Staycations and Armchair Travel: Trends in Bookstore Travel Sections

Thanks to the rising cost of gas (and everything else) plus the unfavorable foreign exchange rate, Americans are cutting back on travel plans -- and buying fewer travel books.

Instead of weeks-long jaunts abroad or cross-country road trips, they're creating domestic or local adventures ... or sticking to reading about the trips they'd like to take someday.

As Elizabeth Jordan, head buyer at BookPeople in Austin, Texas, noted, "Armchair travel seems to be really popular this summer."

She said it with a laugh, but there's truth to that statement. For example, at BookPeople and other stores whose staff talked with BTW, travel memoirs are seeing an uptick in sales this summer.

Jordan said, "Travel memoirs are selling well -- it seems people are interested in traveling, but can't afford it. Eat, Pray, Love is in our travel section, and it pads our sales a little bit. Bill Bryson's books always sell really well, too."

The Eat, Pray, Love phenomenon is in full effect at The Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle, too, according to Michelle Hickner, travel buyer. She added, "Our travel literature section is always really strong, especially during the summer. We're excited about a new title, The Last Days of Old Beijing: Life in the Vanishing Backstreets of a City Transformed, too."

Speaking of China, an increased interest in the country, no doubt due to the upcoming Olympics, has made for some bookseller-excitement at BookPeople.

Jordan said, "We're expecting to see good sales for Lost on Planet China" (subtitled The Strange and True Story of One Man's Attempt to Understand the World's Most Mystifying Nation, or How He Became Comfortable Eating Live Squid). And she noted that the store is planning to build a display of books about China "once the Olympics get going."

Customers of Tampa, Florida's Inkwood Books have been asking for information about China, too, said co-owner Carla Jimenez. "Some of them are planning to go for the Olympics -- and want to read about Chinese history and culture more than they want travel guides, which I've been surprised at."

Jimenez added that sales of travel books about typically popular summer destinations -- Italy, Spain, France, England -- "have taken a huge nosedive in the last year or two."

She and Inkwood co-owner Leslie Reiner largely attribute that, and overall changes in travel sales, to the rise of the Web as a travel-planning tool. Reiner noted that travel-book sales "have dropped off over the past year -- so many people seem to be using Internet information."

Reiner added that the store still stocks guides and phrasebooks, but "I find we sell a lot of what I think of as pre-travel books, what people look at but don't bring along, like Eyewitness Guides. They're heavier, and have beautiful pictures... we'll sell those, but I don't think people take them on trips as much as they use them to plan and to save as a keepsake of where they've been."

Jimenez concurred, adding, "In response [to the rise in Internet travel-research], we've tried to focus on particular lines of books that customers ask for by name, and have narrowed the scope in terms of the variety of different lines -- we try to focus on those that sell well."

She said that, while Inkwood's travel section used to include "more small press, smaller imprints, and less well-known but interesting-looking books, we had to back off and go with big names like Lonely Planet, Fodor's, and Rick Steves."

Local-centric titles and restaurant guides are having a renaissance at Books on the Square in Providence, Rhode Island. Manager Jennifer Doucette said she's "definitely noticed more sales of local titles vs. books about travel abroad."

She added that she's seeing more of customers who typically go away for the summer. "Usually the summer is dead around here, but this year it's been staying steady for us. People who are usually out of town for a month are coming in."

Books like Secret Providence & Newport: The Unique Guidebook to Providence & Newport's Hidden Sights, Sounds & Tastes are selling well, as well as hiking and biking guides for the state. "We sell hardly any of the list-y guides anymore -- we sell more books about the area," she said.

Jimenez too said she's seen "more people coming in asking for Zagat Guides for domestic locations, recently."

Titles that fit in the travel section but aren't quite guidebooks are selling well at Elliott Bay, said Hickner. "Our travel bestsellers aren't guides, but titles like Lonely Planet Signspotting: Absurd and Amusing Sings From Around the World and a little guide called Point It: Traveller's Language Kit have been doing really well."

But while customers may be relying more on websites for hotel listings and short sum-ups of a travel destination, Jimenez said books are the medium of choice for people who want a fuller understanding of the places they plan to (or would like to) visit.

She said, "For a short course in the history of an area, or for knowing about the culture, I think people still turn to books." -- Linda M. Castellitto