Recognizable by the traveler on its cover carrying the world like a backpack, the tourist guide Le Routard celebrates its 50th anniversary, proud of its success which has earned it the sale of 55 million copies in five decades. The adventure began in April 1973 when Philippe Gloaguen, a business school student, managed to have his low-budget travelogue on the road to India published. After 18 refusals, a 19th small publishing house, Gedalge, published the story, which sold 8,500 copies. Fifty years later, the guide published by Hachette since 1975 is the best-selling in France (between 2 and 2.5 million copies annually).
“The Routard’s secret is to retain the first customers with the arrival of a young clientele each year”, explains Philippe Gloaguen, 71 years old. “The Routard has evolved because the clientele has evolved”, according to him, “the young student has become an executive, has children… from the youth hostel he moved to a charming hotel… from the ‘hitchhiking he switched to the rental car’. “It’s the iconic travel collection,” says Sidonie Chollet, director of the Hachette Tourism department, “with a catalog of 150 titles, which is not common.”
Of the 50 best-selling tourist guides in France in 2022, 35 are Backpackers, according to the ranking published in March by Livre Hebdo and the Gfk research institute.
Among its competitors, there is the Lonely Planet, born the same year as him, the Michelin or even the Petit Futé. Today, the paper guide faces competition from the internet and social networks. The boss of Le Routard recognizes that this may have slowed down his sales, “in particular the arrival of Tripadvisor”. “But the major flaw of the internet is that you don’t know who is writing,” he adds. “The Backpacker is sincere…”, he assures us, highlighting his editors and the 25,000 letters and emails from readers received per year.
However, Le Routard has not escaped the call of the internet and now has its own site, 50% owned by Hachette and 50% by Le Routard, which employs around twenty people. For the guides, Hachette pays the royalties for the collection to Philippe Gloaguen, sole and happy owner of the Routard brand. It is then up to him to remunerate his teams – a model that has earned him criticism – ie 22 authors and around thirty freelancers (paid by the task), all specialists in their destination. For 2023, the boss of Routard expects a turnover of 26 million euros.
Guide’s red line: safety. “As soon as there is a security problem in an area, Le Routard is withdrawn from sale”. Because of the war in Ukraine, Philippe Gloaguen withdrew the guides for Moscow, Saint Petersburg, the Baltic countries and even Poland from sale.
Poland, for example, “hosts a lot of Ukrainian refugees in hotels, I don’t want the cohabitation of tourists on the go with suffering families”, he explains, adding: “Putin cost me at least ten Guides du Routard”. The guide also has partnerships with communities, Huttopia campsites and E.Leclerc shopping centers which, in June, will offer a special Tour de France Backpacker. Since 2021, after the Covid crisis during which sales of the guide had fallen by 85%, the guide has also been available quarterly, “Routard magazine”.
Another source of income, the “beautiful books” of travel, sold around 40 euros, are also a “great success”. One has already sold 130,000 copies since 2017 in several languages. Another, “50 trips to make in your life”, in turn has accumulated “more than 35,000 copies sold” since the end of November, underlines Sidonie Chollet. The next adventure will be cinematographic with a film written by the screenwriters of Les Tuches recounting the peregrinations of an author of Le Routard in Morocco. Release scheduled for 2024. Philippe Gloaguen will play his own role.