Lonely no more

"It's the end of an era," says Tony Wheeler, founder and owner of Lonely Planet, "and not just for us, on a personal level. I believe that we have come to the end of an era in the trekking, travel and guidebook field. The world has undergone tremendous change and, as far as we are concerned, this is the right moment to step aside and do other things."

The first announcement was made in early October: Tony and Maureen Wheeler, who founded the Lonely Planet travel guide franchise on the kitchen table of their Sydney apartment 35 years ago, sold a 75-percent stake of the company to BBC Worldwide. The sales price is unknown, but estimates maintain that the Wheelers netted $75-150 million. That is no small amount when one considers that they had less than a dollar in their collective pockets when they launched the first Lonely Planet guidebook in 1972. They were both very young then. Tony recently celebrated his 60th birthday and Maureen is three years younger.

It was when the young Wheelers were inundated with questions from friends at the end of an extended overland trip from London to Australia that they decided to turn their travel journal into a guidebook. Their first book contained 96 pages and the cover was stapled together. That title cost $1.95 and the price of the first edition plummeted within 10 days.

Since then, they have published more than 500 travel guides, but the Lonely Planet label is identified with far more than just guidebooks. The couple propelled the company to a leading position, making it the primary authority on travel, particularly among young trekkers on low-budget tours. A point of interest, hotel, hostel or restaurant that earned positive mention in Lonely Planet was guaranteed immediate success. A site they described as a "colorless hole-in-the-wall," was immediately abandoned by travelers.

Many credit Lonely Planet with nearly exclusively changing lifestyles, traveling habits, and vacation choices and spearheading the tendency to embark on protracted journeys in search of distant, exotic locations rather than pampering. Many people consider Lonely Planet responsible for the fact that the entire globe has been transformed into a potential destination of tourists. Millions of travelers traversed the Asian continent after reading the Wheelers' account of their first documented tour of "The Hippie Trail." For the past 35 years, they have been considered authentic representatives of the late-1960s and early-1970s hippie generation.

Wheeler was contemplative and philosophical in the telephone interview he granted this week. He spoke in a relaxed tone from his seventh-floor room in the London Hilton Hotel for as long as I wanted. He considers his retirement and that of Maureen as the end of the road for an entire generation. "It's not just that we're aging. The field is changing and my feeling is that many aspects of the vagabond spirit have vanished. The most prominent change is that information is highly accessible. People who are embarking on a trip today look for information differently than they did in the past. The Internet is, of course, the most obvious expression of that change."

In addition to announcing the acquisition, BBC Worldwide Chief Executive John Smith announced that all the content of the Lonely Planet guidebooks will be available online within two years. He promised that the most popular guidebooks would be posted on the Internet first.

Wheeler supports the move but says he does not want to take part in it. He prefers to examine and summarize the process that changed the travel industry during the last 35 years. "We all completely changed our traveling habits during that period. We all make many more trips for shorter amounts of time than we did before. The price of travel decreased over the years and many destinations became very accessible and convenient for travelers. It's amazing to think about it, but three years ago it was impossible to enter China. During my last visit to China, I stood in the center of one of the major cities and wondered if I was in Eastern Asia or Western Europe. That's also what I thought in Istanbul. The world has become less exotic and the distances between world centers and the periphery have nearly been erased."

Wheeler believes the biggest shift to be the fact that travel became a visible, fashionable trend. Everyone talks about their trips, and travel has become a measure of success, quality of life and realization of dreams. Wheeler says that none of this was taken for granted in the early 1970s. But he is skeptical regarding the future of this trend, "The big question now is whether we should travel at all: Does it endanger the world ecologically?"

He believes that travel habits will change. "I hope we will learn to travel more slowly, for longer periods of time, and not make short hops of a few days to destinations that require a long, polluting flight. I believe that the sense of guilt that has begun to plague many travelers will play a role. Travelers will hesitate before embarking on another journey. Another consideration could be ecological tariffs levied for flights."

Wheeler surprised many when he joined other publishers of guidebooks a few months ago, urging travelers to limit their flights. Many eyebrows were raised in response to the contradiction inherent in a travel book publisher's declared objection to flying, but Wheeler did not find it peculiar. "I still support the declaration. We called on people to think and make small changes in their harmful habits. We did not tell them to avoid travel."

Questions regarding the influence of Lonely Planet on the travels of a previous generation cause him to emit a prolonged sigh. "We had an influence," he confesses. "True. We played a role in designing some of the routes many people now travel. But I think those changes would have occurred anyway. We reflected social developments. The things that made me proudest are cases in which we directed attention to places people never thought of visiting."

The publishers drew no lack of criticism over the years. The most contemporary example is the case of Burma. Critics say it was wrong to publish a guidebook highlighting travel in Burma and that the publisher should have supported the boycott against travel to that totalitarian nation. Wheeler still considers it wrong to boycott travel to Burma and believes it is vital to publish and sell the guidebook about that nation. "The positive reasons to travel to Burma outweigh the negative reasons. It is important that residents of Burma have contact with people who are not from their nation. It is important that tourists see the difficult conditions in Burma, and that earnings from tourism reach the population, as I hope they will."

For years, Wheeler targeted a population of young backpackers, but there has been a change in recent years and today's guidebooks address an older, more established audience. "We grew up along with our travelers," Wheeler explains. "On a personal level, it was also weird for us to continue turning to an audience that is much younger. Our personal involvement was always major and significant."

Even when he was an engrossed, active publisher, Wheeler devoted six months of the year to traveling all corners of the globe. At least, that is what others said about him. His response to questions regarding what he intends to do in the future comes as no surprise. "I have many plans. Mostly to travel and write. I think I will devote most of my attention to Africa but there are other fascinating places that didn't receive the attention they deserved until now, like Saudi Arabia. I'll come to Israel as well. I haven't visited your country for 10 years. I hope I will now find the time to do that."

Ohad Sharav, managing director of Steinhardt-Katzir Publishers, the firm that publishes the Lonely Planet guidebooks in Hebrew, says he regrets that Wheeler is retiring but believes this will not significantly influence his own firm's bottom line. Sharav believes that investment in digital publishing forced Lonely Planet to transfer its shares, to acquire stronger backing. He says there has been no significant change in local sales of Lonely Planet in recent years. The most marked change in the industry has been a gradual slowing of activity on the part of original Hebrew competitors: Guidebooks in Hebrew are rarely published, and the Hebrew translation of foreign language guidebooks has virtually ceased. To date, 100 Lonely Planet guidebooks have been translated and published in Hebrew. The best-seller among them is a guide to South America. An updated edition of that title will soon appear on local shelves.