CALGARY- The man who founded a popular line of travel guides that was sold off to Google is getting his namesake brand back.
Last August, the internet giant purchased the Frommer’s brand of travel guides, from publisher John Wiley & Sons Inc. for $22 million.
Frommer’s was founded back in 1957 by Arthur Frommer, who wrote the book ‘Europe on $5 a Day’, based on material he gathered while stationed with the U.S. Army. His company went on to publish hundreds of guidebooks for countries all around the world, and also launched the website Frommers.com.
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But on Thursday, it was announced that Google has sold the company back to its founder. Google has not given a reason for the reversal, but had been working to integrate content from Frommer’s into its travel search engines.
Frommer says he plans to begin once again publishing guide books.
The decision comes less than a month after BBC Worldwide decided to sell its travel guide business, Lonely Planet. The brand has printed millions of travel books, but their performance has been hampered by a hit to the publishing industry, and the economic crisis which affected tourism.
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