Discussion keeps the world turning.
This is Round Table. You're listening to Round Table.
With myself, how young I'm joined by Dingheng in the studio and Josh Cotterall on the line coming up.
Remember when packing for a trip meant squeezing a chunky lonely planet guide into your already bulging suitcase?
Those days might be over as the travel guide exits the Chinese market.
Those millennials wax nostalgic for their trusty travel companions.
We're left wandering. In an age of instant online reviews and AI travel planners, have we truly outgrown the charm of physical guidebooks?
And what do you think about universities presenting diamond rings to their graduating class?
Yep, you heard me right.
Like the lavish graduation gift.
Now let's move on to the next topic of discussion today.
The rise of the internet and social media has transformed the way travelers plan their trips.
The news has triggered nostalgic buys from many millennial travelers in China.
Who in the late 2000s and early 2010s relied on these blue spine books for both solid travel advice and in-depth background knowledge about their destinations?
Show of hands, guys, who still has an appetite for traditional travel guidebooks.
I mean the paperbacks. Josh is smiling and Dingheng isn't.
So, no, not even for you, Josh.
I mean, you like books. No.
I mean, I do like books more than most people.
Yeah, I like books, but if I see a travel book, I will pick it up, but I won't purchase one.
That's terrible. No, I mean, that's most of us.
It's too heavy to pack and to carry with you.
I think these days we've just grown used to the idea of taking notes on your smartphone, taking pictures on your smartphone, doing all this stuff that means you can free up so much space in your luggage to pack other things.
Now like it's more meaningful, it's just what we do.
Yeah, but I sort of still have the sweet spot for these pretty iconic blue spine books back in the day, especially when they started publishing Chinese content.
I remember it was kind of a big thing, especially maybe for a niche group of travelers who are very at the time of the late 2000s and early 2010s.
I thought were the forward thinking and well-traveled people who were eager to see the world or already had all these like worldly experiences and travels than a lot of other Chinese people.
So I mean, if there is one available guidebook right at my hand, I will still try to make use of it in my most recent trip as a tourist.
The hotel I stayed in placed a guidebook in my room.
So I took a look and actually I found something useful.
Then based on that brief and basic information, I did some further research on my phone.
So in that sense, I would say that guidebook was still basically useful, but you know, the thing is, even without that book, I could still have done the research on my phone.
That's the issue. But having said that, I feel like the problem with the information that you obtained from those social media platforms like Xiaohongshu is that everybody can have a saying.
So there is a lack of standards, individual perception does not tell the whole picture, and one people's understanding, one people's feedback does not necessarily tell the whole picture.
It can be drastically different from another person's feedback.
That's such a great point because we say that we just refer to the internet and these social media platforms for reviews, comments, and then you get a pretty good idea of whatever subject you're researching, but you don't know who's commenting.
You don't know who's writing these reviews.
Maybe this is at the risk of sounding like a snob, but for let's say a foodie who frequents Michelin star restaurants as opposed to somebody maybe who's never experienced that culinary journey, you would have very different visions and reflections towards maybe the same dish or whatnot.
So it would be useful if you know where these people are coming from when they're writing and sharing all these things online.
If we come back to Lonely Planet and its exit from the Chinese market, what do you think are the primary reasons and some of them might coincide with sort of the global trend for publication of travel books.
So basically I think sales of Lonely Planet's paperback titles had been dwindling for several years in a row as global travelers increasingly turned towards online sources for travel advice.
This is inevitable. And despite the fact that it has published more than 300 Chinese language guidebooks and selling millions of copies in this country, I guess this shift towards digital platform is really making things difficult for Lonely Planet to maintain its market share.
This is very unfortunate, but it's true.
And I feel like modern travelers especially the younger generation, they prefer the kind of the sense of immediacy and interactivity of those digital platforms or social media platforms over traditional guidebooks.
And yeah, and these platforms, they because they offer real time updates, user generated, internet content and visually engaging materials like really fancy photos, which are of course more appealing to not only generation of travelers, but arguably every generation of travelers.
Yeah, I think that you've raised some good points here.
