Michelin Guide Goes Web 2.0

Michelin, the oldest and most respected European hotel and restaurant guide, is the continent's classic arbiter of gastronomic greatness. Since 1926, when the guide first introduced a rating system, its anonymous reviewers have had the power to propel or destroy Europe's priciest restaurants and best chefs simply by adding or removing a star in the famous three-tiered rating system.

Now, for the first time, the public is getting a chance to weigh in, thanks to state-of-the-art social networking and Web 2.0 features that take dining and trip-planning to a whole new level. "There are lots of amateur gourmets and seasoned travelers out there with opinions on good food and good restaurants," says Fabienne Latxague, Web site marketing manager for ViaMichelin, the digital arm of the Michelin Group (MICP.PA), which also makes tires, of course. "We want to engage them and create communities."

The new tools, which went live in May, allow gourmands and travelers to share their opinions about restaurants, hotels, and vacation spots in eight European languages, to supplement the information in the traditional guide. The site also neatly pulls together useful information in one place, allowing, for instance, someone going to a business convention not just to book a hotel, but also to find out with a few clicks the weather forecast, which hotels are closest to the convention center, and how long it would take to bike, walk, or take a taxi from the closest train station to the various hotels.

Buy the Book, or Travel the Web

The new features are part of a major overhaul of Michelin's Web site and strategy. And because much of the new material will be free, the move represents something of a return to Michelin's roots. Its famous guide, first launched in 1900, was originally given to travelers for free to encourage tourism (thus also boosting demand for tires). The story has it that the Michelin brothers started charging for guides in 1920 after they found a pile of them being used to prop up a workbench in a garage and realized that customers didn't attach much value to the giveaway.

Fast-forward to 2008. In the digital age, people place a great value on information they can get at no cost on the Internet. And so while Michelin says its paper-guide business is still solid, ViaMichelin is hoping to increase substantially revenue from Internet advertising by giving the information in its distinctive red guidebooks away to a greater number of people.

To that end, in the fourth quarter, the company plans to add the capacity to download, at no cost, restaurant information and reviews from both the guide's experts and the public onto mobile phones so that consumers can choose the best places to dine via their keypads.

Improving Web Site Boosts Sales

That doesn't mean Michelin Group expects people to stop carrying well-thumbed copies of its paper guidebooks, which are sold in bookstores around the world. Indeed in-country sales of the guides, which have expanded their coverage beyond Europe to include cities in the U.S. and Japan, continue to grow 2% to 5% annually, says Jean-Luc Naret, the Paris-based director of Michelin Guides.

This despite the fact that Michelin has already been giving away some information since it launched its first major ViaMichelin Web site in 2001. The difference now is Michelin thinks it could earn even more money—without eating into guidebook revenues—if it did a better job of giving away information.

After all, though ViaMichelin has 3 million registered users and gets about 20 million visitors per month, it was losing ground to Google Maps (GOOG) and online travel site TripAdvisor. One reason, says marketing manager Latxague, is the site was too static and dominated by maps—as opposed to interactive and containing community features.

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