I completely agree with you. I won’t even register to access content.

Now that I have a website I “get” why people do that, but I just won’t.

Report this comment

Depends on the quality, convenience & credibility – almost any information is available free online somewhere, but people still pay for a well packaged, trusted and covenient version of it.

Travel info is a bit unique in that it is particularly easy and convenient to get get online, and in fact no print guidebook can compete with YouTube videos for giving you a real feel for the place – but I still buy guidebooks now & then, simply for convenience, & for the individual voice & credibility of that brand…and I buy it in addition to my own online research.

Report this comment

Selling travel info online sounds like a very tough road. LP sell chapters of their books online (no idea how successfully) but they can rest on a certain amount of reputation. Without that and good quality info, they are no chance as too much info is available for free (even if it takes time to work out what info is good).

Report this comment

I think some consumers think that paying = better content. But if you are going to pay, why pay for info online or in a book. Pay a professional to set things up.

Report this comment

Not sure about paying for content online – I probably wouldn’t – but I think the rumours of the guidebook’s death are greatly exagerrated.

A key thing is what people are looking for online, and the way they do it. Often people are looking for a certain piece of information, and they find it on a website – a bus timetable, a review of a restaurant, a brief overview of what attraction X is about.

When they want a lot of such information in one place, in a format that they can keep with them, they don’t want to have to search for each individual bit: they want it packaged up. That’s where the books come in. And I certainly don’t want to be online all the time looking for snippets of info while I’m abroad.

Packaging up the content online and making people pay for it probably won’t work, because people are looking for information on a different level and a different way. Why pay for a whole guide when all you want is a couple of bits of info? As I suspect you’ll find with My Life In Leeds and as I’ve written about on my own blog (http://bit.ly/55MDo), most of the traffic won’t be through the front door. It’ll be through people looking for a certain bit of information. If they stay to read the rest, then brilliant. If they click on an ad or two, brilliant. But I find it hard to believe that they’ll pay for all the extra material.

Report this comment

I also can’t see that selling travel information online will work. But I’m also not convinced that free travel information online works either – the quality of information has already plummeted, and there is now just so much of it out there that I doubt ordinary punters can actually access worthwhile, up-to-date reliable info any more amidst the morass of rantings and moanings. So the quality continues to drop, so people keep posting more & more reviews… eventually the internet starts to eat itself, and the trustworthiness and reliability of professionally produced guide books reasserts itself. Book sales rocket as people realise just how useful and interesting proper guidebooks can be, compared to UGC.

So says this emotionally and financially invested guidebook author…!

Report this comment

As editor of a travel content site I realise that most consumers refuse to pay even for quality/unique online travel content. Therefore the only way to generate income is through advertising. I’d rather be spending my time writing content and promoting my site than in the mechanics of attracting advertisers, processing invoices etc but needs must.

Report this comment

One thing you have to keep in mind Darren is that your time is not free, so while the content may be free, if it takes you 2 hours to collect all the free info from multiple sources, package it into a single document and print it out you might be better off buying a guidebook. But I agree with @GSP that paid travel content is viable for companies like LP with a strong reputation. Anyone else will need to offer travel content free and that’s why we decided to make all the content available without payment or registration when launching Joobili.

Report this comment

Is not this the same case as in other industry, just that in travel it’s a little more blindingly apparent. It’s a well known belief that most digital products (ebooks, courses, etc.) today are packaged information you could find elsewhere for free, with a few of the author’s nuggets and spin thrown in for good measure. What they’re doing is saving you the time of finding all the information – separating the chaff from the wheat and giving you the good stuff.

So if the purveyor of information (did I really just use that word?) can package enough good stuff together that I find it worth the money to save the time and hassle of finding it, then yes some people would pay for it.

But I do agree, this market is chasing an ever-shrinking profit margin.

Report this comment

People do pay for travel content — not everyone of course, but some do. We’ve been selling PDF guides to destinations in Asia for almost three years now and have found it be be a great little niche.

