February. See http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/print/20140217/61056travel-directions-travel-books-2014.html (accessed 18 September 2014). Robbins, T. (2010) The end of the guidebook? August 6. Financial Times, p. 1. See http:// www.ft.com/cms/s/2/3e422f40-a0ed-11df-badd-00144feabdc0.html (accessed 10 December 2014) Robinson, M. (2004) Narratives of being elsewhere: Tourism and travel writing. In A.A. Lew, C.M. Hall and A.M. Williams (eds) A Companion to Tourism (pp. 305–315). Malden: Blackwell. Robinson, M. and Picard, D. (eds) (2009) The Framed World: Tourism, Tourists and Ohotography. Aldershot: Ashgate. Rosier-Rich, S. and Santos, C.A. (2011) Processing promotional travel narratives. Tourism Management 32, 394–405. Rothe, J.P. (1993) Qualitative Research: A Practical Guide. Toronto: PDE Publications. Rushby, K. (2013) The death of the guidebook will open up new worlds, The Guardian, 20 March. See http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/20/deathguidebook-open-new-worlds (accessed 19 April 2014). Ruskin, J. (1945) Mornings in Florence: Being Simple Studies of Christian Art for English. New York: Applay at Bencini bookseller. Ryan, C. (2002) Tourism and cultural proximity: Examples from New Zealand. Annals of Tourism Research 29 (4), 952–971. Ryan Gargiulo (2011) What Lonely Planet Guidebooks and the Bible have in common. [blog post] 11 January. See http://www.aswetravel.com/what-lonely-planet-guidebooks-and-the-bible-have-in-common/ (accessed 10 May 2013). Salazar, N.B. (2006) Touristifying Tanzania: Local guides, global discourse. Annals of Tourism Research 33 (3), 833–852. Sarah (2007) Why Your Guidebook is Ruining Your Holiday. [blog post]. The Age 15 March 2007. See http://blogs.theage.com.au/travel/archives/2007/03/why_your_guideb. html (accessed 19 December 2014). Schaad, E. (2008) Perceptions of Scandinavia and the rhetoric of touristic stereotypes in internet travel accounts. Scandinavian Studies 80 (2), 201–239.

236

References

Scheyvens, R. (2006) Sun, sand and beach fale: Benefiting from backpackers – the Samoan way. Tourism Recreation Research 31 (3), 75–86. Scott, P.D. (1998) Guidebooks: Pre-war to post-war imaging. Journal of Intercultural Studies 25, 89–106. Seaton, A.V. (2002) Tourism as metempsychosis and metensomatosis: The personae of eternal recurrence. In G.M.S. Dann (ed.) The Tourist as a Metaphor of the Social World (pp. 135–168). Wallingford: CAB International. Semmens, K. (2005) Seeing Hitler’s Germany: Tourism and the Third Reich. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Shanna (2012) Would you bring a guidebook to France or Italy or just rely on the web. [blog post] 30 August. See http://www.fodors.com/community/europe/would-you-bringa-guide-book-to-france-and-italy-or-just-rely-on-the-web.cfm (accessed 9 April 2013). Sheller, M. and Urry, J. (2004) Tourism Mobilities. Places to Play, Places in Play. London: Routledge. Shoemaker, S. (2000) Segmenting the mature market: 10 years later. Journal of Travel Research 39 (1), 11–26. Siegenthaler, P. (2002) Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japanese guidebooks. Annals of Tourism Research 29 (4), 1111–1137. Sillitoe, A. (1995) Leading the Blind: A Century of Guidebook Travel 1815–1914. London: Picador. Simon Veness (2012) Guidebook on the verge of extinction. [blog post] 16 February. See http://www.travelblather.com/2012/02/travel-guidebook-on-the-verge-ofextinction.html (accessed 9 April 2013). SJ (2007) Why Your Guidebook is Ruining Your Holiday. [blog]. The Age 15 March 2007. See http://blogs.theage.com.au/travel/archives/2007/03/why_your_guideb.html (accessed 12 December 2014). Slaughter, L. (2004) Profiling the international backpacker market in Australia. In G. Richards and J. Wilson (eds) Global Nomad: Backpacker Travel in Theory and Practice (pp. 168–179). Clevedon: Channel View Publications. Smitz, P., Ashworth, S., Bain, C., Bedford, N., Campbell, V., Cruttenden, P., Farfor, S., Johnston, S., Kirby, J., Mitchell, L., O’Brien, S., Quintero, J., Rawson, J., Rousseau, N., Stone, A., Butler-Bowdon, E., Evans, M., Flannery, T. and Millar, D. (2004) Australia. Melbourne: Lonely Planet (12th edn). Smitz, P., Bain, C., Bao, S., Farfor, S., Murphy, A., Rousseau, N., Sellars, S., Vaisutis, J., Ver Berkmoes, R. and Worby, M. (2005) Australia (13th edn). Melbourne: Lonely Planet Spradley, J.P. (1980) Participant Observation. Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Spring, U. (2006) The linear city: Touring Vienna in the nineteenth century. In M. Sheller and J. Urry (eds) Mobile Technologies of the City (pp. 21–43). New York: Routledge. Stafford, M. and Scott, R. (1986) Stigma deviance and social control: Some conceptual issues. In S. Ainlay, G. Becker and L. Coleman (eds) The Dilemma of Difference (pp. 77–91). New York: Plenum. Starke, M. (1800) Letters from Italy, Between the Years 1792 and 1798 Containing a View of the Revolutions in that Country London: T. Gillet, for R. Phillips. Starke, M. (1820) Travels on the Continent: Written for the Use and Particular Information of Travellers. London: John Murray. Stausberg, M. (2011) Religion and Tourism: Crossroads, Destinations and Encounters. London: Routledge. Stephchenkova, S. (2012) Content analysis. In L. Dwyer, A. Gill and N. Seetaram (eds) Handbook of Research Methods in Tourism: Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches (pp. 443–458). Cheltenham; Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing.

