The ’experiment’ to kill off professional travel guide writing

WH Smith and Penguin have signed an exclusive deal that will see only Penguin’s foreign travel guides on sale in Smith’s travel outlets. The deal follows an agreement earlier this year that saw WH Smith take over all bookselling in BAA’s seven UK airports.

The effect of both is that UK travellers will have no choice but to buy Penguin travel guides unless they do it before they get to the airport. Most people would call this a monopoly but not the Office of Fair Trading who have apparently told both the NUJ and the Society of Authors that they will not be taking action.

Following protests, Smiths have started calling this deal an ’experiment’ but have not abandoned it.

Both the NUJ Paris and the Society of Authors France are active on this issue. Protests and petitions are being considered and the branch is proposing the following motion at the 2009 ADM of the NUJ:

This ADM notes with dismay the Office of Fair Trading’s rejection of complaints by the NUJ and writers’ bodies about WH Smith Travel’s monopoly deal with Penguin over the supply of foreign travel guides in its airport, railway and service station outlets. In the interests of safeguarding competitivity and the future earning potential of NUJ members across the full spectrum of publishers, it instructs the NEC to work together with the British Guild of Travel Writers, the Outdoor Writers and Photographers Guild and the Society of Authors to strengthen their campaigns on this issue; to call for a media campaign against it; and if necessary to take it to to the European Commission Directorate-General for Competition and the European Parliament.

The Annual General Meeting of the Society of Authors, France, passed the following motion at its recent AGM:

’SOAF is pleased that the National Union of Journalists is playing an active part in the protest against the deal between WH Smith’s and Penguin on travel books, and appreciates the support of members of the NUJ and SOAF. The meeting regrets that it is the opinion of the head office of the Society of Authors that ’nothing more can be done in the light of legal advice,’ which appears to derive from the Competition Act of 1998. The meeting believes that the nature of genuine competition and the problem of monopoly and the distribution of books should be further investigated. We also believe that strong action and protest should be organized against this deal.’

Your comments, suggestions etc welcome.

Links for further information.

 British Guild of Travel Writers

 The Bookseller July

 The Bookseller June

 The Guardian