Is this the end for the guidebook? Publishers are reporting huge demand for their newly launched 'podcasts' - audio guides to foreign destinations which you download from the internet onto your iPod or MP3 player. Lonely Planet, which released its first podcast three months ago, claims that one of its audio guides proved so popular that it reached number 12 in the download chart, beating a single from Madonna.
As well as publishers such as Lonely Planet and Rough Guides, podcasts are being produced by tour operators like Thomson Holidays, airlines and individual tourist boards. 'Why do you need a guidebook if you can download the information onto your iPod and listen on the plane?' said Miles Morgan, marketing director of Thomson Holidays.
More than 80,000 people have already downloaded podcasts produced by Virgin Atlantic and by the end of 2006 the airline will have produced 30 guides.
Podcasts have some distinct advantages. They are usually free to download and can be regularly updated with fresh information. Instead of standing on a dark street corner thumbing through a guidebook and announcing to the world you are a lost tourist, you can listen as you walk to lists of the best restaurants, other insider knowledge and local music.
Converts predict that travellers will abandon generic guidebooks in favour of podcasts specific to their interests. Rough Guides, which started podcasting in November, offers titles like Literary London, Mozart in Prague and Santa Monica Design.
'They are a huge step forward and it's a potentially huge market,' said a spokeswoman for Rough Guides.
Whereas Rough Guides produces guides to listen to as you walk around a destination, Lonely Planet's podcasts are like phone calls from their authors out in the field. 'The idea is it's really inspirational when you're sitting on the tube in rainy London to hear the latest from an exotic destination from someone on the ground,' said Briony Grogan, Lonely Planet publicity manager.
But will they spell the end for the book? Lonely Planet and Rough Guide insist not, arguing that the 'reassurance' and detail of a book cannot be beaten.
