A hip but basic series of travel guides is building on its print success with a number of digital initiatives. Not for Tourists, a New York City publishing company with 12 titles, has been rolling out iPhone apps since June. So far there are three, for Manhattan, London (which came out in August), and San Francisco (out last month). The apps have consistently held spots in the list of top 50 paid travel apps on iTunes. The company just submitted an update to the Manhattan guide (which also includes more than 4,000 Brooklyn listings) and is hoping that will help land the app back in the top 25. The apps are the latest addition to the nine-year-old company’s growing list of products geared toward savvy, young urbanites.
Jane Pirone and Rob Tallia, who founded a multimedia company in 1998 that did work for Nickelodeon and other clients, created the first Not for Tourists guide (to Manhattan) in May 2000. It has since been revised 11 times and sold almost one million copies. There are now print guides to Atlanta; Boston; Brooklyn; Chicago; Los Angeles; London; Philadelphia; Queens; San Francisco; Washington, D.C.; and Seattle. A book on Paris is in the works. Pricing ranges from $12.99 to $19.99. The look is minimalist, with plain black covers and neighborhood listings and maps for coffee shops, farmer’s markets, hardware stores, banks, and supermarkets—in addition to guidebook staples like landmarks, restaurants, and nightlife options. Langenscheidt distributes the books in the U.S. and GeoCenter Ltd. in the U.K., and the books are mainly sold only in cities the series covers (as well as online).
The mobile apps consist of all the listings from the guidebooks and cost $4.99 each. The company plans to launch apps for Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., later this month, and Boston, Miami, Paris, and Seattle in December. So far the most popular app has been Manhattan, with London second.
In addition to apps, NFT’s Web site, www.notfortourists.com, sells printable .pdfs of every page of every book, in $1.50 chunks (e.g., downtown Manhattan, West London). A spokesperson said the company sold the 2009 sections “as an experiment, and we sold enough to make the 2010s worth it.” NFT also sells maps, and customized guides and maps; the site includes daily “On Our Radar” articles.
