作者|James
Since Lonely Planet announced its "withdrawal from China" this week, social networks and circles of friends have been filled with nostalgia for LPs for a while.
It could have been just another run-of-the-mill message that triggered nostalgia for the "good old days." But Entertainment Capital & Vision Future studied the ins and outs a little and found that this matter can actually be related to AIGC.
It turned out that Red Ventures, the parent company that spent about $50 million to acquire the entire LP [ brand in 2020, has only focused on "reducing costs and increasing efficiency" in recent years, and even has a "black history" of using AI-generated content to fill the layout of its media. In the travel sector, they have closed less lucrative products such as travel forums, and the pre-acquisition LP editorial team has rotated several times, and the quality of content is not as good as before.
LP, whose reputation has long been shattered overseas, has sparked a lot of nostalgia activities in China this week, but when we miss Lonely Planet, do we know exactly what we are missing?
- An authentic and effective, ad-free travel guide?
- A relaxing, friendly, sustainable way to travel instead of punching in and taking photos and "lightning protection"?
- Or is it a symbol of international integration, a symbol of openness and inclusiveness......
The "Blue Bible" itself has long lost that sacred brand aura, but it has created a strange "sense of luxury" caused by cultural appropriation in a foreign country, which is the real situation that this set of books is experiencing at the moment.
Overseas readers of the original version didn't buy it
On June 26, Lonely Planet, a well-known travel media company and travel content provider, announced that it would close its China office and stop publishing business in China. All of Lonely Planet's official social media accounts in China, including WeChat, Sina Weibo, Xiaohongshu, Zhihu, etc., have stopped updating.
Lonely Planet's last "farewell" was the closure of the eponymous regular magazine. In the future, consumers will still be able to buy previously published Chinese titles, but there will be no new Chinese guides written for the time being. Currently, Lonely Planet is still producing guides and readings in English.
Previously, many domestic readers pointed out that LP's China guidelines are slow to update and the selection of sites is not reasonable. For example, in a post in 2022, the LP operator replied to netizens, saying that the decline in content quality was affected by various factors such as epidemic prevention and control, and the author's difficulty in researching, but did not quell the doubts.
In fact, even before the pandemic, not only the Chinese operations department, but also the global operations of Lonely Planet were already very bad.
You may think that Lonely Planet is just a Chinese operation that is not adaptable, and it is still the same image of the "travel bible" on a global scale. But this is not the case, and for English-speaking readers elsewhere, the quality of the books they receive is also declining.
In 2023, someone bought a new version of the book and angrily posted on Reddit, saying that its quality had dropped alarmingly. Many people feel the same way about other local versions of the guide.
I recently received the latest issue of Lonely Planet Greece (June 20th edition) and it's terrible. They cut out most of the useful information and replaced it with images, making it relatively useless. In addition, the organizational structure is chaotic and they no longer cover attractions that deviate from the regular route. There is little information about transportation, attraction opening hours and fees, accommodation, restaurants and bars. It looks like it's cobbled together by a group of Instagram influencers who suffer from ADHD. I've looked at other recently released LP guides, such as reviews from Spain, Portugal, Italy, and people have given similar feedback. Guess LP is in the process of redesigning the format of all of its books, which is a shame. I've been using their guide for over 20 years now, but now I need to look for a replacement or use an older version. What a sad day.
In this post, someone pointed out that Red Ventures, the latest buyer to buy the Lonely Planet brand in 2020, was the culprit.
I worked at Red Ventures (RV) and my role overlapped with Lonely Planet. LPs shifted from a content strategy (selling books and website ads around articles) to a performance marketing strategy, which is RV's forte.
Across the portfolio, RV specializes in reward mechanisms (sign up for a card, RV gets a cut, buy a toaster, RV gets a cut). The LP's strategy has shifted to capture share of the deal through bookings, and content is just a way to lead you to bookings.
Turnover was extremely high – RV laid off a large number of employees after acquiring LPs, and then their new CEO (the former head of Refinery29) left the leadership position less than two years later. RV wants LPs to become Trip Advisors with microtransaction capabilities. But it didn't work.
He also said,
I quit a month before my department changed the entire management team. A year later, I found out that there were no more people I knew on my previous team.
In a press release when Red Ventures first acquired LP, it was confident that although the magazine's former editor-in-chief would not be coming along, all other editorial staff were still working as normal. Of course, we know that, in general, after a change in corporate management, this set of diplomatic rhetoric is basically meaningless nonsense and will be discarded.
