Traditional guides losing out to rivals on the web
The rise of peer review websites is threatening to usurp the position held by guidebooks, with some famous names falling by the wayside. Will their demise be to the detriment of the industry? Chris Druce reports
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy had the comforting phrase "Don't Panic!" in big red letters on its front cover. It's advice hotel and restaurant guide publishers would do well to remember.
These are turbulent times in the world of guidebook publishing, with the rise of peer-review websites threatening to usurp the traditional review-based books in the public's affections.
With mystery currently surrounding the future of the Les Routiers in Britain guidebook (Caterer, 19 October, page 7), the question of what direction traditional guides are to take in this digital age has been posed once again.
Recent casualties in the guidebook sector include the RAC, which closed its hotel inspection and accreditation business after the publication of its 2006 hotel guide, and the Consumers' Association, which is no longer publishing its Which? Pub Guide and Which? Guide to Good Hotels.
Guidebook market small
The amount of people prepared to buy guidebooks is worrying publishers. Derek Bulmer, editor of the UK and Ireland Michelin Red Guide, admitted that considering the UK's 60 million population, the size of the guidebook market is small with an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 regular guide buyers.
It's a market that has also been hit by the advent of peer review websites such as Square Meal, TripAdvisor and Top Table and a host of other publications.
Paul Clerehugh, who owns the Crooked Billet pub in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, and is listed in several guides, questioned whether paid-for publications had fallen out of fashion with the general public.
"I think the public have grown wise to them and that maybe some of the respect the traditional guides had is now lost," he said. "We now live in a world where you have access to good quality monthly magazines, such as the Observer Food Monthly, so you can get your information elsewhere."
The now infamous pulping of Michelin's Benelux edition last year, following the discovery that one establishment, which was awarded a Bib Gourmand hadn't actually opened, hasn't helped the public perception
of the impartiality many traditional guides sell themselves on.
Operators have reacted accordingly, investing heavily in their websites and search engine optimisation.
Money going to the web
Lee Cash, co-founder of the Peach Pub Company a six-strong group of food pubs, has sought guide listings in the past but now finds his money better spent elsewhere. "We're now spending more money on our website, making sure we come as high up internet searches as possible, which we believe is the best way to market what we do," he said.
But Edmund Inkin, co-owner of the Felin Fach Griffin in Brecon, Powys, believes it remains important to have a healthy guidebook market with paid-for and independent titles battling it out to maintain balance.
Inkin is not a huge fan of online peer review sites, seeing them as potentially "extremely dangerous" if used maliciously. "There's also always the potential that an unscrupulous operator will arrange for good reviews of their business to be posted on there, so there's a question of objectivity," he said.
Patrick Brougham, special sales manager at distributor Portfolio Books, which counts Harden's and the Johansens guides among its clients, is unsurprisingly upbeat about the future.
He said there had been a definite shift in the past decade with guidebooks such as the Hip Hotels series becoming coffee-table material, escaping their functional past and attracting a new type of reader.
And despite the rise in popularity of online review sites, new launches are still flooding into the market to take on the old guard and nibble away at their market share.
Recent new entries include The Guest List from the AA, which was launched last month to tap into the luxury leisure travel market and Mr Particular - Telling the Truth about English Country House Hotels. Last year also saw the return of guidebook legend Egon Ronay with his 2006 Guide to the Best Restaurants and Gastropubs in the UK. There has even been a haunted bed and breakfast book called Paranormality: from Angels to Zombies by Karyn Easton.
Whether the next decade will bring a more dramatic change to the publishing landscape remains uncertain, but it seems unlikely the traditional print guidebook has had its day just yet.
"It's amazing the amount of books that are launched each year and how many fail," said Brougham. "But despite the fierce competition they face they simply keep coming."
Half of consumers avoid guidebooks
Exclusive research conducted for Caterer in July 2005 found more than half of consumers did not use a guidebook to help them choose a restaurant or hotel.
The NOP survey of 1,000 adults in England, Wales and Scotland also found only 5% of hotel and restaurant customers regularly used a guidebook to inform choice.