References

237

Stonehouse, B. and Snyder, J.M. (2010) Polar Tourism: An Environmental Perspective. Bristol: Channel View Publications. Stracciatella (2012) Would You Bring a Guide Book to France and Italy or Just Rely on the Web? See http://www.fodors.com/community/Europe/would-you-bringa-guide-book-to-france-and-italy-or-just-rely-on-the-web.cfm (accessed 20 May 2013). Stuart (2012) Is the travel guidebook on the verge of extinction? [blog post] 12 February. See http://www.travelblather.com/2012/02/travel-guidebook-on-the-verge-ofextinction.html (accessed 23 May 2013). Stuart (2) (2007) Why Your Guidebook is Ruining Your Holiday. [blog post]. The Age 15 March 2007. See http://blogs.theage.com.au/travel/archives/2007/03/why_ your_guideb.html (accessed 19 December 2014. Swanson, C. (2014) The new Frommer’s turns one. Publishers Weekly, 25 April. See http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/ article/62033-the-new-frommer-s-turns-one.html (accessed 8 January 2015). Sweet, R. (2012) Cities and the Grand Tour: The British in Italy, c.1690–1820. New York: Cambridge University Press. Sørensen, A. (1999) Travellers in the Periphery. Nexø: Research Centre of Bornholm. Sørensen, A. (2003) Backpacker ethnography. Annals of Tourism Research 30 (4), 847–867. Tali Landsman (2010) Why I Hate Guide Books [blog post] 2 July. See http:// talilandsman.blogspot.com.au2010/07/why-i-hate-guide-books.html (accessed 28 April 2013). Taramorourke (2009) I love guidebooks I hate guidebooks! [blog post] 14 November. See http://taramorourke.livejournal.com/ (accessed 29 April 2013). Teas, J. (1988) I’m studying monkeys; what do you do? – Youth and travelers in Nepal. Kroeber Anthropological Society Papers 67+68, 35–41. Thapa, B., Graefe, A.R. and Absher, J.D. (2002) Information needs and search behaviors: A comparative study of ethnic groups in the Angeles and San Bernardino National Forests, California. Leisure Sciences 24 (1), 89–107. Theodora (2011) What the Lonely Planet Guide Books and the Bible Have in Common. [blog post] 11 January. See http://www.aswetravel.com/what-lonely-planet-guidebooks-and-the-bible-have-in-common.html (accessed 20 April 2013). The Pres (2007) Why Your Guidebook is Ruining Your Holiday. [blog post]. The Age 15 March. See http://blogs.theage.com.au/travel/archives/2007/03/why_your_ guideb.html (accessed 19 December 2014). Therkelsen, A. and Sørensen, A. (2005) Reading the tourist guidebook: Tourists’ ways of reading and relating to guidebooks. Journal of Tourism Studies 16 (1), 48–60. Theseraphicrealm (2012) A Complicated Love-Hate Relationship on the road – My Guidebook [blog post] 1 April. See http://www.theseraphicrealm.com/2012/04/01/ a-complicated-love-hate-relationship-on-the-road-my-guidebook/ (accessed 9 April 2013). Tim Newman (2012) On today’s travel guides. [blog]. 14 August. See http://www. samizdata.net/2012/08/on-todays-trave/ (accessed 19 December 2014). TJ (2003) Why Your Guidebook is Ruining Your Holiday. Sydney Morning Herald Blogs: Travel. 9 March. See http://blogs.smh.com.au/travel/archives/2007/03/why_your_ guidebook_is_ruining.html (accessed 18 April 2013). Towner, J. (1988) Approaches to tourism history. Annals of Tourism Resarch 15 (1), 47–62. Towner, J. (1996) An Historical Geography of Recreation and Tourism in the Western World 1540–1940. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons.

