The face of guidebooks changed for ever this week. First, Mark Ellingham announced that he was leaving Rough Guides, then Tony and Maureen Wheeler sold a controlling share in Lonely Planet to BBC Worldwide. This might seem like news for the books or business pages, but it will also affect everyone who travels.

Lonely Planet has certainly come a long way since the 1970s, when the first guide, Across Asia on the Cheap, was typed out on a kitchen table, stapled together and peddled to Australian bookstores. Thirty-five years later, the company has been sold for a rumoured £70m – though the Wheelers are insistent that money wasn’t the only factor in the decision. They want the business to be taken to what they call “the next level”.

Mark Ellingham also sees the need for change. He set up Rough Guides in 1982, and, though he sold a majority stake to Penguin in the 1990s, he stayed on to run the company. Now he’s leaving to devote more time to other (nonguidebook) interests.

It is, he feels, a good time to go. Pointing to Hilary Bradt’s departure from Bradt Travel Guides and the sale of Cadogan Guides, as well as his own move, Ellingham describes guidebooks as being “at a cusp”.

At the root of it, of course, is technology. By the time you open even the newest edition of a guidebook, the information is at least a year out of date, often two or more. Publishers have come up with various ways of delivering information faster. The niche Purple Guides offer online updates for hotels and restaurants. Rough Guides’ Directions books come with CDs inside, allowing readers to enter the entire text onto a computer or a Palm-style PDA. And both Rough Guides and Lonely Planet have created successful websites that offer a range of material for download, from Rough Guides’ PodScrolls, specifically created for colour iPods, to Lonely Planet’s Pick & Mix downloads of some of its American guidebooks. More than 4m people use the Lonely Planet site each month. No wonder BBC Worldwide was interested.

The web is the new battleground for guidebook customers and, as Ellingham recognises, the technology is almost with us to further exploit the possibilities. “The iPhone is the best possible example not of where we are now, but of where we will be in a year or two, when Apple starts selling books to download in the same way it is now selling music. Travel books will be at the forefront of that movement.”

Seen in this light, BBC Worldwide’s move on Lonely Planet makes perfect sense. Its chief executive, John Smith, has talked of creating “one of the world’s leading content businesses”. Lonely Planet travel content exploited by BBC Worldwide’s technological know-how: quite a combination.

It will be difficult to compete – it costs money to keep at the forefront of digital publishing – and Ellingham expects some series to disappear, particularly those that lack a strong identity. But he is also convinced that certain smaller publishers will make the transition.

Maybe some books will also survive. I hope so. Because in a few years’ time, when the rest of the world is squinting to read text on a digital screen, I want to be there with a weighty, worn, marked book in my hand.

Guide to the guides

THE BEST IN PRINT

Bradt: going where others fear to tread (or publish), Bradt now has more than 100 titles, many written by specialists. Good coverage of Africa and eastern Europe.

Footprint: the imprint’s inaugural 1924 South American Handbook is still going strong (and is now in its 84th edition). The newer books cover most of the world, but Asia is still a blind spot.

Lonely Planet: it has published some of the worst-written books on the shelves, but recent years have seen standards rise. At the forefront for travel information.

Rough Guides: they always had an edge over the competition, for their cultural coverage and sense of fun, and they now lead in championing environmental issues, too. The series commands travel’s middle ground.

Time Out: the best for city coverage, Time Out has thrived on the rise of short-break holidays. Many of its books are updated annually, giving them a freshness others lack.

THE BEST ON THE NET

timesonline.co.uk/travel: 5,000 skilfully written and carefully researched travel articles, all easily searchable, and exclusive deals on thousands of hotels, villas and apartments. For the latest travel blogs, webcams, websites and internet booking tips, check out timesonline.co.uk/onlinetravel.

www.greentraveller.co.uk: a site we should all be using more often. The journalist Richard Hammond’s web pages are the first place to look for green holidays and for discussions on environmental issues.

www.lonelyplanet.com: more than 4m people can’t be wrong, can they? Lonely Planet’s website is all things to all people: travellers’ forum, hotel-booking service, podcaster.

www.mrandmrssmith.com: primarily a hotel-reservation service, but, unlike travelintelligence.net and other competitors, the site includes chic destination guides.

www.timeout.com:Time Out scores over its competitors by offering recent content from its weekly or monthly magazines, from Abu Dhabi to Tel Aviv.

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