GuideGecko Company Blog

Female Magazine and Simply Her Magazine, both well-known women’s monthlies in Singapore, have featured GuideGecko with short articles in their June editions.

The article in Female focuses on our large variety of travel guides, competitive prices and free shipping in Singapore. It mentions two guides explicitly, namely the National Geographic Best Girlfriend Getaways Worldwide (it’s a women’s magazine, after all) and one of our independent guides, ‘The Netherlands‘, by the WritingTravellers Community.

The article in Simple Her explains that we have an ‘excellent range of travel guides at prices that are as much as $10 lower than at major bookstores.’ The article continues with a quick overview of our publishing platform, mentioning that you can publish your guides as printed books and downloads. The final sentence is: ‘What a great way to make money to fund your next holiday!’

You can find these and more articles in our Media Center.

I have been ‘Talking Travel’ with Brenda from Gadling on April 27, and Benji has written a nice little GuideGecko feature on Guardian.co.uk on April 28. No wonder our visitor numbers have risen sharply by the end of April. Very nice, and a big thank you to Brenda and Benji!

You can find links to these and more articles on GuideGecko in our Media Center.

“Finally a photo of Daniel without an elephant” said Umar, when he saw today’s edition of Lianhe Zaobao, Singapore’s largest Chinese newspaper (and the 2nd largest overall). I couldn’t add much more, because we don’t speak much Chinese, and so we could only look at the photos until we received a proper translation (Thanks, Si Ning). The corresponding interview has taken place in a coffee shop near our office in Geylang, and one of the photos features me presenting samples of our printed guides between a stack of guidebooks on one side and a laptop with our website on the other (yes, I need some sleep!). There are more photos of some of the guides that we carry, and the article showcases the variety of available guides for different target groups, as well as explains how you can publish your own guide on GuideGecko.

As you can see in our Media Center, the article is titled “Write a travel guide and promote your hometown to travelers from all over the world” – check out how to spell that in Chinese here.

Earlier this week, I was interviewed by Sandy Dhuyvetter for the US based TravelTalkRadio. Sandy did a great job explaining what GuideGecko is all about, and asked me about the ideas behind GuideGecko. Here is what the TravelTalkRadio website says:

“From what we can tell, when it comes to finding a travel guide book, GuideGecko.com could be the next Library of Congress. This newly launched site is both a publishing house and an online purveyor of a huge number of travel guide books, almost 2,000 titles so far, and counting. At GuideGecko you can find and buy exactly the guide you need, or become an author and sell your own. From independent authors to acclaimed publishers, from diving to dining, from mainstream to special interest, and from download to print, this outfit has it all. You can even create and publish your own guide and turn your personal knowledge and experience into a source of information for others and a source of income for you. This is a one-off we’ve not seen before. Serious travelers, check this one out!”

Thank you very much to Sandy, Patrick and the whole TravelTalkRadio team!

Listen to the interview here.

Thanks to Brenda Yun, GuideGecko was featured in a nice article on Gadling. Brenda’s article looks at GuideGecko both from an author’s as well as from a customer’s point of view. Brenda and I have already been in contact a few months ago, when she was giving me very helpful feedback on the website and the functionalities we offer. We are currently arranging for an interview that Brenda will post on Gadling in the coming days. Watch out for it, and read the initial article here!

Singapore’s best-selling English weekly lifestyle and entertainment magazine, ‘8 days’, has a nice feature article on GuideGecko. In the article, you cannot only see me riding an elephant in the rain (yes, you can also scroll down in this blog to do the same), but you can as well see a screenshot of the website and read my ’six reasons’ why you should buy your travel guides on GuideGecko.

In case you don’t want to read the whole article, here are the first three reasons:

1. Singaporeans get free delivery, even if you buy just one book

2. We are cheaper than Borders and Kinokuniya

3. There’s more variety at our store

Yes. And I am sure you know at least 42 more and better reasons. Do let me know, just in case I am asked again!

Thanks to Monica Guy, the European Network for Accessible Tourism (ENAT) and the Rolling Rains Report write about GuideGecko. Both are well-known authorities for accessible tourism, and the articles discuss the possibility to publish guides for travelers with disabilities on GuideGecko.

Travelers with disabilities often have a hard time with regular guidebooks, as off-the-shelf guides typically do not mention things like step-free side entrances or other necessities required by such travelers. And what’s the point in visiting a marvelous sight, if you can’t find your way in?

Travel guides tailor-made for this target audience are usually hard to find, because they typically don’t sell as well as – say – a Lonely Planet. To quote the ENAT: “GuideGecko (…) provides the perfect online platform for self-published accessible travel guides by independent authors,” and “GuideGecko even helps budding authors to structure their Guide by providing document templates – what could be easier?”

Thanks for the compliments, and we are looking forward to the first access guides on GuideGecko!