238

References

Towner, J. (2003) Guidebook. In J. Jafari (ed.) Encyclopaedia of Tourism (pp. 267–269). London: Routledge. Tresidder, R. (2011) The semiotics of tourism. In P. Robinson, S. Heitmann and P. Dieke (eds) Research Themes for Tourism (pp. 59–68). Wallingford: CAB International. Tsang, N.K.F., Chan, G.K.Y. and Ho, K.K.F. (2011) A holistic approach to understanding the use of travel guidebooks: Pre-, during, and post-trip behavior. Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing 28 (7), 720–735. Uriely, N., Yonay, Y. and Simchai, D. (2002) Backpacking experiences: A type and form analysis. Annals of Tourism Research 29 (2), 520–538. Urry, J. (1990) The Tourist Gaze: Leisure and Travel in Contemporary Societies. London: Routledge. Urry, J. (2000) Sociology Beyond Societies: Mobilities for the Twenty-First Century. London: Routledge. Vaisutis, J., Brown, L., D’Arcy, J., Gaskell, K., Gilbert, S., Harding, P., Jealous, V., McKinnon, R., Pozzan, O., Rawlings-Way, C., Roebig, R., Spurling, R., St Louise, R., Watson, P. and Worby, M. (2009) Australia (15th edn). Melbourne: Lonely Planet. Vaughan, J. (1974) The English Guide Book, c 1780–1870. An Illustrated History. London: David and Charles. Visser, G. (2004) The developmental impacts of backpacker tourism in South Africa. Geojournal, Wiesbaden 60 (3), 283–299. Vogt, C.A. and Fesenmaier, D.R. (1998) Expanding the functional information search model. Annals of Tourism Research 25 (3), 551–578. Vogt, J.W. (1976) Wandering: Youth and travel behaviour. Annals of Tourism Research 4 (1), 25–41. Walton, J. (2000) The British Seaside: Holidays and resorts in the Twentieth Century. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Walton, J. (2005) Introduction. In J.K. Walton (ed.) Histories of Tourism: Representation, Identity and Conflict (pp. 1–18). Clevedon: Channel View Publications. Walton, J. (2009) Histories of tourism. In T. Jamal and M. Robinson (eds) The Sage Handbook of Tourism Studies (pp. 115–129). London: Sage. Walton, J. (2011) Tourism and history. In C. Cooper (ed.) Contemporary Tourism Reviews (pp. 1–32). London: Goodfellow. Weber, R. (1990) Basic Content Analysis. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Wearing, S.L. and Whenman, A.E. (2009) Tourism as an interpretive and mediating influence: A review of the authority of guidebooks in protected areas. Tourism Analysis 14 (5), 701–716. Weidenfeld, A., Butler, R.W. and Williams, A.M. (2010) Clustering and compatibility between tourism attractions. International Journal of Tourism Research 12 (1), 1–16. Welk, P. (2004) Anti-tourism as an element of backpacker identity. In G. Richards and J. Wilson (eds) The Global Nomad: Backpacker Travel in Theory and Practice (pp. 217–236). Clevedon: Channel View Publications. Wesleymarsh (2012) Would you bring a guidebook to France or Italy or just rely on the web [blog post] 30 August. See http://www.fodors.com/community/europe/wouldyou-bring-a-guide-book-to-france-and-italy-or-just-rely-on-the-web.cfm (accessed 9 April 2013). Westerhausen, K. and Macbeth, J. (2003) Backpackers and empowered local communities: Natural allies in the struggle for sustainability and local control? Tourism Geographies 5 (1), 71–86.

References

239

Wheeler, T. (1973) Across Asia on the Cheap: A Complete Guide to Making the Overland Trip. Sydney: Lonely Planet. Wheeler, T. (1977) South East Asia on a Shoestring. Melbourne: Lonely Planet. Wheeler, T. (1977) Australia: A Traveller’s Survival Kit. Melbourne: Lonely Planet. Wheeler, T. (1983) Australia: A Travel Survival Kit. Melbourne: Lonely Planet. Wheeler, T. (1986) Australia: A Travel Survival Kit. Melbourne: Lonely Planet. Wheeler, T. (1989) Australia: A Travel Survival Kit. Melbourne: Lonely Planet. Wheeler, T. and Wheeler, M. (2006) Once While Travelling: The Lonely Planet Story. Melbourne: Penguin Books. White, R. (2005) A History of Getting Away in Australia. Sydney: Pluto Press. Wilson, E., Holdsworth, L. and Witsel, M. (2009) Gutsy women? Conflicting discourses in women’s travel guidebooks. Tourism Recreation Research 34 (1), 3–11. Wilson-Howarth, J. (2009) The Essential Guide To Travel Health: Don’t Let Bugs Bites and Bowels Spoil Your Trip (5th edn). London: Cadogan Guides. Withey, L. (1997) Grand Tours and Cook’s Tours: A History of Leisure Travel, 1770–1915. New York: William Morrow. Wong, C. and Liu, F. (2011) A study of pre-trip use of travel guidebooks by leisure travelers. Tourism Management 32 (3), 616–628. World Tourism Organization (1995) Concepts, Definitions and Classifications for Tourism Statistics. Madrid: World Tourism Organization. Yamashita, S. (2003) Bali and Beyond: Explorations in the Anthropology of Tourism. Oxford: Berghahn. Young, T. (2009) Framing experiences of Aboriginal Australia: Guidebooks as mediators in backpacker travel. Tourism Analysis 14 (2), 155–164. Xiang, Z. and Gretzel, U. (2010) Role of social media in online travel information search. Tourism Management 31 (2), 179–188. Zillinger, M. (2006) The importance of guidebooks for the choice of tourist sites: A study of German tourists in Sweden. Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism 6 (3), 229–247.

