Lonely Planet vs. Guidebook Writers

Travel Blog • Michael Yessis • 05.22.02 | 7:54 PM ET

Lonely Planet and some of its longtime guidebook authors haven’t been seeing eye-to-eye for a while. The writers say the guidebook giant has been cutting them out of the revision process of their own books, sometimes in breach of contract. Now, according to the San Francisco Chronicle’s David Lazarus, one case is going to arbitration. “The legal tussle is the latest in a series of bumps on Lonely Planet’s road,” Lazarus writes. “Following a 46 percent plunge in December sales—fallout from Sept. 11—the company said in March that it was sacking 81 people at its U.S. headquarters in Oakland and consolidating most production work in Melbourne, Australia.”