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Business Traveller

Books of Past, Present and Future; Gideon's Bible Found in Most Hotel Rooms; How Travel Writers Inspire Readers to Destinations; Visiting Shakespeare & Company Bookshop in Paris; Road Testing Electronic Books; Road Testing 3 Bestselling Guidebooks.

Aired December 13, 2008 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN HOST: Bah humbug, what is Christmas but the time for paying bills without money, a time for finding yourself a year older and not an hour richer. Whatever the festive season, you can't beat Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." And in these strange financial times, we could all end up playing Scrooge.
Hello, and welcome to "CNN BUSINESS TRAVELLER." I'm Richard Quest, this month reporting from Dickensian London. At this festive time of the year, whatever you may be celebrating, the humble book is one of the best presents to give and to receive. Travelers, we love them. It's taken a little bit of home with you on the road.

So on this December edition of the program, we've got "A Christmas Carol," books of the past, of the present and books of the future.

Hunting down bargains at Paris' most eccentric book shop.

The eBook. Will plasma ever replace the printed page?

And we uncover hidden gems in London.

Hatchards, they've been selling books since 1797, the oldest surviving book store in London. Customers include Rudyard Kipling, Oscar Wilde, oh, and, yes, today's royal family.'

You can't go wrong with a good book. There are hardbacks. There are paperbacks. There are those lovely, big coffee table books. And there are those delightful little books you find by the till, "The Well Dressed Gentleman's Pocket Guide." That's one for me perhaps. So whatever your tastes, you can always find solace in a good book.

Wherever your travels may take you, even before the journey begins, there's nothing like choosing a book to help soften the blow of those long- haul and red-eye flights.

BAA runs Heathrow and Gatwick Airport for the time being and has released new sale trends from the airport book shops. The study shows we're buying more business and more self-help books than ever before. So BAA consulted the London Business School to find out why.

NIGEL NICHOLSON, PROFESSOR, LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL: I think there's a sort of an interesting little halfway house where people buy the books say you too can be a millionaire and start your own business. And in a way, that's a kind of another escape. Only people don't realize it's an escape. They may think it's real.

The world has just become more and more complex. People want to get a handle on it. And I think and the appetite in business books, again, is to help people feel that in that rat race that they have some understandings and they have some control.

QUEST: The business bestseller at BA's airport is "Anyone Can Do It," by the entrepreneur, Duncan Bannattine. The most popular fiction is "A thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini.

In other airports around the world, it's "The White Tiger," by Aravind Adiga, winner of this year's Man Booker Prize, that's selling well in Frankfurt and also, H.K.I.A., Hong Kong. Stephanie Meyer's pot-boiler "Twilight" is big at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson.

Taking time to distress and recharge is important at the end of the year. It's all about getting the work-life balance right. And a book can help.

NICHOLSON: I think the meet a lot of people when they go on holiday. It's only by day three that they're able to switch off actually, as if the motor is still running. They're no letting up much at all. They're kind of still assessable. They're taking piles of reports with them or whatever, you know. And the holiday is just a chance to catch up or to catch breath.

The first week, you know, you're still not properly adjusted. And then the second week, you can really start to chill out and relax.

QUEST: So whether it's fantasy or factual, books can be that catalyst we need to help us wind down.

Emily Dickenson wrote, "There is no frigate like a book to take us lands away."

There are few certainties in life. But when it comes to hotels, there are three things of which I can be sure. They're called the three "B's" -- the bathroom, the bed and, of course, the Bible. Next year, the Gideon's celebrates 100 years, a full century of placing Bibles in hotel rooms. Why do they do it?

The styles may change. Hotel rooms adapt. But there's one accessory that's been there unchanged for a century -- the Bible, usually located in that bedside drawer. Often tan in cover, stamped with that insignia placed by the Gideon's.

DR. EDWARD ADAMS, KIND'S COLLEGE LONDON: Essentially, it goes back to the time of the Reformation where one of the big ideas of the movement was to make sure that everyone from the highest to the lowest in society would have a Bible in their own language in their own hands.