Index Aboriginal indigenous culture, Australia, 54–55, 57, 70–71 changing attitudes to indigenous art, 69, 70 academic research see tourism research accommodation discovery method and booking, 194, 197 influence of guidebooks on pricing, 151–152, 157 operators’ awareness of client reviews, 157–158, 161 service quality, LP effect, 91–92 suggestions for budget travellers, 79–80, 126–127 upper range (luxury) providers, 159–160, 161 accuracy of information, 84, 89–92, 105, 199–200 Across Asia on the Cheap (Wheeler), 63, 174, 176 Aduchamp1 (blog) adaptation of guidebooks for portability, 120 opinion on Rick Steves’ Spain guidebook, 93 age of guidebooks (/edition) carried, 137, 140 of target readers and authors, 96–97 ‘alternative’ tourism, 18, 52, 62, 64, 108 Andrea (blogger), guidebook usage, 118, 119, 191 anecdotal evidence, 7, 149, 151, 181 Annals of Tourism Research (journal), 16 Annhig (blogger) difficulties using Kindle, 195 on Michelin guidebooks, 96 Antarctica, tourism development, 176–177 anti-tourism

agenda in historical analysis, 44–45, 46 coinciding with modern tourism emergence, 208 expressed in John Ruskin’s guidebooks, 41, 206 apodemic literature, definition, 25 apps, travel-related, 189, 196, 201, 202 Aquamineral (blogger), preference for books, 193, 195 Asian guidebook users, 13, 112, 113 assumptions (about guidebooks) impacts on local businesses, 9–10, 148–149, 165 promotion of destructive mass tourism, 10, 84, 179–183 role in destination development, 46, 171–179, 183–184 superficiality, and disdain of users, 2, 44–45, 58, 128–129 tourist usage patterns, 110–111, 119, 129, 208–209 tourists’ automatic acceptance of claims, 20–21, 43–44, 144 universal understanding of term, 20 verification and evidence needs, 217–218 asterisk systems, for recommendations, 22, 41 attractions, grouping arrangements, 75, 76 Australia (Lonely Planet series) authenticity of ‘things to see’, 77–78 changing readership and target market, 65–66, 68–71 early editions, 64–65, 179–180 evolution of structure and style, 67, 71–77, 82–83, 211–212 impact on local businesses, 153–156, 155, 162

240

Index

influence on destination image perception, 173 transport and accommodation details, 78–82, 211 use of content analysis, 9, 61–62 Australians, domestic travel, 68–69, 177–178 authenticity desire for ‘undiscovered’ destinations, 180 identification of ‘things worth seeing’, 77–78 political implications, 95 authority contested by users, 128–129, 139, 144 early influence of Baedeker’s Guides, 36, 44–45 and identity of guidebook authors, 27, 65–66, 204 in language and tone, effect on readers, 54, 56, 83, 212–213 opinion leaders in online communities, 199–200 power of guidebooks to drive tourism, 173–174, 218–219 backpackers accommodation choices, 79–80, 157, 162–163 confidence and personal safety, 100–102, 123, 197 diversification and mainstreaming, 64, 76 growth in numbers, 60, 64–65 pre-trip planning, 56, 89–90, 97–98, 173–174 reliability of guidebook information for, 90, 95–96, 97 research on interactions with businesses, 151 role in destination ‘discovery’, 174–175 understanding of Aboriginal culture, 54–55, 57, 115 use of guidebooks at Tana Toraja, 20–21, 54, 172, 173 waning influence/use of guidebooks, 133, 140, 156, 163 Baedeker’s Guides aims and intentions of Karl Baedeker, 60, 66

241

features and formats, 36–37, 41, 75 influence in Germany, 1, 38, 45 mentioned in A Room with a View, 206, 207, 212 portability and field use, 43 Bali benefits of tourism, 181 history of destination development, 176, 177, 179 hotelier awareness of guidebooks, 159–160 Barthes, Roland, 2, 44, 49, 50, 144 Beach, The (A. Garland novel), 169, 180–181, 207 behaviour (of tourists) change in guidebook use with experience, 121, 137 manner of reading and attitudes to guidebooks, 138–140 purchasing choices, 146–147 reliance on guidebooks vs. serendipity, 126–128 research on influence of guidebooks, 6, 7, 43–44, 55–60 belles lettres consumers (user type), 142, 143 belles lettres texts (Seaton), 25, 35, 137–138 Ben Groundwater (blogger), on failings of guidebooks, 99, 148, 207 bicycle rental agencies, 157, 158 bloggers guidebook brand preferences, 102–104, 107 on guidebook reliability and relevance, 89–97, 108–109, 199–200 on purposes of guidebook use, 122–128 as resource for analytical research, 9, 12, 85–86, 108, 198 on risks of dependence on guidebooks, 98–100 sampling selection criteria, 87 on timing/amount of guidebook usage, 117–122 on value of internet resources, 190–199 Blue Guides (Guides Bleus) Barthes’ critique, 2, 44, 49, 50, 144 content compared with internet information, 198 publication, readership aims, 50 typical user types, 143

242

Index

Blue List publications, 213 Boracay, Philippines, 162–163 brand attitudes destination image construction, 170 guidebook preferences, 54, 102–104, 107, 125–126, 143 stigmatisation of particular styles, 210 variation in meanings, tourist understanding, 212 brochures destination image in, 20, 170 influence on tourist choices, 151, 173 budget travel accommodation options, 79–80 British tourists in Mediterranean resorts, 39 guidebook information resources, 125 providers, awareness of guidebook inclusion, 157, 162–164 transport options, 81–82 see also backpackers business travellers, 132, 147 businesses, tourism business perceptions of guidebooks, 165–167 case studies on guidebook importance, 152–161 development in remote areas, 162–164, 182–183 independent hostels, 79–80 lack of research on guidebook impacts, 9, 47, 150–152 ‘LP (Lonely Planet) effect’, 91–92, 148–149, 181 Cairns, Australia, coverage in LP guides, 74, 78, 178 Chamborres (blogger), dislike of guidebooks, 98–99, 191 characteristics of guidebooks, 22, 24 emergence of ‘modern’ traits, 35–36 city tourism attractions linked by itineraries, 74–75 choices and planning, use of guidebooks, 110, 128, 136, 156–159 detail available in guidebook maps, 73, 74, 125

