PDF the present and the future of the travel guides

Hi guys,

I have just bought a travel guide through Lonely Planet’s webpage. As you now, I’m planning a small trip to Birmingham, for this reason, I have bought a pdf guide of West-Midlands (UK). It is the first time that I buy something directly to Lonely Planet and I will do it again very, very soon! It is very easy to understand the philosophy of Lonely Planet’s website, because it is very interactive and very useful. First, I have chosen the type of book, then the continent and finally the city . I have spent 2.40€ for West-Midlands and the Marches’ guide. This price includes the opportunity to download 5 times the file. I have wasted 1 of them. Who wants the others? In relation to the price, I want to add clarify that you choose the chapters that you want ,so you are not obliged to buy the entire guide, for this reason, you save money. If you buy the entire digital book, you save around 20-30% (it is less expensive than if you buy it at the bookshop). In addition, the Australian company (Lonely Planet) has made an application for Iphones and Ipods so that you can read the digital guides. For this reason, I confirm that Lonely Planet has discovered a market niche. Congratulations for the excellent marketing!

In my opinion, when buying pdf travel guides you save money, time (website, you don’t waste your time going to the book-shop) and place in your home-library. As you now, I’m a travel fan, for this reason I love collecting travel guides (but this is the past). The next guides that I will buy will be in pdf version.

I think that travel books are a bit uncomfortable if you’re travelling or visiting a city. You have to carry it everywhere. When using a digital document, you don’t have to carry with anything, you can do some photocopies of the interesting places and that’s all!

Now, I am looking for new guides: Amsterdam, Helsinki, Tallinn and Athens. Evidently, I will buy digital guides!

For this reason, Lonely Planet is the world travel guides’ leader. What about the competitors? Nowadays, Routard is not offering digital books to the market and neither do the main part of other competitors. Come on!!

That’s all folks!