We’re actually releasing a third edition of a guide later today for Siem Reap in Cambodia. Darren I’d be happy to send you over a copy so you can compare it to the quality/depth of coverage you’ll find on TravelMuse/TripWolf for the same destination.

Cheers
Stuart

Report this comment

Selling travel information is hard … and that’s from someone building a new media travel publishing business. The problem is that researched, fact-checked, edited stories take an immense amount of time and effort…which equals money being spent by the publisher. If people want to avoid the gutter of paid reviews and “secret” advertorials, they have to be willing to pay somewhere along the road. “Free” only takes you so far.

On Indie Travel Podcast, we provide almost all our digital information free and without registration, including the new magazine we’ll launching which will certainly make a substantial financial loss in it’s first edition. People can buy a print subscription, but our digital version is free…although simply in designers, writers and photographers fees, we’re forking out over US$500…and about 100 hours of unpaid time.

I certainly hope people find enough value in our content and brand to contribute and I hope we continue to offer content and services that people love to listen to, read and watch.

Report this comment

A lot of the debate about “free” travel information from the perspective of the producer and end user hinges on fact that “time is money”. The content producer puts out time and effort researching and writing travel content so may need to see an financial return for this (if it’s more than a hobby). The end user wants quality, interesting content and may not be willing to spend the time searching through all the dross to find this.

Report this comment

@Andy… I total agree, along with separating out the crap. Recently I found some information online that looked really good, but the attraction in question closed 7 years ago. Find the same with a lot of online free information. Ferries or flights that no longer go hotels that is not there and so on.

@ Darren, as an agent we pay for guides so we have the correct information.

Report this comment

I work for a travel publisher and I would rather not say whom I work for. I think anyone who is going to sell content online is going to struggle. We publish a mixture of guidebooks, downloadable guides and online content. Since the global recession we have seen that consumers would rather read our free content than pay for it.

Report this comment

Just to pipe in again, I agree wholeheartedly with the comments about packaging the info up as being one of the selling points.

About 90% of the content in our paid-for guides is available for free on the site (either scattered across the site on individual pages, or in slimmed down PDF guides that we give away for free), but that doesn’t stop people from buying the guides — not at all. In buying a guide they’re getting a well formatted package that saves them the time of surfing through 100s of pages, cut/pasting into Word, reformatting and printing off. I’m sure some of our readers do that, but at the end of the day, what’s the price of your time?

In my experience, readers enjoy free content, but that doesn’t stop them at all from paying for it as well. To some of those saying readers won’t pay, have you tried to sell? Don’t know till you try!

Report this comment

Most of you seem to be writers so of course you are going to think that selling travel content online is a good model. As a traveller I have to ask myself why would I pay when I can read trusted content for free. You do not have to pay to read trusted content. Google trusts WikiPedia content so why shouldn’t I?

@Stuart

You say people purchase your PDF guides, but do you receive a return on the investment in time? I used your site a while back and the content is good but I have no need to purchase a guide because you and your readers give me the information I require for free.

@Darren

I wonder do you plan to sell PDF guides like the one you recently published.

Report this comment

I use the CAA/AAA guides and maps that I get as part of my membership and find they are great for planning travel as well as when driving when I don’t have computer access. Printing all the information from my computer would be far more costly than buying a guide especially when I am on a long trip. I don’t carry a printer with me.

I use the computer when planning and would pay a minimal charge for travel information if it was personal experience of someone I trusted about a place with a particular focus. An example might be; Tips On Visiting Ruins As A Solo Traveller as I have been travelling alone and chosen not to enter some castle ruins having been warned in the parking lot that there were suspicious men hanging around inside. I have since learned to ask to accompany a group or a couple and met some great people.

Report this comment

Darren,

It is my view that you always “pay” for “free” content.

How? By spending too much time on this darn Internet looking for the exact info you want.

You and I and some other commenters spend tons of time here for one reason or another and are maybe a bit savvy on getting what they are looking for.

Most people are not. So they end up with wrong info or spending too much time. Internet is yet in its infancy!

