Bali Hai is calling...and American travelers are answering. Despite predictions of gloom and doom about the economy, Americans are not, reports the American Society of Travel Agents, cutting back when it comes to travel. A whopping 89.2% of agents said that their clients' rate of travel has either increased or stayed the same. "Vacations are no longer seen as a luxury, but as a necessity," says ASTA president and CEO, Richard Copland. "Americans will find other ways to trim their budgets, but the vacation stays in."
This spring, Americans packed their bags for Orlando, Las Vegas and New York City (the top three US destinations), also jetting off to London, Paris and Rome. And while Europe was still the destination of choice for most international vacationers, ASTA reports that many Americans are now opting for cities closer to home. So far this year, Nassau and Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic have bumped Munich and Athens from their spots in the list of top 10 non-domestic destinations. One thing today's travelers do insist upon, whether in Paris, Texas, or Paris, France, is a good hotel and a great meal. According to Copland, "Vacation time is more precious to Americans than ever, and people are willing to spend a few extra dollars to ensure every detail of their trip is unforgettable."
But with travelers splurging on rooms with a view of Fujiyama and plates of risotto coi funghi secchi, are any of those coveted "extra dollars" finding their way into booksellers' cash registers? John Bloebaum, manager of Powell's Travel Store in Portland, Ore., admits that he's "baffled by the increase in sales. In the past, when the economy was down so was business, but we've seen sales increase across the board." Seattle's Wide World Books and Maps owner Simone Andrus attributes the increase to the fact that "travel has become an important aspect of people's lives and publishers are doing their best to meet the needs that has created."
"We believe the general health of the travel publishing industry is good," says Sandye Wexler, co-owner of Chicago's The Savvy Traveller. "The current downturn in the economy is probably affecting it—it's certainly affecting us—but it will surely bounce back. In general, more people than ever are traveling, and while some travel books will flourish and others will die, we believe consumers will always seek unbiased information." At Book Passage in Corte Madera, Calif., travel buyer Eve Bazylewicz reports that sales are "strong and steady." Initially worried about competition from on-line travel information sites, she now sees the Internet as "just another resource for travelers. People are still coming in to get books. Travelers who are readers want a book in their hands."
Online booksellers are unanimous in their positive outlook. "Our sales are terrific, up 50% over last year," says Darrel Schoeling, cofounder of Longitudebooks.com. "People are keen to travel overseas and they seem to have a real appetite for books." While noting that competition in the genre continues to be strong, Amazon.com's lifestyle editor Richard Olsen reports that "travel publishing shows no signs of slowing down. New series continue to be launched and existing ones are being refined." AdventurousTraveler.com began as a freestanding store in Burlington, Vt., then went totally online in 1999. And while marketing v-p T.J. Whalen believes the travel book business is "solid," he does see it changing. "The big online players have affected the market significantly in that they've forced booksellers to offer comparable discounts. The key for survival for the independents against the behemoths will be carving out a niche. You must offer something with a greater level of depth and expertise than can be replicated by the giants."
Harriet Greenberg, president of New York City's Complete Traveler, has perspective not just as a bookseller, but as a publisher and author (with husband Arnold) of the Alive Guides. "It's healthy because there are so many books, but," she cautions, "the reality is that most of the interesting small presses have been bought out by big companies or have gone out of business."
Quo Vadis?
This summer, it's a pretty sure bet that no spot on planet Earth is so remote that it won't be visited by an enthusiastic group of Americans—all with at least one guidebook in hand. In addition to the standard stops in Italy and France, thousands of Americans are setting off to places most of their neighbors would be hard-pressed to locate on a map.
"People are traveling everywhere," says Andrus at Wide World of Books and Maps, noting that they are also choosing destinations that hold meaning for them—the village where their great-grandparents lived, or places with a special spiritual connection. She also sees her customers becoming increasingly interested in volunteer vacations, such as Earth Watch: "They want to be more involved than just riding around in a bus." Schoeling reports that Antarctica continues to be the top-selling destination at Longitudebooks.com—joined recently by the warmer climes of Cuba. He also sees travelers tackling more ambitious itineraries and booking more activity-oriented tours.
A growing interest in second- and third-world countries has been observed by Wexler at The Savvy Traveller, who's also seeing an increasing number of travelers planning their vacations around activities like hiking and biking. In La Jolla, Calif., customers at Warwick's are also doing more adventure traveling—climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro and biking in France—notes buyer Adrian Newell. Travel buyer Joan Walker says that Denver's Tattered Cover is making a special effort to accommodate adventurous travelers with a section entitled "Most Dangerous Places to Go."
