Travel publisher Lonely Planet is checking three of its books for inaccuracies after a writer who contributed to them said he had invented copy and plagiarised on a previous guide to Brazil.
Lonely Planet publisher Piers Pickard said Patagonian Chile, South America and the Caribbean Islands books are being reviewed as a precaution after Thomas Kohnstamm admitted he broke company rules when writing a Brazil guide.
Lonely Planet has sent authors to the countries to check all the facts Mr Kohnstamm included in the books in question.
In a yet to be released book about his experiences as a travel writer, Mr Kohnstamm writes that he invented copy, plagiarised and sold drugs to make up for low pay while working on a now outdated guide to Brazil.
He also said he worked on a book for Colombia, though he did not visit the country.
‘I wrote the book in San Francisco,’ he told an Australian newspaper. ‘I got the information from a chick I was dating - an intern in the Colombian consulate. They don't pay enough for what they expect their authors to do.’
But Mr Pickard said Mr Kohnstamm was never meant to go to Colombia because he was merely contributing to the history section.
‘The guy's got a masters in Latin American studies,’ Mr Pickard said. ‘He actually studied Colombian history and culture as part of that specifically. We thought he was an expert.’
But Mr Pickard said after Mr Kohnstamm's claims, Lonely Planet would review his chapter in the Colombia book.
Mr Pickard also said Kohnstamm had based his upcoming book ‘Do Travel Writers Go To Hell?’ on the writing of the 2005 Brazil guide, which has been replaced by the fully updated 2007 version.
‘The claims he makes in that book are absolutely not an accurate representation of how our authors work or what goes into our guidebooks,’ Pickard said.
The Australian-based business, sold last year to BBC Worldwide, has some 500 travel advice titles.