An example is my DD #2 (Dancegirl) she was booking a self catering in Spain…..turned out that she booked in another town then she wanted to, because there appeared to be two towns with the same name….

Report this comment

@Rohan

Re: @Darren
I wonder do you plan to sell PDF guides like the one you recently published.
Ouch!

Actually I can see a time in the future when the internet is so full of good and bad content, that I would pay to find good content only (like a magazine /publishing subscription). I’d pay to read an unbiased content on any topic and be even more inclined to do so if there were no ads, typo squatting sites or biased review sites to wade through to find it.

Report this comment

@Rohan Absolutely.

Report this comment

People pay for content everyday. The check simply goes to the their Internet Service Provider. The good news is the ISP then pays content providers to help differentiate them from others.

If you give things away, you will continue to do so. The value has been removed from the equation.

Report this comment

Just because you are paying for content, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will be better. I was recently browsing through a Cadogan guide to Andalucia, and it stated that a castle, which was actually built in the 1930′s, dated back to Moorish times.

Report this comment

Very good topic. And a lot of interesting replies.

Report this comment

@Rohan

Have to ask, how exactly does Google ‘trust’ Wikipedia? Because it is search friendly?

Report this comment

I think that there is a big, wide market out there for quality, free online travel info. The thing about the internet is that there are so many alternative ways to monetize a site that, at least in my opinion, there is almost no excuse for charging for content.

For example, the company I work for (and I hope this isn’t considered off-topic) publishes comprehensive and free online travel guides to Costa Rica. We’re talking all the stuff you’d normally find in LP, minus hotel recommendations. Of course, there’s a ton of research and travel involved in creating the travel guides, but the company owner utilizes on-site ads and other sources to supplement his income and pay for all the travel involved. I love this business model because we (the travel writers) can provide up-to-date info (we revisit about once/year) and tourists can research their destinations for free. Everyone wins.

Report this comment

@Guido is right. Too much information is free online, so if people don’t have the time to trawl through mountains of it, they will be prepared to pay for the privilege of having one resource with consistently high quality travel advice. This is not to say that paid-for travel advice is ever going to be a mass-market solution, but at the top end of the market it is essential.

@Colin – paying for content does not guarantee accuracy, but accuracy is one of the key areas in which paid content generally stands out. In order to charge for information online, it also needs to be unique, highly relevant, and always up to date. Investing in professional writers, editors, copy-editors and fact-checkers sets a benchmark for quality written content, which free services cannot match.

@Jared Salter made a good point about LP being able to charge based on their long-standing reputation – The difficulty for us at Globalista has been to build up trust with visitors to our website. At the moment we have decided to make a large portion of our site freely available in an effort to demonstrate that it is worthwhile for the time-poor luxury traveler to subscribe to our full service.

Report this comment

Great discussion! Two additional points:
I agree that travel content has to be free online, unless it is conveniently packaged for download by a reputable source (where a startup like tripwolf has way to go). Also, you can probably charge for specific pieces of content where accuracy is important: I was in India recently and I would have been willing to pay for an accurate 2-page timetable of trains between stations that are close to touristically relevant sights (i.e. not the full timetable of Indian railways with ALL cities, but one edited for international travellers.)
A thing I am missing from the discussion is the mobile side: I think guide books will be replaced by mobile apps on the iPhone and other phones. The online travel content that you find through Google search then becomes a vehicle to sell your nicely packaged mobile app for the destination in question, with one-click-download for a few Euros or Dollars.

Report this comment

@ Darren
Of course there is only a small percentage of iPhone users now, but if I’m taking a long term view, I am sure that the trend to ever-more-capable smart phones will continue. I am sure that 5 years from now much less travel guide books will be sold because people access the info on their phones instead. Although books have the advantage of not needing batteries and stil working after you have have dropped them into the pool…

Report this comment

As other people have said here, I think the value of paid content comes from the format and packaging. I will probably always buy paper books – just because something is available for free online doesn’t mean I want to go and look for it.

