Maureen Wheeler: Digital investments and 9/11 halted Lonely Planet's profitability
Maureen Wheeler · Lonely Planet: Maureen & Tony Wheeler (2017) · Jul 9, 2018 · at 24:51
Maureen Wheeler, co-founder of Lonely Planet, reflects on the existential financial crisis the publisher faced in 2000–2001.
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“We had television going, we had started investing heavily into the digital side of things, a lot of staff, a lot of, you know, we created a whole lot of desktop publishing before it was even a term. And it was eating away all of the money. The books were still selling like crazy, but we were just doing so much, and we were in the middle of that when nine 11 happened, and of course, people stopped traveling, and travel guides then just stopped.”
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