At The Book Stall in Winnetka, Ill. (on Chicago's North Shore), travel buyer Jean Huyler reports that customers are expanding their destinations beyond the usual hot spots to Thailand, Prague, Budapest and Cuba; Amazon.com has seen a recent rise in sales of guidebooks to Turkey and Poland. The bulk of customers at Book Passage, reports Bazylewicz, still are traveling to France and Italy, but she sees destinations like Burma, Mongolia and Cuba coming into their own—"people want to go before the floodgates open." She also says that travel for her customers is "more about the experience of staying longer, maybe renting a villa and taking cooking classes rather than doing something adventurous like dogsledding." The Complete Traveler's Greenberg believes that her customers are narrowing the focus of their trips: "They're not going just to Italy, but to a specific region of Italy. And if they are going to offbeat destinations, they still want an upscale hotel."
AdventurousTraveler.com's Whalen notes an increase in travel to domestic destinations like the Rocky Mountains and a continuing interest in Central America—in part, he believes, because countries such as Costa Rica are actively marketing themselves. And if AdventurousTraveler.com can't find the guidebooks they need for certain underexamined destinations (the Appalachian Trail, for example) they take matters into their own hands, either looking for an unpublished or self-published guide or commissioning a knowledgeable staff member to pen the volume.
In sports-minded Portland, Ore., activity guides to Montana and Wyoming—particularly the Grand Tetons—are among the strongest sellers, says Bloebaum at Powell's. He has also seen a shift away from France to Italy, with more and more customers on the lookout for unspoiled places away from the crowds... at least a smaller crowd than one would find in France. Bloebaum jokes that he "doesn't see how you could go to Italy and not run into someone you know."
Who's on First? Who's on Madagascar?
According to The Savvy Traveller's Wexler, it's not just the list of destinations that's on the increase. "Travel demographics are broadening. No longer is it just for the rich or the persistent. People are considering travel to be a rite of passage—after school ends and before jobs begin. After work ends and when retirement begins. We're also seeing more families traveling with their kids to exotic destinations, and more family-bonding trips with mother/daughter, father/son, grandmother/granddaughter combinations."
At AdventurousTraveler.com, customers fall into two distinct groups, says Whalen: affluent professionals who travel widely and are looking for new places away from the crowd; and younger (18—34), active travelers who want a unique place to participate in activities like kayaking or climbing. The clientele at Travel Books and Language Center runs the gamut from 30 to 98, notes Jaffe, adding that she's both surprised and pleased at how many of the older customers are including cycling or hiking in their plans—"they've seen it all and now they're looking for new challenges."
And women, perhaps inspired by the reissue of classic books by adventuresses like Freya Starke, are now slinging backpacks over their shoulders and setting off, both alone and with friends, to places both known and unknown. Andrus reports that Wide World of Books and Maps now stocks a range of titles targeted to women travelers. And at Powell's, Bloebaum has nothing but admiration for the intrepid female travelers who shop at his store—"in spite of all the horror stories about the dangers of traveling in certain countries, these women take it all in stride and can't wait to come back and tell us all about their great trips."
Life Beyond Guidebooks
Among the best news for retailers is that customers are no longer shopping just for guidebooks. Today's travelers want to immerse themselves in the history, literature and culture of their destinations. "People aren't passive travelers anymore," says Tattered Cover's Walker, "they really want to inform themselves before they go." This means additional sales for general booksellers, as trip-takers shop for lavish books on impressionist art, novels set in Argentina and memoirs of New Zealand sheepherders. And travel bookstores are integrating history, classic travel-writing, fiction, even birding guides and mysteries into their stock.
"Our customers are intellectually curious travelers," says Longitudebooks.com's Schoeling, "and they recognize that reading will help them truly appreciate their destinations." In addition to selling books, Longitudebooks.com also provides customers with online lists of supplemental recommended reading about those destinations, be it New Guinea or New York. It also partners with travel organizations like Smithsonian Study Tours and Lindblad Expeditions to provide custom reading lists for their clients. "Our parents were 'tourists,' " Schoeling adds, "happy to go to London and just shop. Today, we're seeing 'travelers,' who want books that will give them a real sense of place. The result is that we're selling just as many books on nature, architecture and art as we are guidebooks."
"Armchair travel is huge in our store," says The Book Stall's Huyler. "Customers traveling to Asia and China are always on the lookout for books to read on the long flight across the Pacific. We also do very well with books on disaster travel." Hold on—disaster travel? It all started, says store owner Roberta Rubin, with Into Thin Air and In the Heart of the Sea. "Perhaps it's the lure of the unthinkable, the 'better them than me,' " says Rubin, who reports that these true tales of disaster and survival appeal not only to adventure travel customers, but to armchair voyagers and customers looking for books to tempt teenagers who are not necessarily readers. The affluent customer base at Warwick's, reports Newell, is "always looking for fiction, memoirs or history to read. Armchair travel is the backbone of our backlist." This spring, Amazon.com will be sending customers to its Travel Packs section, where they will find not just guidebooks, but travel literature, maps and videos of their favorite destinations. In Olsen's words, "It's everything but the passport."
