Lonely Planet Bluelists the Year's Hot Spots

by Bridget Kinsella , PW Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 12/13/2005

Want to know the most unusual place on Earth to stay this year? Where to find the most grueling events? Best places to drink? Today, from the people who create those little blue guide books, comes the announcement of The Lonely Planet Bluelist: 618 Things to Do and Places to Go, 06-07—a colorful, illustrated annual culled from the experiences of hundreds of Lonely Planet staff and authors and thousands of travelers all over the world.

"We've been collecting this kind of information for years, and we always put it into our individual guidebooks," said Don George, LP's global travel editor. "We thought why not put it into one big book?"

The first part of the book is comprised of Bluelists of top 10 recommendations in 40 categories—from the eccentric to the more basic, like places for the biggest adrenalin rushes to the best places for foodies. Part two presents 60 hot spots—places of particular interest to the vast Lonely Planet family based on feedback from its 500 employees and authors and thousands of Lonely Planet travel guide users. Consumers are invited to create their own Bluelist on the company Web site at http://www.lonelyplanet.com/bluelist for a chance to win a trip to Shanghai (the #1 city on the rise, according to the book) and become a Lonely Planet writer included in next year's annual. LP is hoping that the word bluelist—which it invented for the book—becomes part of the language as a verb that means "to recommend a travel experience." "Bluelist is really part of our mission to inspire people to travel," said Christina Tunnah, the company’s director of marketing.

Just back from sales conference in New York, Tunnah said she felt confident that LP would meet the book's global sales target of 80,000.