Just wondering, though: who should sponsor and produce this free content? Destinations? Hospitality & travel businesses? Online travelers, like with Wikitravel?

Report this comment

Agree with Sebastian on the importance of iPhones and other mobile devices — especially longer term, but I think it’s be a particularly long term view to see them completely replacing guidebooks — after all who wants to throw their $1000 phone at a rat gnawing their their backpack?

Will be interesting to see if travellers will be more willing to pay for packaged mobile content than they are for traditional web content.

Report this comment

In my view there will always be a niche for paid content. Depends on your market – for example the FT charges for access to its financial news, and everyone who needs it pays. In travel, the equivalent would be the private subscriber newsletters like Passport or Andrew Harper’s newsletter, which people pay 100 USD or more a year to receive. Not many people compared to the net population accessing free content, but enough to make it viable, as (some) people will pay for trusted insider content with a ‘voice’.

The battle is on now with Rupert Murdoch et al about paying for online news. Some say it will never work, others that its the only solution, otherwise the newspapers will all go bust. As usual, the answer lies somewhere in the middle – there will be some paid content, and people will pay for an editorial selection. Saves time, which is worth money.

Report this comment

I don’t agree.

I buy travel guide books and use them when I travel. I like the Time Out guides for cities and both Lonely Planet and Rough Guides are great for countries or regions.

True, much of the information is available online, but I don’t have time to search through it all and sift the wheat from the chaff, nor do I want to travel with piles of print-outs on office paper.

If I do research online first, it’s usually as a supplementary thing – maybe to get a great unique hotel recommendation or read some blogs of people who went there. I won’t generally print this stuff out and take it with me.

I won’t pay for stuff online unless I know I’m getting exactly what I need. I would not subscribe to an online magazine for example, though I’ll gladly peruse the content if it’s made available for free. I might buy or even subscribe to a print magazine though because I enjoy reading magazines – it’s for pleasure rather than research.

Here’s an example of where I WOULD pay for content online. Lonely Planet is now making chapters of its books available for download. I would absolutely pay to download a chapter on, say, the Bordeaux wine region. I am confident that the Lonely Planet chapter on Bordeaux would have all the information I need and if it saves me from a) paying for the entire book on France when I don’t need it or b) trying to cobble together information and recommendations from disparate sources that may or may not be complete, trustworthy or up to date, then I’m entirely happy to pay for this. Obviously the price needs to be kept low or it’s not a viable alternative to the book but on principle, I’m willing to pay.

Plus, one day I hope to own a Kindle or other eBook device, meaning I could download the chapter as a PDF and read it on my device, rather than having to print it out and carry paper. Brilliant!

Report this comment

If you compare the quality of information and convenience of, say, a Michelin Green Guide book with the stuff you can access online, then the advantages of paper over online information are obvious. Sitting out on a terrace, browsing a guide book in preparation for tomorrow’s outings, while enjoying a glass of plonk after an evening meal, is one of the pleasures of being on holiday.

Report this comment

@Darren To answer your question, I would need to know in advance that I was going to get what I needed. I trust the Lonely Planet brand to deliver that but it’s not just about branding. Another way to convince me might be to offer free samples or a trial. It has to be something more than what I can get for free from a single source elsewhere.

Report this comment

Would like to add something and referring to your next post and that is “trust”. How to ensure the “free” info is trustworthy???

Report this comment

@Darren
I remember thinking when I read your first post about WH Smith that its customers that have the real choice and to put it plainly. If you don’t want to be restricted by what travel guide you can buy at the airport (or indeed any branch of WH Smith) then simply do not visit W H Smith.

There is a wealth of choice out there, from free guides online, blogs, and a variety of online book shops (as well as independents) where we can buy the latest guides (not forgetting charity shops). Sorry to (travel) rant, but if we don’t like something.. be it corporate chains or the decisions they make, then we can simply go elsewhere… surely?

