MySherpa Travel Guides: The Wood from the Trees - in Your Pocket

Sydney, Australia, February 15, 2008 --(PR.com)-- MyShepra travel guides - a fresh approach to travel information. The brainchild of Peter Brady, a career management consultant, the seed of the idea originated the day he took a box knife to his brand new, 850g, 5cm thick country guide to India. Says Peter "It broke my heart but got me thinking. When can I get my books the way I now get my music - what I want, when I want and completely portable?"

As Asia Pacific Alliances Director for Accenture, at the time he had a brutal travel schedule. Weight and bulk weren't the only things that frustrated him with travel information. He found using maps in the books painful but "buying a paper spinnaker of a map locally was just as bad. I never liked the 'rob me' sign over my head and wasting time marking up all the places I was trying to find". Also lacking according to Peter was good advice on shopping and he found information on bars and restaurants was usually out of date. He bought the good city guides he could find but they were not available beyond the largest cities. He felt there thought there had to be a better model. Like most people he turned to the internet. There he found detailed, up to date photo rich information. Free. Tracking down the wood from the trees to get good maps and places to see became his hobby, almost to the point of obsession. "Sometimes I only had an hour or an afternoon or evening in a city and I was determined to make the most of it. It's all there if you know where to look and you have the time. The last time I went to Paris I stayed in a 2* hotel that 26 travellers said was terrific. It was. It's the 'wisdom of crowds'. More helpful than three lines and no photos in my country guide. But the internet is a zoo. It takes ages to summarise the information and get it on a few pages you can and take with you."

These issues fermented in Peters mind until the idea behind MySherpa emerged. Harvest the wisdom of crowds. Develop a ubiquitous series of inexpensive local pocket guides with good small maps, updated frequently. Bypass the stagnant publishing business model and go with the grain of the Internet. Distill the quality information, then print in small runs. Sell on the Internet, on planes and everywhere in that location. That is the big idea. Peters' first small step to prove the concept was to publish a pocket guide and map for Saigon. The guide goes on sale in 40 shops and hotels in Saigon on February 18 and will become available on flights bound for Ho Chi Minh City. MySherpa have also produced a 48 page colour guide to Phu Quoc Island, Vietnam.

www.mysherpa.info

Peter Brady has had a 20 year career working as an management consultant in the UK and Australia. His focus since 2000 has been alliances, growth strategies and early stage venture development. His most recent role was as Senior Director, Asia Pacific Alliances for Accenture. He is an Oxford University graduate and holds a Masters in Business Administration from London Business School.

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