development of mobile app guides, 189, 201 London guidebooks, geopolitical tone, 37 ‘coasting’ on favourable reviews, 149, 158, 166 commercial distribution see publishing industry comprehensiveness, 26–27, 73 conceptualisation absence, impacts on guidebooks research, 8, 11, 19–23, 40, 134 benefits of operational definitions, 29 categories of guidebook user types, 140–143 necessary constituents of guidebooks, 25–28 scope/breadth required, 15–16 stigma, in tourism context, 208 consumers analysis of consumer culture, 106 attitudes to guidebooks, 9, 84, 85, 138–140, 146 influence of guidebooks on place perceptions, 53–56 content analysis application of methodology for guidebooks, 5, 12, 49–50, 61–62 compared with interview analysis, 55, 85–86 destination image portrayal, semiotics, 52–53 evaluation by guidebook users, 139 limitations of approach, 54, 58–60, 129 related to individual tourist behaviour, 56–58 subliminal messages in guidebook texts, 50–52 thematic analysis of blogposts, 88, 88–89, 115–117, 116, 190 conventional wisdom see assumptions Cook, Thomas, 2, 34, 44 Copenhagen, hotel/service businesses, 156–159 ‘critical turn’ (in tourism research), 50, 216, 217, 218 Crocodile Dundee (film), 65, 78 cultural change and tourism, 217–219 cultural stigma, 11

Index

guidebooks seen as pejorative objects, 206–208, 219 and possible futures for guidebooks, 211–214 routine critiques and stereotyping, 208–211, 214–217 culturally embedded knowledge bias in understanding guidebook use, 4, 42, 58, 215 knowledge of local manners, 123 data collection methods and Western bias, 12–13, 193–194 from online discussions/blogs, 85–88, 115, 190 participation of businesses, 153–154, 154, 156–157, 159 techniques used in fieldwork, 134–135 David Whitley (blogger), preference for books, 193, 195 definition of ‘tourist,’ UNWTO, 147 definitions of ‘guidebook’ absence in research literature, 20–21, 40 Lonely Planet as exemplar, 18–19, 58, 63 by purpose and characteristics, 22, 24–25 summary statement, 29 texts excluded from guidebook definition, 28 travel books compared with guidebooks, 19–20, 23 Denmark, book trade production costs, 203 destinations analysis of assumptions about development, 171–172, 183–184 discovery influenced by guidebooks, 172–174 guidebooks as indicator of tourism growth, 33, 42–43, 73–74, 170–171 impacts of international travel expansion, 74 influence of marketing image, 52–53, 169, 170 management of unfamiliarity, in guidebooks, 144

243

negative impacts of guidebooks, 179–183 reliability of representation in guidebooks, 92–94 role of guidebooks in development, 3, 10, 45–47, 150–152, 162–164 speed and life cycle of development, 174–179 digital technologies business models for e-book production, 203–204, 214 ‘e-fatigue’ and escape, 192–193, 196–197, 201 handheld access to maps, 73 related to definition of ‘guidebook’, 8, 11 smartphone capabilities, 188–189 tablets/readers, impacts on guidebook use, 121–122, 192, 193, 198 ‘dynamic object’ status (McGregor), 6, 20–21, 54, 129 e-platforms see online discussions; social media platforms educational level and guidebook use, 133 Egypt and the Sudan handbook (Baedeker), 43 electronic word of mouth (e-WOM), 185, 188–189, 200 empirical techniques available range for guidebooks research, 12 case study analysis, 152–161 ethnographic fieldwork procedures, 135 fragmentary data from surveys, 150–151 see also data collection ephemeral nature of guidebooks dated content compared with online sources, 190–191, 203 incorporated in tourism histories, 32–33 regular updating and adaptation, 61, 98 as signifiers of cultural change, 37–38 transient visitor as target, 27 ErikSmith (blogger), usage of guidebooks, 117–118, 120, 127, 197

244

Index

ethical issues ethical stance of LP, implications, 51–52, 64, 180, 209 exploitation and inequality, 95 judgement of local traditions, 51 practices in netnographic research, 86–87 Eurocentrism awareness amongst researchers, 215–216 bias in primary data collection, 13 evolution continued Western cultural expansionism, 39, 42 response to changes in readership, 65–66, 68–71 in structure of Australia (LP) series, 67, 71–77, 82 of tourist destinations, 174–179 in traveller behaviour, with experience, 121 Eyewitness Guides, 117, 118 field utility (in situ use) guidebooks, 26, 43, 90, 136–138 screen-based resources, 194–195, 201, 202 Fiji accommodation providers, 160–161, 164 information sources chosen by tourists, 194 Flick (blogger), on guidebook hierarchy, 104, 107 Flores, Indonesia, tourism development, 164, 182 Freetown Christiania tour guide group, 157, 158–159 Frommer’s Guides involvement with Google, 188, 202 perceived target market, 192 sales trends, 3, 187–188 used for trip planning, 103 Fussell, Paul, 4, 19, 36, 44 future prospects focus of research approaches, 186–187 interactions of print and e-publication, 202–204, 211–212, 213–214 media opinion vs. analytical research, 10–11

