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Lonely Planet helps out Hughes & Hughes

19.03.08 Victoria Arnstein

Lonely Planet is working with Hughes & Hughes to help it manage the range in its travel sections—both in its two new Heathrow Terminal 5 stores and others. The move follows a similar pilot that it is currently running in conjunction with Waterstone's.

Using a range of information, including Nielsen BookData sales history, airline schedules, travel trends and Hughes & Hughes' own sales information, Lonely Planet will recommend seasonal ranges for the overseas travel guides, phrasebooks and travel literature sections in Hughes & Hughes outlets. LP has also worked with Hughes & Hughes on the "look and feel" of the Terminal 5 stores.

Richard Samson, Lonely Planet sales director EMEA, explained that the aim of the title selection management programme was to help grow sales within the whole travel category, rather than just within Lonely Planet’s own range. He added that other publishers should not feel threatened by its involvement.

"All of the recommendations we make are completely commercially justifiable—we are not just coming up with ranges to suit ourselves. Take Paris, for example, it doesn’t help the customer if they come to a shelf and they find 25 guides to Paris – that is just confusing. That is where the bookseller and us work together to find a sensible range."

He added that he hoped LP could work with more retailers on category management in the future. “This is not exclusive or aimed at giving one retailer an advantage over another—we would like to work with whichever retailers we can, and that includes independents as well."

Derek Hughes, Hughes & Hughes c.e.o., added: "We see travel as a core category within our ranging and we are delighted to be working with Lonely Planet as our category partner."

Retail Hughes & Hughes Lonely Planet Home travel Victoria Arnstein

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