At L.A.'s Traveler's Bookcase, owner Priscilla Ulene reports that she is now finding so many complementary titles available for places like Italy and Africa that she is "culling them down to three or four really strong fiction titles with the addition of some history and mysteries. We want to include only the best of the best." That said, she notes the difficulty in finding supplementary reading for travelers to smaller, less-visited countries.
But not every travel-book buyer actually packs their bags and buckles up in an aisle seat. At Powell's, says Bloebaum, "we have a number of steady customers that have been just about everywhere vicariously." Travel Books and Language Center's Jaffe began as a "vicarious traveler" herself, so customers who travel only in their armchairs hold a special place in her affections—and on her store's shelves. "Some of the travel books published in the last few years," she asserts, "are works of art."
Reaching Those Trip-Takers
When it comes to getting potential customers into their stores, booksellers seem to be relying on tried-and-true techniques such as special events and newsletters. In addition, a number of those retailers PW spoke with are finding continuing success with the classic window display. Warwick's recently did a window of Fodor's Guides, designed around a kit provided by the publisher and paid for with co-op dollars. The kit included a picnic basket and replicas of a vintage "Woody" and a Route 66 sign. "I thought it was very clever," says Newell. "We weren't even planning to do a travel window until we saw the kit, and it did increase sales." The Complete Traveler changes the displays in their windows every two weeks—and with good reason. Says Greenberg, "Anything we put in our windows sells."
Wide World of Books and Maps holds Tuesday-night events that feature authors (e.g., Paul Theroux) as well as slide shows on everything from Italian art to trekking in Nepal. The store also e-mails its monthly newsletter to a subscriber list of more than 3,500. AdventurousTraveler.com maintains contact with its customers through their biweekly e-mail newsletter, which, says Whalen, reflects their focus on "fostering a great relationship with continuing customers rather than acquiring new ones."
In Chapel Hill, N.C., World Traveller Book & Maps presents a travel lecture series twice a year and has recently begun hosting monthly photography exhibits. Manager Kathyrn Henderson also reports that the store is working with local groups on educational programming and has been doing joint marketing with local travel agencies and related businesses. Book Passage publishes a 30-page newsletter six times a year and owner Elaine Petrocelli is a regular guest on a local radio show. Each August, Book Passage hosts a Travel Writers Conference that attracts some 500 writers from as far away as Australia for a series of seminars and workshops.
Travel Books and Language Center, says Jaffe, has as one of its missions "bringing the community into the bookstore." The store hosts three travel-book clubs that meet monthly, a series for "global nomads" moving back to the U.S., and "Free Weekend Conversation Groups," a particular favorite of Jaffe's. The groups gather in the store's meeting room to converse in French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian or German. And once a month, a "country" goes on sale—"you can't sit back and rest on past laurels, you have to keep things alive," says Jaffe.
Getting By with a Little Help from the Publishers
Although publishers are providing a flood of titles to booksellers, many retailers feel that marketing support from publishers is not nearly as bountiful or as useful as it could be.
While The Savvy Traveller did have a recent success with "a fabulous Eyewitness dump in the form of the Eiffel Tower that helped us sell a ton of their books," Wexler finds that most point-of-purchase materials sent by publishers "don't work for us for one reason or another. Many are designed to sit on a counter and our counter space is very limited. And some of the materials we get are of such poor quality that we wouldn't even consider using them." Warwick's Newell agrees. "I don't find publishers that helpful. They seem to spend their money to promote big fiction, not travel. You occasionally get a special offer, but it's minimal compared to other categories."
The list of what publishers could do to help is as varied as the retailers themselves. Tattered Cover's Walker urges publishers to send more travel authors—not just the superstars—on the road for signings and special events, an integral part of most booksellers' marketing programs. Andrus at Wide World of Books and Maps would like to see clearer policies on how to use co-op money for radio and e-mail newsletters. The Complete Traveler's Greenberg has one very basic suggestion: "They need to think about when books are published—books on the best hotels in the Caribbean should come out in the early fall, not the spring." Traveler's Bookcase's Ulene feels that publishers "need to become more current with their information, especially in the Internet age. Guidebooks should be updated every year."
It's the quality of the books themselves, not posters or giveaways, that matters to Book Passage's Bazylewicz. "Publishers need to be constantly updating their books and creating cover designs that make customers want to pick up the book and take a look inside."