views of bloggers, 191, 198–199, 211 gender differences in guidebook usage, 100–102, 106, 113 genre analysis, 24–25, 28, 143–144 Girona, Spain, tourist image, 46, 52 globalisation in tourism guidebooks as components in cultural change, 219 use of guidebooks as data for study, 22–23, 46 Wheelers’ acknowledgement of LP role, 181 Goa, promotion image in printed media, 20, 53 Grand Tour tradition (European), 34–35, 43–44 guidebook trusty (user type), 142–143, 144, 165 Guides Bleus see Blue Guides handbooks, travel information, 28 handheld digital devices, 73, 189 ‘hippie trail’ itineraries, 62, 176, 177 history of tourism chronological banding, 33–34, 47 democratisation and package tours, 35–38 European Grand Tour tradition, 34–35, 43–44 historians’ interest in guidebooks, 4–5, 21–23, 31, 32–33 international growth, 20th century, 38–39 use of guidebooks to trace destination change, 46–47 Hong Kong tourists (outbound), 112, 113, 114 ‘hopeful tourism’ research approach, 216 illustrations changing content in Australia (LP) editions, 70–71, 72 in early Murray/Baedeker Guides, 36–37 imperialism, 37, 51, 68 independent travel evidence of diversity in guidebook use, 44, 113–114, 127, 137

Index

freedom seen as restricted by guidebooks, 11, 22, 84–85, 98–100, 209 guidebook usage restraint, moral tension, 124–125 guidebooks as enablers, 60, 69, 94, 98, 106, 209 influence on destination development, 172–174, 182 institutionalisation, 77, 107, 133 publishers catering for traveller diversity, 75–76 India (Lonely Planet series), 51–52, 54, 65, 163 information electronic, compared with books, 190–197, 199–200 factual accuracy in guidebooks, 89–92 guidebooks used as filter, 145, 192–193, 213–214 invited, from guidebook users, 66, 68, 185 sources, range used by travellers, 55, 111–112, 113, 128, 137 for specific types of traveller, 75–76 types influencing destination image, 170 information consumers (user type), 141 international tourism causes of growth in Australia, 64–65, 80–81 effects of development on destinations, 74, 177–178 history of development, 34, 38–39 internet resources access through smartphones, 188–189 information-seeking choices, 128, 133, 191–192, 197–198 wifi availability, 121, 163, 191, 193–194, 205 interview data, 12 compared with blog content analysis, 85–86 compared with guidebook content analysis, 55 criteria for choice of respondents, 117, 134–135

245

interpretation of responses, 139, 154–156 itineraries in early Murray/Baedeker Guides, 36, 74–75 flexibility, affected by internet connectivity, 194, 205 role in destination development, 47, 177 seen as limiting travel experiences, 98–99 suggested in Australia (LP) series, 76, 81 Jane1144 (blogger), photocopying guidebooks, 120, 142 Japanese tourists, guidebook use, 112, 113, 133, 172 Jeremy Head (blogger), guidebook uses, 117, 118, 196 Julia (blogger), avoiding book/devices use, 120, 192 Kathmandu, tourism development, 176, 177 Katie going global (blogger), on guidebook use, 110–111, 195–196 Kindle e-readers, 121, 193, 195 Koshar, Rudy, 15, 19, 37–38, 45 language barriers, in guidebook research, 13, 216–217 guidebooks used as translation tools, 123 translations of early Baedeker’s Guides, 36 length of trip, influence on guidebook use, 114 Lesley Stern (blogger), reasons for hating guidebooks, 92–93, 107–108 Let’s Go Guides, foundation and competitors, 63, 104 Lily (blogger), gender and guidebook use, 101, 106 Lofoten Islands, Norway, tourist image, 55, 59 Lonely Planet (LP) Guides authority, perceived by users, 89–90 blogger opinions, 9, 90–97, 103, 191

246

Index

brand loyalty of users, 54, 102–104, 126 business awareness of inclusion, 148, 154, 162–163 Code Green ecotourism content, 213 editorial decisions, 75–76 ethical stance and aims, 51, 64, 77, 180, 181 handling of contested histories, 53–54, 70 history of development, 38–39, 62–63, 66, 178 influence on destination development, 173–174, 178, 219 ‘LP effect’ on service provision quality, 91–92, 148–149, 181 online resources and updates, 68, 82, 185, 196, 202 ‘other’ stereotyping, Western outlook, 51, 52, 68, 77–78 preferential use in academic research, 17, 18–19, 23, 58–59, 215 sales trends, 3–4, 63, 187–188 seen as manipulator of tourist behaviour, 59–60, 128–129, 163–164, 209 usage patterns, 123, 126, 127, 141–143 see also Australia maps changing content in Australia (LP) editions, 73, 74, 76 electronic vs. print, 195, 196 included in, 18th century guidebooks, 34–35 quality and reliability, 90, 92, 125 used in situ for navigation, 114–115, 120 Mark (blogger), use of guidebooks, 118, 125, 198 marketing material advertisements included in guidebooks, 72, 181–182 business perceptions of guidebook importance, 157, 160, 161 destination image building, 52–53, 170 electronic and print forms compared, 186–187