Can this be endured? The parent company uses AI to write and send it directly
As the employees above said, after Red Ventures took over, they paid great attention to the input-output ratio of their products, and always wanted to reduce costs and increase efficiency. For such a cost-effective company, what kind of attitude will it have when it sees a new thing like AIGC - you can imagine.
Red Ventures also owns a number of different blogs and news media products, the most famous of which is CNET. This long-established media used to have a professional IT technology reporting team, excellent reports and interviews similar to the current The Verge and Engadget, and also co-organized TV media or programs in the golden age of television.
After being acquired by Red Ventures, CNET's board is now flooded with SEO garbage such as "how to make money with AI fast in 2024". Earlier this year, CNET also did a big thing - directly using AI to write manuscripts and put them on its own website. Of course, the main purpose is to use artificial intelligence to optimize the system by engine (SEO) – similar to what happened in recent days.
According to other media digging, CNET has quietly implemented AI-produced content since 2022, even earlier than the popularization of large language models. However, these AI-written articles were soon found to contain many cases of errors and plagiarism.
As a result, CNET had to correct or retract more than 70 articles. Not only did this result in a loss of trust in the site, but it also led to a downgrade in its reliability rating on Wikipedia, with editors classifying it as "generally unreliable" and less likely to be used as a citation source for encyclopedia content.
Internally, they claim that this "experimental activity" has been suspended, but whether it will actually be discontinued, or whether it will be replaced with a more seamless AI - no one can say. The company is no longer able to earn the trust of its readers as much as it used to.
Returning to the LP, the parent company, Red Ventures, has made it clear that it still retains the last bit of decency for it, and so far has not used AI-generated content to fill up the LP body. What will happen in the future, it is not very clear.
Changing hands several times, the Lonely Planet brand is getting worse and worse
For long-time readers who have followed Lonely Planet for a decade or two, they may feel even more heartache. The construction of this brand took decades of hard work by the founders and his wife, and it can be described as "taking all the baht"; As a result, after selling it a few times, the owner's father became more and more indifferent to the magazine, which can be said to be "used like mud and sand".
In the 21st century, the Lonely Planet brand has changed hands three times.
In 2007, BBC Global, a subsidiary of the BBC, bought a 75% stake from the brand's founders, Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler, for £88.1 million, and launched Lonely Planet Magazine the following year. By 2011, BBC Global bought the remaining 25% for £42.17 million.
However, under the leadership of BBC Universal, sales of the core business, the "Little Blue Book" series of travel guides, fell by 40% between 2007 and 2012. In retrospect, the Internet was booming, and the mobile Internet just appeared at that time, and the decline in paper book sales was the norm, and it would be an accident if it could be stabilized.
Unfortunately, the BBC's acquisition did not integrate the brand into the company's business as a whole (in part because of its public radio status). As a result, the BBC's multimedia channels have not contributed to Lonely Planet's digital transformation.
By 2013, BBC Universal had sold Lonely Planet to the American company NC2 Media for £51.5 million, which was a significant reduction from the original purchase price. The huge losses prompted the BBC Board of Trustees, which oversees it, to ask management for a detailed explanation.
This NC2 Media is controlled by billionaire Brad Kelly, who has no media experience – he is one of the largest private landowners in the United States with 600,000 hectares of land from Hawaii to Florida. To put it simply, you think that LP is in the hands of a "coal boss".
"NC2 Media, which is primarily engaged in digital content creation and technology development, owns and operates other brands such as OutWildTV and Journey America" – it doesn't matter, because none of these things have an impact.
NC2 Media is considered to be an entity set up specifically for the acquisition of LPs. The company's self-proclaimed strategy is to expand its product line to digital and multimedia platforms, but it may not actually do anything special, just launch apps and social media accounts in a step-by-step manner.
This kind of "inaction" will not be cured by 2020, because the first wave of the epidemic has left the tourism industry with little value to adhere to, especially for a "coal boss". Red Ventures acquired the LP for $50 million, and its value in the capital markets fell by a further 30%.
"I've been hearing this from my LP friends for years."
Matthew Kepnes is the New York Times bestselling author of "How to Travel the World on a $50-a-Day Budget" and "Ten Years of Nomadism." "When you become a travel writer, many of your travel writing friends will be LP writers."
He wrote a blog post in 2019 about the huge problems that already existed with the English version of LP at that time.
Multiple sources contacted me to describe their experiences with Lonely Planet since the acquisition. The authors complained about the lack of communication, respect, and feedback from LPs, as well as the "please walk away" message from policy changes to their contributing experts (CPs, i.e., contributors).
