I was reading the Observer today, and came across this entertaining tidbit in their piece on Lonely Planet being bought by the Beeb:
Hilary Bradt, whose company concentrates on the more obscure destinations, published her first book in 1974, a year after the Wheelers did, although she wasn't even aware of the existence of [Lonely Planet] books at the time. There's no ignoring them now though.
'Everyone asks why we don't do a book on Thailand,' she says. 'In order to have something concrete to say, I counted up the number of Thailand guides in Stanfords the other day, and do you know how many there were? Forty-two. And the world doesn't need 43 guides to Thailand, that's for sure.'
Indeed.