independence of guidebook advice, 27–28, 160 ranking of types by businesses, 154–156, 155 mass tourism development at Cancun, Mexico, 177 history of early development, 35–38, 47, 75 post-war (20th C) expansion, 38–39 youth culture attitudes to, 64 material culture effects of sightseeing on places, 46 guidebooks as objects in practice of tourism, 5–6, 26, 60, 115, 196 meaning, construction of, 20–21, 57, 119, 212 media assessment of mobile technology impacts, 187–188, 219 influence on destination image, 53 journalistic opinion of guidebooks, 84–85, 105 Meg (blogger), enjoyment of LP content, 102, 106, 142 Melbourne, St Kilda businesses, 153–156, 154 memories see souvenirs Meta (blogger), Time Out preferred to LP, 104, 108 methodologies for construction of user typology, 134–136 content analysis approaches, 49–50 netnography, 85–89 MICE tourism, 147 Michelin Guides, 96, 151, 207 Mikeachim (blogger), on guidebook use, 84, 99–100, 124 ‘mobile electronic guides,’ meaning of term, 21 mobile phones see smartphones Moon Travel Guides, 63 Mornings in Florence (Ruskin), 206 motivations for guidebook use, 116, 122–128 multiple destinations and guidebook use, 125, 136, 137

Index

Murray’s red book guides, 2, 36–37, 41, 206 national identity construction, 36–37, 77 nationalities, variation in guidebook use, 113, 134 netnography, 85–89 nominal consumers (user type), 142 objectives of guidebooks, 22, 27–28 online discussions authority and reliability, 199–200 consumer review sites, 158, 161 forums, as information sources, 190–191, 196 ‘lurking’ for tourism research, 86–87 user–publisher communication, 68, 185 opportunistic data collection, 13, 117, 135, 157 Oscar (blogger), reliance on guidebooks, 126, 141 package tourism in destination development cycle, 175, 176–177 guidebook usage during travel, 113–114, 133, 142 history of development, 34, 41, 44 pre-trip influence of guidebooks, 112 Parsons, N. T., analysis of guidebook history, 32, 38–39, 42, 44–45 participant observation, 13, 117, 134 peer-to-peer information see word-ofmouth information sources Pegontheroad (blogger), guidebook preferences, 103, 120 personal relationships, 97–98 political issues alternative world views espoused by LP, 51–52 bias perceived by bloggers, 94–95 discourse analysis, using text mining, 49 guidebooks trusted as information source, 55 reflected in guidebook content, 38, 39, 70 popular perceptions collective memory, guidebook contributions, 53–54

247

geographical knowledge, 10, 42–43 of guidebook impacts, 1, 8, 149–150, 169–170 standard and unchanging nature of guidebooks, 61 value and weaknesses of guidebooks, 84, 85 see also assumptions portability, 43, 119–120, 121, 201 post-travel use of guidebooks, 112, 118, 119 pre-trip use of guidebooks backpackers, 56, 97–98 package tourists, 112 reflections of bloggers, 117–118, 119, 124–125 reported in research literature, 132–133 primary data Eurocentric/English language bias, 13, 108, 215 fieldwork, in situ collection, 131, 134–135 problem-solving guidebook usage practices, 129 language barriers and interpretation, 123 during travel, as function of guidebooks, 7, 114–115 promotional material see marketing material publishing industry early modern entrepreneurs, 36–37, 40 electronic production, commercial aspects, 202–204 growth and diversity, guidebooks, 2–3, 135, 213 guidebook sales trends, 3–4, 63, 187–188, 204 impacts of online information sources, 3–4, 10–11, 185–186, 202 lag-time, cause of inaccuracies, 90–91 shared values with target readership, 66, 68, 212 specific publishers mentioned in research, 17, 17–18 Publizon (Danish e-book producer), 203 Punch (magazine), on package tourists, 2 purchasing behaviour, 146–147

248

Index

reliability of guidebooks, 89–94, 195–196 religion, information in guidebooks, 53 remoteness of destinations access to online information, 163, 194 business attitudes to guidebooks, 161, 164 and guidebook coverage, 2, 136, 177, 182–183 influence on guidebook use, 114, 142–143 research on guidebooks clusters of research attention/activity, 4–7, 49 guidebook usage, existing literature, 111–115, 132–134 historical narratives, 31, 32–33 influence of guidebooks on businesses, 150–152 knowledge gaps, 8–11, 39, 42, 111, 130 need for concept definition, 20–23, 40 range of approaches and sources, 12–14, 217 risk of false inferences from observations, 129, 217 stigmatising assumptions, 214–215 residents at tourist destinations contemporary, absent from guidebook texts, 78 objectification (Lonely Planet India), 51–52 use of guidebooks for local information, 27 reviews, importance to businesses, 158–159, 160, 161 Rhine Valley tourism, 45, 47 Rick Steves’ Guidebooks accuracy, 93, 103 size and use while travelling, 103, 120, 125 roaming charges (mobile technology), 163, 185, 191, 201 Room with a View, A (E. M. Forster novel), 206, 207, 212 Rosenborg Castle, Copenhagen, 157, 159 Rough Guides brand preferences of bloggers, 102, 103–104, 126 electronic resources, 202 foundation and competitors, 63