QUEST: The Gideon's have been giving away Bibles since 1909. Nearly, 1.5 billion Bibles have been distributed.

With today's diversity of beliefs, should hotels be so closely allied with one religion? Many hotel chains are now widening the beliefs.

Marriot, which is owned by a Mormon family, offers a Bible, plus a copy of the "Book of Mormon." And the Hilton group leaves it up to their local managers to decide what's religiously proper in its society.

THOMAS LANGE, GM. COURTHOUSE DOUBLETREE BY HILTON: Most travelers now there is a Bible in the room so the bookers usually call us and inform us if the guest is non-Christian or is Muslim, indeed. And then we will ask them, "Would you like us to mark the room against Mecca? Would you like us to provide it with a prayer rug and a Koran?" And then we will go, as a hotel, and get these things and prepare the rooms. And matter of fact, especially in London, this is a very common amenity that hotels provide.

ADAMS: Sacred texts from the major world religions should be available. But, again, there's a simple pragmatic economic point. In so far as it costs to disseminate the texts on the Gideon's, with the resources behind them, have taken the initiative.

QUEST: The Gideon's' policy of promotion certainly seems to work. Each Bible placed in a hotel room has an estimated six-year life span. It's a potential readership of 2,300 people per Bible.

Some will read it in a moment of crisis. Others will use it to give thanks. But everyone who needs it, will still find it right there.

Coming up after the break, Shakespeare on the Seine, how a literary landmark became a haven for hopefuls.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

QUEST: The books of the past can be left on the shelf. The writers of our times are calling. And in this hotel, there's a special guest waiting in your room.

DAMIAN BARR, READER-IN=RESIDENCE: "It was the best of times. it was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom. It was the age of foolishness. It was the epoch of relief. It was the epoch of incongruity."

QUEST: What could be more enjoyable than having your own bedtime story read by a real reader-in-residence? Damian Barr is the reader here at the Andaz Hotel in London.

Damian, how long have you been reading stories to hotel guests?

BARR: About a year now. I reach for up to an hour. And I have a menu, a big menu, five categories so that our class come in groups, like "The Tale of Two Cities," and more contemporary stuff like, maybe Dan Brown.

QUEST: What does a guest do while you're reading?

BARR: Well, the first time I did that, I read to a woman in her 20s and she actually fell asleep. And I wasn't sure what to do. Should I stay? Should I keep reading? Should I get up and go? Whether it was a complement, whether it was an insult?

QUEST: Reading bedtime stories to complete strangers in their hotel rooms -- you've got to admit, it's a bit unusual.

BARR: I am the world's first reader-in-residence. But there have always been writers-in-residence. I think that hotels are places that are full of stories. And there's always been a culture or reading and writing. Hemmingway lived in hotels. Oscar Wilde lived in hotels. Fay Wells (ph) usually lived in this way. So I think it's very natural to tell stories in a hotel.

QUEST: This is something we need to explore further, the relationship between the writer, the hotel and the traveler. We need to go to Paris, one of the best examples of this sort of writing.

Get us to Paris, sir. Oh, throw me a pillow, please.

BARR: "If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you. For Paris, is a moveable feast."

BVT

AYESHA DURGAHEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The words come off the page and are brought to life when you walk the same streets that writers have. In Paris, you're (inaudible) the choice. Ernest Hemmingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry Miller, they all stayed and wrote about the city.

This is Lotel (ph). It has had thousands of guests stay in one particular room, the room that Oscar Wilde rented in 1899 when he was the hotel's writer-in-residence. Wilde stayed here for a year, until the day he died in this very room.

Opposite Notre Dame, there's a book shop that has had more than 30,000 writers-in-residence. In this rabbit warren of books, stacked in shelves right up to the beams, there are six beds tucked away in its corners.

SYLVIA WHITMAN, OWNER, SHAKESPEARS & COMPANY: The bookshop is very connected to the Beat Generation. And in a way, having writers staying in a bookshop is a very beatnik idea. Williams Veries (ph) used to hang out to do research for his book "Naked Lunch."

DURGAHEE: In exchange for a bed for the night, the writers-in- residence have to work in the bookshop and read one book a day.

