A few days ago, Lonely Planet, a well-known travel media company and travel content provider, released a letter to fans titled "Have a great trip!" 》。 The article mentioned that due to the impact of the epidemic and the company's strategic adjustment, the company has closed its China office and ceased its publishing business in China. In addition, all of Lonely Planet's official social media accounts in China, including WeChat, Sina Weibo, Xiaohongshu, Zhihu, etc., have stopped updating.
图源：Lonely Planet公众号截图
Lonely Planet's sober farewell to the company's decision to withdraw from the Chinese market has sparked widespread attention, and Lonely Planet, a travel guide magazine that backpackers once owned, has officially become a memory of the times.
"The Travel Bible"
Lonely Planet was born as a couple who love to travel.
In 1970, young Tony Wheeler and Maureen Wheeler met and fell in love in college, and their common hobby was traveling. In 1972, the newlyweds decided to embark on a journey around the world, driving a used car from London across the Balkan Peninsula across Eurasia, selling the car in Afghanistan and switching to trains, buses, rickshaws, Nepal, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, and finally arriving by boat to the end of their honeymoon in Sydney.
Tony Wheeler and Maureen Wheeler
This adventure gave birth to the book "Cheap Walk Asia", which is considered the first travel guide for Lonely Planet. "Cheap Walk Asia" sold about 1,500 copies within a week of its publication, and it was a huge hit. The Wheelers then set up a company to publish travel guides they wrote from their own experiences around the world, and it never got out of hand.
In its more than 50-year history, Lonely Planet has provided travelers around the world with a wealth of travel guides covering some 200 destinations around the world, and was one of the most important travel reference books before the age of the Internet.
Lonely Planet China, located in Beijing's Dongcheng District, was established in 2013 and has been with you for 10 years. Since its inception, Lonely Planet has published more than 300 Chinese travel guides and travel books in China, selling millions of copies.
In the era of the rise of China's outbound travel, Lonely Planet is the first "travel decision-making platform" for self-guided players in China, just like an "enlightenment movement", inspiring and helping tens of millions of Chinese travelers to get travel inspiration, make their own strategies, plan their own itineraries, gain a deeper understanding of the destination during travel, and have the courage to embrace the vast and unknown.
Although Lonely Planet has only officially entered the Chinese market for only 10 years, there are still many people who remember the "Lonely Planet" that appeared in major bookstores in the form of detailed guides, and has a strong mass base. "You can not use it, but you can't not hear it."
Farewell is not the first time
In recent years, the speed at which travel-related paper publications have fallen is always embarrassing. This is not Lonely Planet's first farewell in China. Earlier than the travel guide Lonely Planet closed was Lonely Planet China.
On November 10, 2022, the WeChat official account of "Lonely Planet Magazine" announced that "we are sorry to announce a sad decision: the December 2022 issue will be the last issue of Lonely Planet Magazine China. ”
Founded in August 2012 as an entry-level guide for a generation of travellers, Lonely Planet China is a monthly magazine authorized by the LonelyPlanet brand, produced and distributed by China Map Publishing House.
At that time, the closure of the magazine edition was quiet, without making a wave.
And this time, in addition to paper magazines and books, the WeChat public account, Sina Weibo, Xiaohongshu, Zhihu and other full series of shutdown actions are really like a more formal and thorough farewell. Before the farewell message was released on the 26th of this month, its official account had actually not been updated for a long time, and the last update stayed on September 29, 2023, which was a winning list announcement.
If the closure of the Chinese edition of the magazine alone gave people hope for Lonely Planet, the closure of the China office made users realize that the "travel bible" with a blue spine had finally stopped updating completely, just like the aging Windows version.
Despite this, consumers can still purchase Lonely Planet's previously published Chinese titles on platforms such as Dangdang.com, and Duoyu, but there will be no new Chinese guides for the time being. The company is still producing English-language guides and reading materials that can be purchased on Lonely Planet's website.
The times are changing for travel information
Many netizens posted on social platforms that they missed the time when they traveled with "Lonely Planet", "Taking a lonely planet to travel is the youth of many post-80s and 90s backpackers." It doesn't just provide food, housing and transportation, it also takes travelers through the history and culture of the area. "It's so sad that the best travel guide, there is no one." "I really don't want to say goodbye, Lonely Planet has accompanied me from a novice tourist to the road of independent travel." "Lonely Planet has accompanied me alone in a third of the world's countries, it is the existence of all the strategy platforms, what would I do without it?"
However, many netizens believe that it is indeed time for Lonely Planet to shut down its China business. "My phone is full of travel guides, and it doesn't feel so convenient to go out with a book." "Everyone is used to searching everything on their mobile phones, and it is very difficult for travel books to survive in such a market." "Maybe it has something to do with our travel habits, I really don't see anyone looking for a travel itinerary with a book." "I can't do Xiaohongshu for a long time."
Although the reason for the closure of Lonely Planet stated in the announcement was "due to the impact of the past epidemic and the company's strategic adjustment", there is a consensus that with the development of the Internet, the way people travel today and the way people get travel tips have changed dramatically.
For travelers, the early Lonely Planet was more like a budget Bible. The original audience was not travelers in the broad sense of the word, but backpackers, or "travelers" who are now less commonly referred to. Moreover, the "Lonely Planet" travel guides, each volume is often hundreds or thousands of pages, which no longer seems to be in line with modern people's reading habits.
In the age of the Internet, the habits of domestic consumers in formulating travel strategies are constantly changing. In the early days, websites such as Mafengwo focused on travel strategies once became the first choice for travel enthusiasts with rich long-term graphic travel introduction guides. With the development of social media, the trend of information fragmentation is becoming more and more obvious, and the fragmented travel strategy represented by Xiaohongshu has risen rapidly.
Source: pixabay
From all kinds of travel books, local book publications to the Internet era where a mobile phone travels the world, the way consumers want to find travel strategies has indeed become more convenient and simple.
The thick "Lonely Planet" has finally become a grain of sand in the era in the fusion of information.
epilogue
Today, travel under social media is more like a fast-food check-in, and "Lonely Planet" is like a wise man who quietly observes the world, telling you how to immerse yourself in the people and customs of the local area of travel.
Maybe in this guidebook, which is only updated once in a few years, the traffic information and local prices are outdated, but like many readers' memories of it, the value of "Lonely Planet" is that it does not only teach you how to go from point A to point B, but also conducts a comprehensive combing of local history and humanity, and introduces the gameplay from the perspective of locals in a city and a country in the way of in-depth tours of a local area.
This way of traveling and reading is doomed to be a thing of the past, as is the case with Lonely Planet, as well as Airbnb, which has already announced its withdrawal from the Chinese market. However, when travelers are trying to find real dry goods strategies in the massive amount of information, they may also be nostalgic for those travel guide books that are very thick but full of practicality more than ten years ago.
But no matter how you travel, it's like Lonely Planet's last letter wishing us a pleasant trip.