Lonely Planet Reviews

Pros

It's a really progressive work environment with a great staff, friendly culture and interest in acheiving goals. Plus you get to travel!

Cons

There's a bit of a glass ceiling in the US with few opportunities for real advancement. That said, internationally, there are more opps.

Advice to Senior Management

Allow for growth within the regional offices and focus on protecting the talent you have. Lead a culture of progress.

Pros

Very passionate and bright people to work with
Always surronded by travel related topics at work
Lonely Planet strong passion brand opens doors at work and outside of work
Great time off perks

Cons

After BBC aquisition, much more emphasis on bottom line profits
Has been several rounds of layoffs
Flat organization so sometimes difficult to advance

Advice to Senior Management

Don't loose the original Lonely Planet vision, stay true to doing what's best in the name of travel
Don't sell out the brand please

Pros

-Benefits are good especially the 6 weeks paid vacation
-Sales team is well-supported and liked by management
-Great brand, PR and easy to find partners
-Lots of effort and innovation being pumped into mobile
-Publishing team is strong and easy to work with
-Overall good, fun people

Cons

-There is little to no web or digital experience in the office so innovative, new tactics or money-making digital products are a hard sell
-Trade Sales has a lot of pull in company and is holding back innovation because of his dislike for digital
-Indecisive management with changing priorities
-Buggy back-end and shopping cart prevents any upgrades to system
-Working with a team in UK and AU is challenging and requires long hours
-Project management system consists of cards on a wall in Australia which leads to little or no transparency for US and UK offices
-Too dependent on brand name recognition
-Most Directors/Managers are overworked and rarely praised
-HR is usually not available, uninvolved and rarely replied to emails

Advice to Senior Management

Hire more digitally-savvy managers who are open to innovative, efficient processes. Create a web-based project management system, so all remote offices can get visibility into. Consider what your strategy will be if your brand weakens or goes away. Build out and implement a SEO strategy. Invest more into digital chapters/books/ebooks.

Pros

Great benefits...but that's about it.

Cons

Upper Management has no clue what they're doing, always sending mixed messages. They seemed incompetent in making important decisions. Passive aggressive work environment. Difficult working with offices in the UK and Australia with different time zones. Overall, great brand as they have some amazing guides, however, the work environment is unpleasant. Run for the hills, I do not recommend working here.

Advice to Senior Management

Learn how to manage others, training classes might help.

Pros

Working with fun people who are passionate about travel, interesting subject matter, ability to travel for work, global brand identity means tenure looks good on a CV, relaxed dress code.

Cons

Lots of bureaucracy, inconsistent messages, lack of opportunities to advance career, very structured (needed enter and account for tasks completed each day in a detailed time sheet, even for publishing employees above admin staff level), often a lack of trust in employees

Advice to Senior Management

Lessen the red tape between management levels, re-incorporate more admin staff into publishing department so experienced employees can delegate work, reduce their own admin work and admin staff can take on additional responsibilities

Pros

They give up to 32 days holiday a year on top of regular Australian holidays. They pay fairly. It is a lovely building with a free gym and on an on site cafe. Everyone you will work with is really nice.

Cons

The dark side is their treatment of women returning to work after maternity leave. There was a high chance that you would be offered a much less attractive job when you returned to work. Two examples I saw were a very experienced Project Manager given an administrative role and a senior manager given a very junior management role. When redundancies were taking place (which they frequently are) any woman on maternity was a certainty for it. If a woman asked for a part time return to work arrangement it would be entirely available, until shortly before the woman was about to return to work, at which point it would become full time only. All these strategies worked very well for Lonely Planet when reducing their costs. I'm male by the way. And left on good terms. But I would not want my wife to work there.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop treating your female employees so badly.