Publishers close the books on 2021 travel guides

The travel industry’s depressed state is on display at local bookstores. Go to the travel section for plenty of travel guidebooks to the far reaches of the world. But you won’t find 2021 guides. And you won’t find them on Amazon, either.

New travel books have been scrapped or postponed because too few people are traveling for guidebook publishers to make a profit. With a few exceptions, the guidebooks on the shelves have a copyright date of 2019 or earlier.

“Sadly, our publishing schedule has been impacted by the pandemic,” said Kristen Fisher, a spokeswoman for DK Eyewitness, a travel book publisher.

Yet publishers are optimistic that travelers will return in large numbers in the spring and are planning to release new books starting in April.

One of the largest publishers, Fodor’s Travel, says it still has more than 40 guidebooks on its schedule next year after delaying some books in 2020.

But Doug Stallings, editorial director at Fodor’s Travel, said the new New York City guidebook and guides to destinations in Europe won’t be out until 2022. Before the pandemic, those books were mostly updated yearly, with details about boutique hotels, new restaurants and trendy stores.

One of the challenges for guidebook companies is that thousands of restaurants, hotels and shops have closed — some temporarily, some permanently.

With months between the research and publication of guides, Stallings said, publishing an updated book now would be difficult as tourism-related businesses remain in flux.

“It’s going to be years before the travel and tourism sector is where it was in March 2020,” he said.

Stallings said the New York City guide is scheduled for August or September 2022, when — hopefully — tourism will be closer to normal.

Broadway will be crucial to Gotham’s recovery. A staple of a New York visit is seeing a show, but theaters have been dark since March. Shows could restart later in 2021.

“Our feeling is that we didn’t think it was worth doing New York until we were certain that Broadway was open,” he said.

Fodor’s did come out with two guidebooks, featuring Ireland and Madrid, late this year. The books were already in the works when COVID-19 hit. Stallings said sales of the Ireland book have been strong, though it’s not clear how they compare to bestsellers before the pandemic.

Most of Europe, including Spain and Ireland, is closed to

U.S. travelers. Stallings said the Ireland book sales are a sign of pent-up travel demand.

“Even if people aren’t traveling there, they’re kind of getting excited about traveling there,” he said.

I can relate. Travel guidebooks for me have always been a window into another world. A new place to explore, sights to be seen, new cuisine. They get me excited about a new trip.

I’ve been obsessed with travel guidebooks since junior high school. I used a Frommer’s California guide to write a essay about my pretend trip to Disneyland in the seventh grade. My English teacher asked me which rides I went on, and I had to admit I had never traveled outside the Northeast. My parents couldn’t afford to take us to California.

It was another 10 years before I could travel on my own, but

guidebooks helped me envision a happier world, one away from the crime-ridden Linden Houses public housing project in Brooklyn.

s an adult, I make a pilgrimage to my local bookstore every fall to buy updated travel guides. Until COVID-19.

I’m eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Fodor’s 2021 guidebooks — which will reflect travelers’ desires to avoid big cities.

In coming months, Fodor’s is rolling out books on U.S. national parks, the Black Hills of South Dakota, and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the surrounding area.

“What we are seeing is that there’s less interest in traveling to big cities and more in traveling to places in the countryside,” Stallings said. “And all of the surveys that we’ve done have indicated that people feel more comfortable driving than flying

right now.”

When will travel recover? The guidebook guru said the industry will rebound gradually over the next few years, with business travelers the last group to come back.

“With vaccinations being rolled out very slowly, I don’t think that the first half of 2020 is going to be anything like a normal travel year for people, especially for international travel,” Stallings said.

He said domestic travel trips should began increasing during the first part of 2021 but people won’t begin to travel internationally until the second half of the year.

I’ll know travel is making a comeback when I see those new Fodor’s city guidebooks. New York, here I come. I can’t wait!

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Getty Images The travel industry is expected to rebound gradually, taking a few years to fully recover.