I think that it's not just Lonely Planet, but especially, I mean, I think that I agree with all of your points.
So maybe I'll talk from a more personal perspective as somebody that did read a lot of Lonely Planet's and would purchase them, say, maybe when I first started traveling about 12 years ago or something like that, I'm trying to estimate it when I was like 18 and I would buy the book and I would read it from page to page basically because it's so good for certain things.
And I think the things that it's really good for the old historic places because they have experts writing for them.
Usually they check the history very carefully.
But the issue is, of course, as we go on is that it's not interactive and it's often not up to date.
And so as soon as the smartphone came out, as soon as I could afford one when they became you know, the mainstream, I just never bought one again simply because it was just so convenient to go online and get up to date information and also pretty detailed information on all of the historical places that I wanted to go to as well.
So as a coffee table book and sometimes when I go to a hotel, I actually read one the other day when I was near Siamen and I saw one in the hotel that I was in and I really enjoyed reading through it.
But it was out of date, which was quite cool because it was nice to see some of the old places.
But that's the only reason I would read it.
Sadly. Yes, and this company has really been through some ups and downs and rather unfortunately in the recent decades, it seems down and downs.
So lonely planet, this travel guide series was established in Australia over 50 years ago and in recent decades, it has endured three company sales.
First of the BBC in 2007 for 130 million pounds and that's close to 1.2 billion yuan.
And then to a US based company, NC2 media in 2013.
And then in 2020, it was sold to red ventures, another American company, but apparently the amount of purchase funds sort of just went down and down.
And it is a reflection of the travel guidebook business when lonely planet first entered the China market in 2006, initially with Chinese translations of English content.
It was met with enthusiasm, especially with the hardcore travel enthusiasts and it started publishing original content in China in Chinese by Chinese contributors in 2010.
And then fast forward to 2022, it folded its Chinese magazine, another indication of the declining market for traditional travel publications in China, but its digital presence has been on operation until now.
Yes, I can't help but feel a little nostalgic about this, but how do you feel that traditional guidebooks compare to internet platforms for travel planning these days?
Do they still even have some reason to exist?
Yeah, definitely. I mean, for one thing, the offer in-depth, well researched content about your destinations, including its history, culture and local insights.
And I was traveling as a tourist, one of the primary concern or interests on my part is really to know about the local history in the context of a wider history during a certain period.
That's something I'm personally very interested in.
So in that sense, I think these traditional guidebooks, they still have a lot of values and also unfortunately not every place boasts internet connectivity.
Oh, good point. That remains to be an issue.
Not an issue here in China, but across the world.
So one thing positive about these traditional guidebooks is that they can be accessed without an internet connection and reliability.
Probably there is a focus to content in that these books, they have really provided their readers with a kind of distraction free, dedicated resource for trip planning.
Other than in another scenario, like if you solely rely on digital platforms, you really need to sift through a town of information, information bombardment in order to determine what's the best choice for you.
Well, yeah, to go off what's just been said and my own experiences, I don't think that we can neglect the fact that most of these travel books are really well thought out and the expertise that goes into them.
When you look at some of the ones especially, I remember when I visited Israel a long time ago and there's a lot of really historic sites there, I had a travel book with me and the detail that the book went into about the history and the area.
Obviously, it's not going to go out of date really because it's been, some of those areas have been there for thousands of years, right?
And it really gave me a great outline and a great platform from which to sort of navigate these areas mentally anyway.
And I found that it was just thoughtfully put together in a way that when you go online, it just isn't and it's the same issue with online information in general, isn't it?
That there's just so much of it that often it's difficult to filter out all of the unnecessary stuff to put it in a nice way, right?
And sometimes it can even go so far that you'll get the wrong information or you'll get really biased information.
That's not to say that it cannot exist in these books, but I think that there was a level of quality in them.
There still is in the ones that exist that can't really be replicated any better online.
But then again, online, it is up to date and that's very, very useful.
And then there are also more honest reviews as well, arguably, when it comes to more of the public, for example, giving a review of the site, you might get a really great history of the site in the book.
