An AI-generated guidebook of New Zealand. Photo / Deep Dream / Marjan Blan, Unsplash
An AI-generated guidebook of New Zealand. Photo / Deep Dream / Marjan Blan, Unsplash
Every good book has its heroes and villains. Even guidebooks, says writer Jessica Wynn Lockhart who has spent the last four years updating the travel handbook of Aotearoa
A guidebook can tell you more than where to get coffee in Wellington.
In the pages of Frommer’s, Lonely Planet,Baedekers you’ll find asides, opinions and such golden pieces of advice as what to do if your Cambodian taxi driver catches “a fit of the giggles”.
These are books written in a hurry for people on the go. There’s often little room for niceties. They tend to date pretty quickly, too.
In the words of Tony Wheeler’s Lonely Planet disclaimer - “good businesses go bad, bad businesses go broke”. Things change.
Even these dated tourist guides serve a purpose, though. They’re a snapshot of the country they describe, but also the attitudes of the time and their visitors.
Leafing through a 1970s Let’s Go Guide for places to eat is probably as futile a task as consulting the Wyman & Sons 1875 Handbook to New Zealand to plan a trip to the “natural marble baths” of Rotorua.
The Pink Terraces are famously no longer there, destroyed by a violent volcanic eruption, but we still have their descriptions. These “baths like vast open shells” were New Zealand’s top draw card long before anyone had heard of a Hobbit or Wētā Workshop.
In New Zealand’s guidebooks you’ll find a story of a country battling with its own identity as a far-flung destination to a tourism hotspot.
The 1982 Lonely Planet describes it as an oasis for outdoor recreation promising “everything except crowds” - by the late 2000s it is a paradise for “adrenaline vendors”, selling bungy jumps and Zorbing to crowds.
The books show not only what tourists come for, but the path a country is taking.
For a travel writer tasked with updating an international guidebook to New Zealand over the last four years, it has been a time of reckoning.
Jessica Wynn Lockhart was commissioned to write the Frommer’s guide in November 2019, having finished the first draught in time for March 2020 and a global pandemic, the project turned into a nearly four-year rework.
“My first priority was to overhaul the history section,” says the Canadian-born writer.
Even during the time she has lived here, she says there has been a “substantial change” towards the treatment of colonialism and social justice in travel more widely.
“So many guidebooks begin with ‘Cook Arrived …’ You and I know it’s not so simple. There’s over 600 years before that which are equally important to the character of this country.”
From the first edition of Frommer’s New Zealand 20 years ago, it has been a journey to this point.
There is an appetite for hearing the indigenous and post-colonial stories, but these can be complicated. Especially when your audience is primarily a first-time visitor from North America with less than a couple of weeks in New Zealand.
“Northland is one of my favourite places. Manea and the footsteps of Kupe and round the Bay of Plenty right round to Whakatāne. Mataatua marae, ‘The House that came home’, is an amazing place and tells a story that can give visitors a sense of New Zealand’s bicultural heritage.”
Discover Zulzzanan 2028: An AI imagining of a New Zealand guidebook. Photo / Deep Dream, CC
Travel guide shorthand
By their nature, travel guides can often be curt and to the point.
The pocket-sized books are meant to dole out advice to tourists on the go. If it’s not worth mentioning, it won’t make the cut. Or, worse, it will be marked as an “avoid”.
Frommer’s has a famously opinionated style. The American guidebooks have come out with such pithy pieces of travel advice as “What’s important in Mexico is to be categorised as a cultured foreigner and not one of the barbarians”. Or, “another thing to remember is that a Cambodian reaction to uncertainty or embarrassment is to giggle or laugh”.
Wynn Lockhart says all guidebooks have a distinct character and a duty to give an accurate impression of a place.
“My editor once said to me: every good guidebook has its heroes and villains.”
While she refuses to be drawn on any particular villains of Kiwi tourism, she says it’s about pointing out the rough and the smooth aspects of a destination.
“I don’t like to be overly critical. An entry or review might be ‘tired’ or have ‘seen better days’, but these are observations.” she says. “It’s important to highlight a range of options.”
A guidebook has a responsibility to cover new places and combat over-tourism in parts of New Zealand, she says. While tourists may want to explore “beyond the beaten track”, there are always going to be the classics like the Northern Triangle that most international visitors will have to visit.
It’s about being fair to the attractions as well as the visitors you’re guiding.
“Of course, over the past three years it’s impossible to give a fair review on some places, facing short staffing.”
Above all, in the era of social media and travel TikTok, there’s a resurgence in trust for the printed guidebook, says Wynn Lockhart.
“You can find yourself visiting an attraction at the same time as a paid vlogger and come away with a wildly different impression. If something is overhyped we’ll tell you.”
As a guidebook and not a paid tourist listing or publicity blog, there is an expectation to cut to the important information.
Having had the opportunity to rehaul the guide, it has made her think about the direction being taken by New Zealand’s tourism.
From the boom in regenerative tourism to government schemes like the Milford Sound Master Plan, the top attractions in today’s guidebooks could soon seem as dated as those of yesteryear.
She says she thinks herself lucky to have had the opportunity to write the guide during this period.