I've long heard rumors about LP recycling content "desktop updates" (i.e., writing information in the office, not researching at destination), which seems to be confirmed by current employees. It's often said that Lonely Planet contributors are told to use Google and TripAdvisor (TripAdvisor) to create content.
LPs have a huge content management system where authors submit their research and then produce a guide book from it. But I was told that now, after the writer enters the information into the database, another person, who may not know anything about the destination, will come over and assemble a book. So, in the end, you end up with a disorganized – and often wrong – book.
Because of these changes, writers seem to have developed a disdain for the company and just deliver something "good enough." They don't get paid much, their work deadlines are getting tighter, and they no longer feel like they're part of the company.
This was before the pandemic. Since then, especially after the round of "cost reduction and efficiency increase" of Red Ventures, the company has lacked a stable and unified editorial team for a long time, and it is only a matter of time before the halo of this brand fades.
The latter two owners of the LP are very keen to expand their profitability, especially on the digital media version. For example, the 2016-2017 revision turned into an infinitely scrolling information flow mode. More placements means more referral placements and rebates for directing traffic to booking sites.
At the same time, projects that do not have much profitability are being cut at an accelerated pace. The most typical is the Thorn Tree forum, which was created at the beginning of the century but was cut down in 2021. These forums, which have accumulated a large number of professional travel articles in the early years, are not making money, but they can't annoy people who may advertise because of the praise or criticism of their community users.
After a number of management changes, the high editorial standards that the magazine once maintained have long since been replaced by a Wikipedia-like enthusiasm that is "decentralized" and supported by a small number of responsible authors and editors.
A Douban post was written in 2014, which was the early stage of the "coal boss" rule. Responsible for the editing of the LP Chinese version of the guide "Gansu and Ningxia" (2014 edition), practicing the "digital nomad" life that is still desirable ten years later; The quality of the text in this guide is also based on the knowledge, experience and conscience of the authors she and the authors she contacts.
Gan Ning (referring to "Gansu and Ningxia") has a total of 6 authors on the road and 4 authors of understanding chapters. Among these 10 people, I have only seen 3 of them with my own eyes, and their interactions with other people are all on WeChat, QQ, phone calls and countless emails. I hadn't seen anyone before I decided to ask them to write it, and I made the decision based on my resume, sample papers, past work, and inhouse CE (Commissioning Editor) recommendations. Luckily, they are all good and reliable authors, and we often spend the night discussing manuscripts and exchanging experiences with each other. I am so grateful to them for the days and nights I have experienced with me.
LP began to launch a Chinese version of the travel guide in the Chinese market in 2010, and the independent editorial office of Chinese was established at that time. The following is the 2017 LP Editor's introduction to the author recruitment process at that time:
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Somewhat because of the "unreachable" of the headquarters management at this time, the editorial department of LP in China is dominated by a group of Chinese people with an international vision, and has achieved a certain degree of "free growth", and they use their own ideas to practice the interpretation and understanding of the spirit and values of LP.
This is the luck of the Chinese version of LPs, and it also reflects the misfortune of overseas LP editorial departments.
LP founders Tony and Maureen Wheeler are the top brand ambassadors and spiritual leaders of the Blue Bible. Here's a quote from Wheeler in 2013:
WE MAY BE LIKE EVERYONE ELSE IN THE HIGH-TECH ERA, BUT LONELY PLANET HAS NEVER BEEN AN ONLINE BUSINESS: START TODAY, BE WORTH HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS TOMORROW, AND BURN OUT THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW. In fact, we're pretty much the opposite, and slow travel is perhaps just as important as slow food, and we still spend the energy researching each book, sending the author to his destination, and getting them all the way through the streets (early 2013)
It would be nice if they were pretty sure it would always be like this. Perhaps the most effective way to guarantee the basic editorial principles of these LPs is for the founders to return to the helm, but that didn't happen.
The halo is gone, there is no blue utopia in the world
LP's business development in China is not effective, and it can only gather a large number of people of insight as authors to maintain the publication and update of books and magazines. In this way, it removes the commercial pressure of the American base camp, and adds a layer of "not for fame and fortune" filter to Chinese readers. But in reality, it may just be a beautiful misunderstanding.
If you use "surrounding statistics" and look at those who miss LP in particular, the mainstream posts on the official account, Xiaohongshu and Douban, they are more dissatisfied with the current situation of domestic travel guides. They believe that LP represents a humble, restrained, professional, and awe-inspiring attitude to travel.
