Fodor's Goes Digital for Fat Tuesday

by Rachel Deahl, PW Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 2/15/2006

In an effort to provide travelers with up-to-date information that could not make it into print, Fodor's has put together a downloadable 33-page travel guide to New Orleans just in time for the city's biggest event: Mardi Gras. The guide, which went live today—it's accessible on the travel publisher's homepage at www.fodors.com—is being offered as a free supplement and is, according to Fodor's publisher Tim Jarrell, part of the company's commitment to covering the city post-Katrina.

The guide, which is presented in color and graphically designed to mimic the look and feel of the publisher's print titles, includes all the standards (suggestions on where to eat, stay and party) along with detailed maps and neighborhood-by-neighborhood descriptions that break down and describe the damage left by Katrina.

Fodor's will do some modest promotion for the digital guide, including sending postcards advertising it will be sent to bookstores in the southeast. Although Jarrell admits it's anyone's guess as to how many tourists will turn out for Mardi Gras, which begins on February 28, he thinks some will be drawn to the city to see what is a heartbreaking, but no less undeniable, piece of history. "What you will see are neighborhoods that are devastated but we think that's part of the experience, because you can't understand what happened there until you see it."