Joshua has read about 40 books in three months, which has helped him research and reflect on his own writing style.

JOSHUA JESUA RUSNAKK, WRITER-IN-RESIDENCE: Running my hands along the spines of like all kinds of amazing literature every day is one thing. That's really, really inspiring. It's really amazing to be around all this stuff.

The bookshop here, Shakespeare & Company, is very, very important because it enables writers to stay in a place that is really, really fertile for what they want to do. And it enables them to come here with very little money and little connection, and possibly maybe they don't speak the language, and they get to exist in Paris.

DURGAHEE: With its literary history, Shakespeare & Company attracts visitors from around the world, as well as tourists who stumble across it.

Business travelers, like Keith Harvey, literally go out of their way to come here.

KEITH HARVEY, BUSINESS TRAVELER: I've been traveling in the Middle East for a couple of weeks and I'm flying back to Atlanta today, and I'm routing through Paris. So I arranged it that I have a 9.5 hour layover in Paris. And one of the reasons was because I wanted to come back to Shakespeare & Company.

DURGAHEE: With its mix of classics from the lost generation and a new breed of writer, the magic of Paris past, present and future, is felt and captured in Shakespeare & Company.

EVT

QUEST: The love affair that authors have with certain cities is very often the inspiration that we need to follow in their footsteps.

What about those writers whose job it is to visit and report back to us on destinations that we might want to go to in the future? The traveler writers of the world's magazines and web sites, how honest can they be? What do they tell us? We went to Zurich with Christopher O'Toole of Travelbite.co.uk.

BVT

CHRISTOPHER O'TOOLE, EDITOR, TRAVELBITE.CO.UK: The tourists (ph) got in contact with me two or three weeks ago because they've got a codesie (ph) exhibition in London at Rob Connects (ph), I think it is. This is the final house he built in I think 1960, five years before he died. I think the role of the press office, is to sort of expand sort of what's on offer and make people aware of what else they can do here.

Choosing what's right can be a difficult process. Certainly, the tourist boards would like us to see everything included and everything reviewed positively. But to instill trust in the reader, we have to be discerning.

From here (inaudible). This is a flavor of the city that I'd like to try and infuse into the article. It's things you wouldn't notice from press releases, from guide books and things like that. Even meeting characters, like talking to waiters in bars, things like that, things that you wouldn't be able to learn without coming here.

At present, we're in Galligoe Krenstoff (ph) in Zurich West. And it's part of the old industrial area of the city. A few big warehouses, as you can probably see, make it new for private galleries for a very (inaudible) of exhibitions. It's not somewhere to have Richard Zurich (ph), probably would be the first place on my list. But with them, with our guide, she's taking us to a number of these places. And I think that's somewhere I'll definitely recommend.

Having completed the trip's stay, we'll probably two pieces in Zurich. One will be sort of a 24 hours in Zurich. It's one of my stopovers here as part of a wider journey if they have business in the (inaudible) and have time. And probably look at the hotel we stayed in, the restaurant we ate in, a couple of the galleries and maybe the theater. And the second piece, which I initially hadn't considered I would write, would be on the architecture. It's not just going to be an overview of Zurich. People can head for it their way. I'd hope to -- it would be achievement for me if there's something new in the article, but maybe for people who have been here a couple of times before.

EVT

QUEST: After the break, are paper and print passe? We look at the books of the future.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

QUEST: Welcome back to "CNN BUSINESS TRAVELLER," where I'm now in the London library. Here, there are a million books, covering every subject imaginable, of course, covering centuries in time. This is the place to be if you're thirty for knowledge. But carrying these books with you on a business trip, well, give you a bad back.

So far on the program, we've looked at books past, books present, so now, it's books future. I'm talking about the eBook, where you can store whole libraries on machines no bigger than this. We'll be putting the leading models to the test.

The Kindle and the Reader both work on the same principle. The screen uses a special process to create the words. It's not a computer, which is backlit. There's no eye strain. You can read these things for hours.

You push buttons to change the page forwards or back. And until you change the page, the machine isn't using any power. So a full battery charge can last days or, in this language, hundreds of thousands of page turns.