As for the free content debate.. I was having an interesting meeting with our of our partners last week about this very subject. The issues of credibility, authority and trust as @Guido puts it, certainly came up…. but with even Rupert Murdoch struggling to monetise online content (Last months Wired Mag) I think the future is very bright for free online travel content.

Simon

Report this comment

[...] you pay for travel content online? Darren at Travel Rants kicks off a debate on whether the future of online travel content is free. I disagree with him in the comments thread. What do you think? (If you comment over at [...]

Report this comment

@Simon If WH Smith were a small independent store, then the argument that consumers could always go elsewhere would be a valid one. Since it is a corporate behemoth that completely dominates the market, especially in train stations and airports, that argument doesn’t hold much water. The policy is most probably a breach of Britain’s monopoly laws and I wouldn’t be surprised if it is overturned at some point.

I also don’t understand your logic to say that since even Rupert Murdoch is struggling to make money from online content, the future is bright for free online travel content. Actually that would imply the opposite. If Murdoch has trouble with it, there is nothing to suggest that smaller operators would find it easier.

Report this comment

“As a content publisher I want to earn revenue, as a consumer I don’t want to pay for the content.”

Darren, I think you speak for a lot of people – especially (travel) bloggers. I’ve felt the same thing myself.

But I pay for things that will save me time. Unless I value my time at a few dollars/euros/pounds per hour, it doesn’t make sense for me to troll the internet to find information that can be found in one (paid) place.

I believe Steve Jobs once made the case that unless your time is worth $2/hour, you’re better off paying $1 per song download in iTunes. Pirating may be ‘free’ – but it’s not worth the time.

If some information cannot be found in books or digital downloads, that’s another story. Guest reviews and new information is not very conducive to print publishing. I guess it’s a matter of knowing where to go for what info. Free material can be a good starting point, but I’m willing to pay for convenience.

Report this comment

Asking for paid content is so 90′s! The internet is all about openness, there are many ways as a website owner you can take content (whether paid or not) and distribute it to the masses for free. Sometimes google is your number client for searching and indexing and I ensure you that they are not going to pay to index your data and if they can’t see it then neither can search engines.

[Rest of comment removed because it was promotional - please read the comments policy]

Report this comment

@Rohan I was commenting as a consumer, not a writer. I would never charge for my travel blog because it’s not the kind of content that people would be willing to pay for. I think it’s GOOD but it’s more inspiration and story telling rather than specific travel planning advice. As a professional writer, I write for a variety of publications with different business models. Mostly they are advertising funded, even when it’s a print publication with a cover price, but it doesn’t so much matter to me what the business model is as long as they pay me as a writer.

@Kris Yes, we all thought the paid content battle had been fought and won/lost (depending on your point of view) in the 1990s. But it’s back. Plans are afoot for many existing newspaper and magazine websites to start charging. The online music business has shown that it will work – people thought that Napster et al had knocked that business on the head before it ever got off the ground, but fast forward to 2009 and look where Apple iTunes is now.

Report this comment

@ Caitlin
@Darren

Thank you both very much for your replies. What I wanted to clarify was that, in my opinion, the future is bright for travel consumers for ‘free’ content. Obviously the more a publication is earning (online or otherwise) one can assume that the content can be better (more time, guest interviews, trips, professional photography etc), but with the issues surrounding the monetization of content, I think “Free” is going to get more prominent, but it’ll be unclear just how much of an impact this will have on quality/choice.

I appreciate your thoughts @Darren regarding earning a decent living from blogging and your other websites. Banner CTR have always been low, and while CPM advertising is all very well to get some revenue in (over commission based –per lead or sale- schemes) I think it’s really up to publishers to diversify and not see traditional content as THE way to make money, but instead see their traditional content as a way of fostering a connection with customers, enhancing the perception of their brand, cross selling other products and, while perhaps earning a slice of the advertising or affiliate marketing pie on the side, they create new products and services.

For instance, I’ve wondered why you’ve (@Darren) not run training seminars, webinars, paid Skype chats or delivered training on social media for the travel industry? You could take this further and branch into writing a book (lulu.com) or perhaps even a PDF.

