Guild Chairman Melissa Shales looks at the exclusivity deal struck between WH Smith Travel shops and Penguin books and is not impressed.

How would you like it if you went to the biscuit counter in Tesco’s and were offered a choice of nothing but Rich Tea or chocolate digestives? There is nothing intrinsically wrong with either biscuit – stalwart national favourites for decades, but I personally really like hobnobs, and you might prefer shortbread. OK – enough about biscuits, the analogy is made.
The point is that Britain is the guidebook publishing centre of the world. This is where a large proportion of the world’s best guidebooks are created (many are then repackaged, respelled and translated and appear in many other guises all around the world). It is something we do – or have done – extremely well.
For some years now, however, guidebook publishing has been an industry under threat, with fees tumbling to the point where authors, updaters and researchers can no longer work properly and professionally, the margins demanded by the bookshops so great that the publishers are squeezed to the point of no return. It has also been badly affected by the arrival of the great mass of free copy on the internet (some of it sold far too cheaply and short-sightedly by the big guidebook publishers who saw an opportunity for a fast buck and shot themselves neatly in the foot).
It’s now taken another body blow in the UK with Penguin and WH Smith neatly trussing up the rest of the industry and signing an exclusivity deal for their 450 travel shops – airports, stations, hospitals, motorway services etc – ie all the places where people would be most likely to buy a guidebook. That means no Lonely Planet, Michelin, Berlitz, Globetrotters, Time Out, Insight, Bradt, or Frommers, to name but a few. These include some seriously good books. It also means that you won’t be able to get a book to many destinations from Algeria to Oman at an airport, never mind losing out on some of the best guidebooks to mainstream destinations – the DK/Rough guide list is by no means universal or the best on offer to many others. It also means that with some of the best sales outlets in the UK closed to other publishers, jobs are on the line. So do us and yourselves a favour, don’t pick up a Penguin and don’t shop at WH Smiths until they see sense.

Melissa Shales – Chairman, British Guild of Travel Writers

5th June 2009