AI Mapping by Entertainment Capital
These nostalgic factions believe that when comparing Lonely Planet with Xiaohongshu, the two most common words on Xiaohongshu are "lightning protection". A thing itself may not be good or bad, but the unified to your own inappropriate things are treated as "thunder" to avoid, this lack of awe of attitude, the ensuing "strategy tourism", it is easy to cause trouble to the scenic spot, look at each other, and return home.
Some people think that traveling with an LP is random and unexpected - provided that you are disconnected from the Internet at your destination. And going on a trip with Xiaohongshu is fully arranged, full of details, and even "special forces" style.
Of course, these problems exist on the current mainstream travel guide platforms, such as Xiaohongshu, TripAdvisor, Dianping, Yelp, tabelog, etc. Those who miss LPs may overlook one point: the composition of this attitude cannot be attributed solely to the platform, but more to the person who uses it.
Lonely Planet is a "print medium" whose dilemma is part of the dilemma of traditional media. However, when the channel advantage was exhausted, LP's approach may not be better than the current channel advantage, such as Mafengwo, TripAdvisor, or ...... Little Red Book...... Better.
In the early years, the audience of LPs was low-cost, budget-conscious "travelers" or backpackers. If there was a Little Red Book at that time, the people on it would be the same group of people as them.
When LPs first explored unknown destinations, their impact and "destructive power" on the local area were no less than those of today's lifestyle apps. The most typical case is the introduction and development of Bali. While filling a gap in the market, they are accused of destroying secret places by revealing them and making them more popular.
Wheeler recalled:
"The accusations first started in Bali. People will say, oh, we remember that Bali used to be quiet, unspoiled, with no paved roads, only sandy trails leading to the beach, as if we paved the way there. We didn't do that. We are just one small factor among many others. We didn't start adding all the flights and building international hotels. ”
One of the legendary traits of LPs is "revealing interesting, off-the-beaten-path travel locations". If the same characteristics come from UGC that lacks regulation and editing, rather than being controlled by a controlled handful of authors, do you guess that the controversial "pit daddy planting grass" and "killing camping" in Xiaohongshu are the same thing?
So, here's how Wheeler felt:
"The job of the guide book writer is to reveal interesting things. What would you do if you found a great discovery that no one else had been except the locals themselves kept secrets? You want to reveal it to the world. But, you know, we're also very aware of the dangers of overtourism. ”
A road book in the 1980s is no different from the role and impact of a guide app now. But in the context of misplaced time and space, LP was interpreted by the Chinese decades later into an appearance that it did not recognize.
It's as if Muji is just a little better than Daiso in Japan, but in China it has become a symbol of the petty bourgeois lifestyle. MUJI's tag price in China is priced at an exaggerated "exchange rate" of 10:1, and some items may be sold in China at up to twice the price of the Japanese mainland (tax included).
LPs in the early years, like the Internet in the early years (as mentioned in the previous article "The Internet in Chinese is Accelerating"), were controlled by a group of high-quality people, who quickly evolved the concept of sustainable tourism, and it was logical to improve the quality and cultural taste of the entire brand.
Perhaps after a certain evolution, in a few decades, sustainable and responsible tourism on Xiaohongshu can also become mainstream. Now people with a monthly income of only a few thousand yuan can also start from poor travel and develop all the good habits of travel, those "first world" habits.
AI mapping
2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Lonely Planet's first book, Cheap Across Asia. If you compare it to a person, although it is only in the middle age of human beings when it is over half a hundred years old, it has already undergone three major surgeries, is riddled with diseases, and falters.
Lonely Planet has met the needs of people around the world who love to travel in stages. Many of the imaginations of the good times and golden ages of the past are actually ignorance of the lack of convenient conditions at that time, which only adds a layer of aura and filter.
Many people who have been associated with LP may see this book for the first time when the domestic society is not developed and open enough. At that time, its symbolic meaning as a cultural symbol was very strong. But now, it's time to look at something more representative of cultural symbols.
For example, in recent years, India has banned TikTok in the local area due to so-called "national security" concerns. After all, this is also one of the world's top social networks, do you think there will be people in the local area who think that this is also not allowing them to "open their eyes to the world"?
The Lonely Planet in the past may really represent too many things for its Chinese fans, and losing it and saying goodbye to it is also nostalgic and reluctant. However, in the new era, people need to find new coordinates after all, instead of indulging in nostalgia for the past.