use by senior/short-term backpackers, 162 Ruskin, John, 41, 46, 206 Ryan Garguilo (blogger) accommodation quality, LP effect, 91–92 praise for transportation advice, 93–94, 102 safety, personal, 100–102, 106, 122, 123–124 satire ‘Lonely Plonkers’ parody (blogger Brian), 128, 219 mockery of package tourists (Punch), 2 Molvania: A Land Untouched by Modern Dentistry, 180, 207 Schmap (mobile travel app), 189 seaside resorts, 33 secondary data, online sources, 12, 190 self-drive tourists, 81–82, 133, 136 Simon Veness (blogger), benefits of guidebooks, 192, 200 Singapore, comparison of guidebook types, 59 slavery, representation in guidebook texts, 53–54 small to medium enterprises (SMEs), 9, 149, 151, 165 smartphones, 188–189, 201–202 social media platforms, 161, 185, 188, 195, 200 social science, multisited studies, 13–14 South American Handbook (Box), 28 souvenirs Aboriginal art, commodification awareness, 70 guidebooks as keepsake of past trips, 118, 119, 196 Spotted by Locals (city blog network app), 189, 212 Starke, Mariana, 31, 40–41 static-word netnography, 86, 87 stigmatisation see cultural stigma structure of guidebooks consistency and change, 8, 61 evolution of content, Australia (LP) series, 67, 71–77, 82

Index

features of early Baedeker’s Guides, 36–37, 41 Stuart (2) (blogger) guide value for inexperienced travellers, 106 guidebook brand preferences, 102, 108 style of guidebooks, 25, 41 changes over time, Australia (LP) series, 66, 71, 82–83 perceived strengths and weaknesses, 84–85 Sydney, Australia, coverage in LP guides, 73, 75 TALC model (Butler), 171, 175–176, 177, 178 Tana Toraja, Indonesia, guidebook use, 20–21, 54, 115, 144, 173 Taramorourke (blogger) choice of guidebook and edition, 106, 125 guidebook reliability on costs, 89 as ‘information consumer’ type, 141 opinions of authors’ experience, 90, 97 personal relationships, impact of guidebooks, 97–98 technological development see digital technologies terminology diversity of meanings, and ambiguity, 16–17, 19, 21, 152 occurrences of ‘guidebook’ in research papers, 16 synonyms for ‘guidebook’, 17 textual analysis see content analysis thematic analysis of blogposts, 88, 88–89, 115–117, 116, 190 theseraphicrealm (blog) expectations of guidebooks, 92, 98, 126 impact of LP on restaurant businesses, 9, 92 inaccuracies due to publishing timelag, 90–91 relevance of guidebooks to target market, 96 Thorn Tree webpage forum, 185 Tibet, image and media portrayals, 53

249

Time Out guidebooks, 104, 212 tourism research academic journals, 16, 30 attention to historical perspectives, 32 common clichés, 210–211 communication between disciplines, 15 conceptual role of typologies/models, 140–141 conferences, guidebooks for delegates, 147 ‘critical turn’ (recent trend), 50, 216, 217, 218 sociocultural background of researchers, 18–19, 215–216 specific mentions of guidebook publishers, 17, 17–18, 63 see also research on guidebooks tourist experience expectations, based on guidebooks, 105 guidebooks as mediators, 5–6, 27–28, 50–56 individual construction of meaning, 57 range, vs. assumed uniformity, 43–44, 47–48 seen as restrained by guidebook use, 98–100, 120–121 ‘tourist gaze’ (Urry), 5, 37–38, 77, 144 tourist information centres/offices, 55, 104, 137 Towner, J., on guidebooks in tourism history, 33, 34, 42 transport bicycle rental, 157, 158 impacts of mass transport growth, 35–36, 38, 78–79, 81 information in Australia (LP) editions, 75, 76, 80–82 reliability of guidebook advice, 93–94 self-drive tourists, 81–82, 133, 136 travel writing/travelogues compared with guidebooks, 19–20 diversity and volume, 23 online networks, 189 traveller–tourist dichotomy emergence, with modernised tourism, 208 escape and resolution vs. routine acceptance, 209–211

250

Index

guidebooks’ influence on experience, 99–100, 107 perpetuated in historical narratives, 44–45, 60 reflected in guidebook use patterns, 125, 128 as subject for research, 6, 181, 215 trip cycle, timing of guidebook use, 112, 117–119, 186 TripAdvisor reviews, 158, 161, 164, 196, 200 typology of guidebook users, 7, 112–113, 140–143 usage of guidebooks combined with internet resources, 186, 213–214 as element of genre identification, 24, 26, 29, 143–144 empirical evidence in research, 6–7, 131–132 physical aspects, and adaptation, 119–122, 197–198 purposes of in situ use, 1, 55, 122–128, 137–138 reading mode and involvement, 138–140, 202 selectivity, 145–146 timing, in trip cycle, 117–119 types of users, 7, 112–113, 140–143

see also field utility user-friendliness see field utility user-generated content, 189, 202, 204 vade mecum consumers (user type), 141 vade mecum texts (Seaton), 25, 35, 137–138 value of guidebooks to travellers, 93–94, 100–102, 118, 192–197 Vietnam, guidebooks and politics, 39, 53, 59 webpage forums see online discussions Western cultural dominance historical basis, 39, 42 implicit in tourism research, 216 neocolonial agendas in guidebook writing, 50–52 Wheeler, Tony (Lonely Planet founder), 62–63, 65, 66, 68–69, 181 wikitravel, 204 word-of-mouth information sources, 55, 126, 170, 178, 188 electronic (e-WOM), 185, 188–189, 200 reliability, compared with guidebooks, 195–196 World Heritage Sites, 56 world tourism development see globalisation in tourism youth hostels, 61, 79–80