Secondly, look into other ways of monetizing the blog. Encourage donations for hosting or coffee and, dare I say it, CHARGE for travel blog camp. £35-£45 pounds for an evening of inspirational bloggers, networking and some freebies is a good deal in my book, and if it helps to drive up more content on Travel-Rants then I’m all for that.

Apologies if I’ve gone slightly off topic, but to bring it back…. YES if there is no money in producing content then it MIGHT impact upon quality, provision and choice. There will always be publishing authorities and guides (Wallpaper, Lonely Planet, AA etc) in some shape or form (print, PDF, mobile), but the rules are changing everyday. Your content is fighting for attention. Micro-blogging merely encourages us to crave more, more, more.

Once again consumers will make the choice. To pay or not to pay, however as @Josiah and @Steve Jobs has put it. There will be cost associated with convenience.

Report this comment

Morning @ Caitlin

Also, re: W H Smith. Firstly, I’m in agreement that the monopolistic nature of the business does highlight some major issues regarding choice and distribution, however the key point that I wanted to stress about consumer choice is that the marketplace is wide open. If consumers do leave buying their travel guides to the last minute then yes they might well be restricted by the choice that is available to them. In the same way that if I don’t buy an M&S lunch before security control at Gatwick then I have to make do with whatever dodgy hot panini easyjet have left.

Anticipation of the holiday will no doubt stimulate research and might lead to customers purchasing online or on the high street (or going online), and while the argument doesn’t hold much water, it holds some water non the less.

I think with ‘bad’ every decision a corporate has made they have had to live with the criticism and, in some instances, backlash from customers. Again, and in a very Mark Thomas fashion, I think its up to customers to make the right choice and decide with their wallets.

Report this comment

I share Darren’s lament. The free stuff is free because it’s (usually) worthless, and the commercial stuff is rarely good enough to merit the price. This is probably why Rick Steves is such a phenomenon.

So I agree with others above that the market is wide open.

Report this comment

[...] Cronian from the Travel Rants blog recently kicked off a fascinating debate on whether people would pay for travel content. My personal belief is that they will if they trust the source and know the content is going to be [...]

Report this comment

I would never pay for online travel content. There’s absolutely no need when all I have to do is nip down to my local libary and borrow a few guide books. If there was anything else I wanted to know once I’d read these, I could log on to a forum such as Lonely Planet and ask a few questions. Of course some people might pay for the convenience of viewing content online, but it’s not for me.

I believe that we have become too reliant on guide books. All they seem to do is encourage a sheep-like following (especially among devotees of Rick Steves) where everyone walks the same well-trodden path. We seem to be losing the ability to discover things for ourselves (or is this just my imagination?). Anyway, I suppose that’s another debate altogether.

Report this comment

In my experience, the guide books available in libraries are old and if I do find one that’s suitable, I generally need it for longer than the check-out period (admittedly you can usually renew).

I think it’s down to individuals if they are too reliant on guide books or not. It’s probably better than being reliant on a package tour.

Report this comment

Paid content? Are you serious? The days of paid content is a thing of the past and with the social media world that exists today, there’s no way consumers are going to pay for content, regardless of the niche that you occupy.

What has to happen is businesses in the travel / tourism industry have to start building relationships built on trust, engage their customer base or potential customers and establish trust / credibility in the market.

The travel / tourism industry is very intimate, consumers talk to consumers and with 80 percent of the research by consumers occurring online, having paid content is as someone else put it – so 90s.

Report this comment

We create a lot of travel content as added value for our customers. It’s a great way to differentiate our site and ensure that people hiring a car have easy access to foreign driving information and tips about making rentals smooth. We wouldn’t dream of charging for this!

However, for businesses which create content I can understand that offering everything for free online must be difficult. I read recently about an innovative idea where people could buy online ‘credits’ that all major content providers sign up to and then use these to access information at affordable rates. I know free content is preferable to myself as a consumer but wonder how long companies can survive whilst offering everything for free?

Report this comment