But maybe they don't detail about the facilities within that historical site.
How are the toilets? Are there good restaurants there?
When are there too many people, etc.?
And it cannot do this for you.
So I think sadly, because I love books, I really do, but sadly, I think the pros outweigh the cons when it comes to the online shift here, much like the first topic we just discussed.
Yeah. And I just feel, because we're not paying for travel advice anymore, right?
In the olden days, yeah, you have to pay to get the book.
But now we kind of have grown used to the idea that if you're only just getting some advice, nobody pays for that.
You just go to the internet and get whatever you find as useful.
And I suppose as we grow increasingly digital savvy, then you kind of know, or you might have developed a certain level of digital literacy that you can tell.
Some reviews just look downright fake and paid possibly, whereas others, you know, they look more organic.
But the thing about travel guidebooks is that for all those good reasons that you guys have mentioned, they probably still have a reason to exist, but the inevitable road is that the books should migrate online too.
And it's not like these travel guide publishers have not done so, but maybe some have done a little bit better than others and with lonely planet.
It has this international office still running.
I see that they have a presence on some of the international major platforms, but to sort of freshen up your image and adapt to the online space as a traditional publisher of all this good content, that might be a challenge that cannot be overestimated.
We can see that in recent years, there have been one after another lesser known cities who've achieved internet fame.
And there's even a term for it in Chinese, Wang Hongcheng's here.
So could you tell us how this transition from traditional guidebooks to social media platforms have sort of reshaped this travel landscape here in China?
So here, I guess we're talking about a concept or a phenomenon called place attachment in that social media, especially short videos, they can really help establish a kind of emotional connection between potential tourists and a particular destination.
This can be achieved through visually appealing and emotionally resonant content that really fostering a sense of attachment even before you visit this particular place.
Examples of the Zibo BBQ and Harping Winter Wonderland are all good cases in that they gained traction by showcasing those appealing and culturally resonant pictures and images.
The result could be very positive in the case of the city of Zibo in Shandong Province, the result was a massive windfall economically speaking for the city.
So this is one issue and there is also the issue of those social media influencers, their impact.
They are really playing a key role in terms of promoting destinations by sharing their experiences with a larger audience base.
So there is more interaction, more creativity and more vitality in the tourism market, but in the meantime there is also a lack of standardization etc.
These are some of the problems that goes hand in hand.
Yeah, absolutely. I think this is a phenomenon that's worth discussing and it is quite possible that these guidebooks, given that there's so much effort put into them that they had to, of course, focus on specific areas where they had the resources, the variety of places to actually publish in the book and this may have led to an neglect of certain areas, which now it's more of an open plane field, right, with social media.
These areas that maybe didn't get as much exposure before now have an opportunity to get that exposure online and then bring in more tourists.
We've seen this a lot in China and discussions about Instagrammable areas and Xiaohong shuubu areas, if that's how we say it, I always say that wrong, but you know what I mean.
And it's the same in my own country as well.
It's actually the same for my hometown, Scarborough, in that for many years it was an old historic town, didn't really get the sort of exposure that I obviously believe it deserved.
But now that it's online, there are people that are starting to curate an image for it online and that's great, I guess, for these places, definitely a positive.
Yes, and we see that one of the things I remember, the millennial generation received as a major criticism as instant gratification.
And now I think that's kind of in a strange way, maybe showing its ugly head in the travel in business as well.
I mean, when you get all these images from online, you kind of have a certain expectation of that place.
And also the millennial generation, apparently, values maybe experiences more than possessions to a certain extent.
But anyway, there's definitely this shift to experience-based travel.
And these things kind of go very well, or you can even argue that the seeds of aspiration has been sowed by social media to start with.
And does it bug you at all that you see these travelers go visit a place and then they all go to the exact same spot and take exactly the same photo, almost in the same pose, just to recreate these Instagrammable or Sanjoshu-yueble moments because that's where we saw it on your phone.
And I just wonder, okay, it's great that now you know this is a dak hadi, this is a place you have to visit and take a picture and show off on social media and it brings in business for the locality, but where's the serendipity of travels?
