US Travel Guide Sales
(in millions)
Travel Guides: The Big Picture
Travel publishing expert Stephen Mesquita, author of Nielsen BookScan’s annual “Travel Publishing Year Book,” has what he calls “good-ish” news for the industry: after years of decline, the travel category is on the upswing for the first time since 2007, with an increase in print unit sales of 2.7% for 2015, compared to 2014. Zeroing in on guidebooks—world travel guides, U.S. guides, and U.S. activity guides—the gains are more modest: 1.3%. So while travel publishing is a long way from the heady days of 2007, there’s cause for the industry to feel some relief. “2015 wasn’t a great year,” Mesquita says in the report. “But after 2007 to 2014, it felt better.” (For the complete breakdown of sales by subgenre, see “What’s Up, What’s Down,” below.)
What’s Up, What’s Down?
There’s more to travel than guidebooks. Travel writing—what Mesquita calls “across the Gobi Desert on a camel” titles—posted the biggest gains of any subgenre in 2015, but that category is a volatile one: a couple of bestsellers can have a huge impact on the entire year. Much of this year’s jump can be attributed to Rinker Buck’s 2015 travelogue, Oregon Trail, and the conventional and movie tie-in editions of Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods. (See “The Literary Traveler” and “The Vintage Traveler” sidebars for forthcoming travel-writing books.) Here’s a look at print sales by travel subcategory in 2015 vs. 2014.
| Up | |
|---|---|
| 28% | Travel Writing (narrative nonfiction) |
| 13% | U.S. Activity Guides (outdoor activities including hiking, fishing, camping, golf, etc.) |
| 1% | World Travel Guides (international series) |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1% | Road/Street Maps and Atlases (motoring atlases and maps, including street atlases) |
| 2% | People and Places (armchair travel guides and lists) |
| 3% | U.S. Guides (those not part of international series) |
| 5% | World Atlases/Maps (includes children’s atlases, political maps, wall maps, and globes) |
Top 10 World Travel Guide Publishers of 2015
| 1 | LonelyPlanet |
| 2 | Avalon |
| 3 | DK |
| 4 | Fodor’s |
| 5 | Frommer’s |
| 6 | APA(InsightGuides) |
| 7 | NationalGeographic 8 RoughGuides |
| 9 | Michelin |
| 10 | Taschen |
Movers and Shakers: Hot Destinations
Out of the top 75 travel guide destinations for 2015, according to Mesquita’s report, 21 showed double-digit or greater gains in print unit sales year over year. It’s no surprise that Cuba, which did not make the 2014 list, showed the only triple-digit gain in 2015, ranking #31 in terms of sales. Here are the 10 destinations whose travel guides showed the greatest growth.
| Cuba | 170% |
| Iceland | 58% |
| Britain | 31% |
| Tokyo | 25% |
| Thailand | 24% |
| Norway | 23% |
| Budapest | 22% |
| Chile | 19% |
| Japan | 18% |
| Vietnam | 16% |
