Frommer's Was Purchased by Google, Then Sold, Then Resold

Tnooz on the Frommer Sale back to Arthur

More discussions on the sale of Frommer's printed guidebooks back to Arthur himself, with comment input from some of the biggest players in the guidebook world.

The Frommers journey has come full circle, as the company’s original founder Arthur Frommer has re-taken the helm of the brand he created back in 1957.

With the Frommer’s Facebook page dormant since February, the brand sure could use a little reinvigoration. The powers-that-be at Google have pretty much brought the brand to full radio silence as they integrated all of the content they purchased into the Google+ Local product over the past few months.

A Google spokesperson sent over the following statement:

We’re focused on providing high-quality local information to help people quickly discover and share great places, like a nearby restaurant or the perfect vacation destination. That’s why we’ve spent the last several months integrating the travel content we acquired from Wiley into Google+ Local and our other Google services. We can confirm that we have returned the Frommer’s brand to its founder and are licensing certain travel content to him.

Now that the content has been integrated into the product, Google has sold the company back to its founder. The terms of the deal were undisclosed, but it’s very clear that Frommer intends to continue the print line of books moving forward.

Arthur Frommer told the Associated Press that he was looking forward to getting started again after selling the brand to Simon & Schuster in 1977. It’s a very happy time for me. We will be publishing the Frommer travel guides in ebook and print formats and will also be operating the travel site Frommers.com.

It appears that he did not purchase all assets, and that Google will continue to own certain content that will then be licensed back to Frommer’s. What content will be licensed to Frommer remains unclear.