And where's the individuality in this world when on the one hand, everybody's trying to be original.
But you're copying exactly the same photo when you finally get some free time to travel.
I just can't wrap my head around that.
Yeah, and I feel like only the smartest is able to create the really original hitch, but most of the other so-called masses are the followers.
This is a little pathetic, but that's the reality, you know, that's the way this world has been operating.
So yeah, so a relevant issue is that while social media they can drive a sharp sudden influx of tourists into any place, but in the meantime maintaining their longterm prosperity and a popularity can be a challenging task because cities going forwards, they really with an eye on longer term developments, they really need to focus on providing some comprehensive public services and enhancing local culture for the sake of long term tourism development.
And some experts seems to be and some experts seem to be emphasizing the importance of developing non-mainstream attractions, you know, this is going back to a point we made earlier and really focusing on this local culture, something that cannot be copied easily and it can really sustain a kind of longterm appeal to people.
One example could be in the city of Dali, Yunnan Province, the local travel department collaborated with social media platforms and influencers to promote their mind-rensia or slow people festival.
So everything is just really chill and you don't need to rush doing anything and really enjoy the natural scenery and that kind of dovetails with my impression of Dali and yeah, this is gaining momentum on social media and attracting people to Dali.
So yeah, that sounds to work quite well if it's done right.
In this constantly evolving tourism landscape, I understand we're marching on and there are many technological advancements happening and we roll with it but I would still like to highlight there are a couple of things that I learned I think are quite invaluable of the travel guidebook era.
One is sustainable travel, think about what you're leaving behind and think about the local people who are living in this place that you call a travel destination, their benefits and welfare and also be a traveler instead of a tourist.
Looking for passion? How about fiery debate?
Want to hear about current events in China from different perspectives?
Can tune in to Roundtable or East, East, West and understand it is the goal.
Is the hour of Roundtable with myself, how young I'm joined by Ding Heng in the studio and Josh Cotterill on the line.
As graduation season arrives, each member of the class of 2024 from the carbon-based materials and functional films laboratory at the Institute for Advanced Materials and Technology or IAMT.
The University of Science and Technology Beijing or USTB has been presented with a sparkling graduation gift, a diamond ring, except for its grown in a lab.
So who wouldn't be pleased to receive this as your graduation gift?
I guess so. I mean, I would like to receive this gift, I think, so that I could sell it afterwards.
But that's probably the only reason.
I don't really get diamonds to be honest with you.
I understand them. They are beautiful.
They're special in that they're super hard.
They're like the hardest material in the world.
They're great to put on the end of industrial tools to cut through things.
But they are not as rare as we think they are.
They've been manufactured to be rare.
They've been manufactured to be special.
It's a whole market employee and I don't get it.
Well, those kind of diamonds are not the kind of diamonds that we wear on our fingers.
That's for industrial use.
Well, do you think, you wouldn't say no.
You like this gift when you at graduation?
Exactly. And I think in this particular case, these diamonds were independently developed by a research team, led by a professor in that very university who has really dedicated three decades to this scientific endeavor of study, diamond and some related research.
It's very complicated research.
I don't want to talk about that in detail, but generally speaking, you know, in the words of this professor by giving his graduates a diamond ring, he envisions each person to be like a diamond, which is resilient, pressure, steady fast and brilliant.
And in this case, I guess for graduates from this lab in this university, these lab-grown diamonds, rather than naturally grown diamonds, they are holding greater sentiment and to valid because behind these diamonds are their own research, their own hard work, their own sentimental bonds with their mentors.
Now I just have a great advertisement.
I know. And Rhianna's a diamond that's long just keeps on ringing in my ears, you know.
So you should work for a diamond company.
Yeah, but the idea is out there now.
Anyhow, I'm forever grateful that Dingheng and Josh Cotterall, you share with us your original and amazing thoughts on this show.
And may you all shine bright like a diamond today and onwards.
You can find us on Apple Podcasts at Round Table China.
I'm Hanyang. See you next time.
