Lonely Planet Bleeds Red

I can't tell if the BBC has divided the Lonely Planet financial reports between their print and web publications, but at least one division continues to report modest losses, which are expected to continue into 2010. Travolution reports.

BBC Worldwide has stressed Lonely Planet’s web strategy is still a “hugely important” part of its long term future after figures revealed the guide giant has racked up losses of nearly £10 million in eighteen months.

The scale of Lonely Planet’s overall losses was disclosed in the BBC’s Anual Report 2008/9 released this week and comes after a number of redundancies earlier this year in its digital and content divisions.

The state-owned broadcaster’s commercial arm paid £89.9 million for a 75% stake in Lonely Planet in October 2007.

In the eighteen months since then, Lonely Planet has lost £9.6 million on sales of £43 million.

A BBC Worldwide spokesperson told Travolution that the website was “a hugely important part” of the five-year plan for Lonely Planet.

“We bought the brand because it had a significant market share of the travel content business without having exploited its online presence.”

Lonelyplanet.com was relaunched in Novermber 2008, and the numbers appear quite strong. Omniture stats referred to in the Annual Report say that the site is getting 5.5m visitors a month, an increase of nearly 20% year-on-year.

The brand’s investment in the mobile space will continue, with this driving its global aspirations – 270,000 people for example have downloaded its Mandarin phrasebook application for the iPhone.

The brand has also launched a magazine during the year, with content from the print title ending up on the website as well. The site also features travel content from the BBC archives, with “more and more BBC travel content becoming available.”

The traditional guide book side of the band has also “suffered considerably” as part of an overall decline in that sector.

Reports elsewhere suggest that the travel guide book market fell 18.1% in the UK, US and Australia during the year. Lonely Planet however claims that it still the market leader in the UK and Australia and has picked up market share in America.