Mention electronic books or eReaders to most people and they'll ramble on about needing to have the texture of the page or the crinkle of the turn. Ah, rubbish, I say.

With the Sony, you buy and download books using your computer and a special web site. The Kindle has dedicated wireless technology built in. You can download newspapers, magazines and journals. And because Kindle comes from Amazon, there are 90,000 titles available.

But be warned, Kindle's wireless often doesn't allow you to roam overseas. I failed to connect in two countries.

In the end, you wish each had the advances of the other. For the eReader, you'd like to be able to make notes, annotations and have better management of material. For the Kindle, while it's great for nonfiction books, but you'd also like it to be sleeker, smarter and feel less like a computer.

Time to come off the fence. Which do I prefer? Hands down, the Sony eReader. I've already polished off four or five novels. And there's at least another five in here waiting to begin. This is a great benefit to my traveling life. And I've never hesitation in saying the Sony eReader is a searing, smart traveler tip.

A walk along Waterloo Bridge is worth an hour or two of anyone's time. No matter how often you do it, you'll enjoy the view because, as Don Johnson famously said, "When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life. For in London, there is all that life can afford."

The problem is, these days, as we travel further and visit more frequently, we're apt to say "Been there, done that," which makes it much more difficult for the guidebook writers because they now have to discover new hidden gems that we can go off and find for ourselves.

It seems like a potluck of paperbacks. One city, but shelves upon shelves of guidebooks, each telling us which sites we could see, the ones we should see and the ones you must see. You really need to peruse with patience.

In London, we've gone for three slightly different ones. There's the "Wallpaper Guide," the "IDEO, Eyes Open, London," and "Luxe London."

Let's start with "Wallpaper." This book elevates pretentious to a new height. It redefines the art of being caught in its own view. For instance, when referring to a gem in London, the Matt Roberts Personal Training Gym, it says, "It is quite the loveliest gym we have ever seen."

There are some good things about the "Wallpaper Guide." For instance, it suggests as one of the places to stay, this hotel, the Zetta.

In Clerkenwell, west of the financial district, Zetta is perhaps a good example of the original boutique hotel. It's only got 59 rooms, a comfortable lobby with those comfy chairs.

We agree with "Wallpaper" when it comes to Zetta. But I don't find the "Wallpaper Guide" a particularly satisfying way around the city.

How about "Luxe London"? The "Luxe" Guide has one great advantage, it's compact. So unlike Frommers and the others, this one will fit into my shirt pocket. That's also its disadvantage because the guide is also very comprehensive and ahs enough small print worthy of a mortgage agreement.

Finding out where and when I found quite difficult. It did, however, suggest one of two good restaurants. For instance, the Woolsey for dinner. Under its smart dress code, what it describes as the ultra glam verbe and vibe cafe salon, it's a restaurant to you and me.

Out of the three guidebooks, "IDEO's, Eyes Open" is my favorite. And it made it onto the Fast Company's list of "Best Business Books of 2008."

It has some wonderful hidden gems within it. Like Dorn Books on Melbourne High Street.

It's so satisfying when you discover the guidebook has given you a true picture of the real thing.

The moral of this tale of three paper guidebooks, is that you're never going to find exactly the perfect answer. So can technology help?

Trust one of the world's oldest guidebooks to still be up to date. Frommers has put its guidebook now into the ubiquitous iPhone. I have to say I like this one. One of the greatest things about using this phone is that regular travelers to a city can easily be updated to what's open since they were last there. The Watts Mews section. Quick, easy to use. Now I can see the new restaurants, the new sites.

You'll be able to read the latest reviews and look it up on a map. Go to literary landmarks, like Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese. Here Samuel Johnson and Charles Dickens raised their glasses. Rebuilt in 1667 and present through the reign of 15 sovereigns, this is place of a thirty tourist.

And that's "CNN BUSINESS TRAVELLER" for this month. I'm Richard Quest in old London Town.

Wherever you may be celebrating at this festive season, may your travels always be profitable. And I'll see you next month.

END