Lonely Planet Purchases Pisces Books From Gulf Publishing

Posted on August 4, 1997

Lonely Planet, a guidebook publisher of books and information for adventurous independent travelers, has announced the acquisition of Pisces Books, the country's leading diving and snorkeling series, from Gulf Publishing.

Pisces Books consist of 55 titles, featuring diving and snorkeling guides to locations all over the world -- destinations as diverse as Cuba, the Great Lakes, Cozumel and Scotland. In addition, Pisces publishes how-to guides for snorkeling and underwater photography, underwater nature guides and guides on shipwreck diving.

Publishing of new Pisces titles will take place at Lonely Planet's Oakland office and distribution of existing stock will begin August 1. The acquisition of the Pisces series is in response to a growing demand by travelers for adventure-based vacations.

"Pisces Books will lead to more activity-based travel books from Lonely Planet," said U.S. Manager Eric Kettunen, "Adventure travel is the largest growing segment of the travel market and the dive market alone is a 1.7 billion dollar industry."

The Pisces series integrates strategically with Lonely Planet's list of nearly 300 guidebooks, phrasebooks, walking guides, videos, atlases and travel literature. The backbone of the operation is Lonely Planet's reputation for providing the best travel information for (over) independent, adventurous travelers, a reputation recently highlighted by the New York Times Magazine when they called Lonely Planet guides, "the gospel of adventure travel."

Pisces Books enjoy a similar reputation among divers and snorkelers. They're the best-selling of this category and are carried by dive shops all over the world. The full-color format combines quality photographs with detailed descriptions of the best dive sites for each location so divers have a glimpse of what they can expect both on land and in water.

Lonely Planet was founded in 1973 by Tony and Maureen Wheeler, and is headquartered in Melbourne, Australia with satellite offices in Paris, London and Oakland. Currently, Lonely Planet's Oakland office handles sales, marketing and distribution for the Americas as well as production of Lonely Planet's USA, Caribbean and Latin American guidebooks. The acquisition of Pisces guides came about largely because Wheeler is an avid diver.

"Tony Wheeler has driven publishing projects based on his interests. In the early days at Lonely Planet, destinations were selected largely because they were places the Wheelers wanted to visit. Publishing decisions are a bit more complex these days, but ultimately this acquisition came about because Tony dives, he was familiar with the Pisces books and he felt that they fit into LP publishing plans," said Kettunen.