And what about the sheer, er, volume of books? With retailers awash in a tidal wave of travel books, can there be any subjects that publishers have overlooked? Newell views the market as "pretty well represented overall," but she would like to see more coffee-table books, which her customers often purchase as gifts. The Bookstall's Huyler sees a need for more books geared toward upscale travelers—guides to spas and high-end family resorts. Bazylewicz is on the lookout for books that deal with home exchange—"there are books that list organizations or Web sites, but nothing with fabulous color photographs." And Traveler's Bookcase's Ulene wants books on honeymoon destinations—"with pictures! Couples who come into the store looking for a place to honeymoon want to see places, not just read about them."
"Adventure travelers seem to be left dangling," says Bloebaum at Powell's. "Publishers need to provide more guides for them, especially to certain parts of the world like the former Russian states." Wexler wants more titles on "states within the United States. We'd also love to have more books on traveling around the world—how-to—and books comparing destinations around the world—where-to."
E-Travel: It's a Small World, After All
While a number of publishers are aggressively marketing and selling their travel titles on the Internet ("Mapping the Internet," Jan. 29), some booksellers take a hands-on approach, finding that in selling travel books, the personal touch is often more successful than a hi-tech relationship.
Although Powell's Bookstore's www.powells.com is one of the most successful of the bricks-and-mortar online booksellers, Bloebaum reports that even with all their travel titles available on the site, sales have been "good, but not overwhelming." He reasons that travel-book buyers are sophisticated consumers and know the benefits of talking with an expert—"We want to put the right book into the right hands and that's difficult to do without interaction with the customer." Newell at Warwick's couldn't agree more. Plans are in the works to use their site (www.warwicks.com) for promotion, "but it's a small element of what we do. Hand-selling is still best."
Some booksellers are using the abundance of travel information available on the Web to help their customers in-store. World Traveller Books & Maps has bookmarked several travel sites, says Henderson, which the staff use for customer research. "We find it very helpful to provide our customers with good information, even if it means that someone leaves without making a purchase. We want to become a great resource, and believe that the sales will follow. Many publishers have excellent sites, which we like using when needed." Tattered Cover's Walker uses the Internet to seek out books from small presses that might not have a rep calling on the store and also uses it to help customers with unusual destinations—"like the Isle of Man"—find the books they need.
And then there's the problem of customers using stores as research tools only to later log on and buy online. "We've received a lot of calls and have had e-mail dialogues with people who have questions," reports L.A.'s Traveler's Bookcase Ulene of her site, www.travelbooks.com. "We've been quite generous with the amount of information we've been e-mailing, only to find that the e-mailers have purchased books elsewhere. We're looking into getting involved with booksense.com and might try that avenue to see what happens." The Savvy Traveller has just launched its new Web site (thesavvytraveller.com) and plans to greatly expand its offerings. That said, Wexler is "very unhappy with publishers who offer discounts to consumers via the Web. We do not hand-sell the products of any vendor who offers discounts to consumers. We would prefer that all publishers refer consumers to retail stores, but draw the line at supporting those that sell direct at discounted prices."
Ulene has decided on a more laid-back approach to any possible Net threat. "There are only 24 hours in the day and I can easily spend that much time just keeping up with my own bookstore. I don't want to open myself up to the aggravation if publishers are doing things that might undermine independent booksellers. And I'm all for publishers promoting independents and using their sites to give out the names and numbers of stores that carry their books."
So Many Books, So Few Countries
With so many Americans traveling to so many places, can there be too many books? For Amazon.com, which offers over 30,000 travel titles, the answer would seem to be an unqualified "no". But for most retailers, the "less is more" philosophy seems to be a winner.
"Some places are so overpublished," says The Complete Traveler's Greenberg. "We have 96 titles on Paris, and I think Lonely Planet has covered every island in the world!" The Savvy Traveller's Wexler is adamant: "Many of the books are indistinguishable from others. We're often hard-pressed to tell customers the difference between a 'compact' this or a 'pocket' that or a 'condensed' the-other-thing." For Wide World Books and Maps' Andrus, destinations "are being sliced up and I'm not sure that meets travelers needs. The slices don't seem to provide any added value." All this abundance has led Warwick's Newell to the belief that "it's sometimes better for the consumer if we try to curate the section for our customers."
But others disagree. "How can there be too many books?" asks Longitudebooks.com's Schoeling, who admits to having some 150 titles on Antarctica in their data base ("I couldn't help myself"). Tattered Cover's Walker sees the tide of travel titles as a good thing. "We look at what destinations are hot and then try to get in as many books as possible on the subject." Book Passage's Bazylewicz strikes a middle ground: "There is so much to choose from that customers can be a bit overwhelmed. But there can't be too many really good books on a subject. As a shopper, I would like to have the choice to make."
One thing is certain: Whether you're traveling to Tierra del Fuego or Terre Haute, there's a bookseller out there who will be happy to take the time to ensure that you have the perfect book.
