A reborn Les Routiers goes in search of the unusual

Nicholas Stanley has a tough job on his hands. He wants every car in the country to keep a Les Routiers guide in its glove compartment. Yes, you know the one (or you think you do) - thin descriptions, dodgy pictures, and a questionable selection procedure. Well, you obviously haven't seen a Les Routiers guide recently, then.

Stanley, and his team of city investors, bought the rights to publish Les Routiers UK at the end of 2000. The former hotel consultant's first task was to ditch 250 members (out of a total of 630) and replace them with 250 new members for the 2002 guide, which operates independently, under licence, from its French counterpart (see below).

The second task was to establish a clear game plan, as he explains:

"Members should be owner-managers, not [operators of] boring business hotels. They should offer non-formulaic hospitality; serve decent, simple food at relative value for money. I've just come back from visiting the Isle of Skye and what stood out was the exceptionally nice people who run these places. Yes, we know exactly who we want as members."

In addition to a radical design overhaul, and a completely new format, Stanley introduced a local food campaign, championing small producers (the guide sponsored the British Cheese Awards for the first time last year); detailed maps at the back of the guide including graphics pointing out the nearest pubs, hotels and restaurants to each exit on each major motorway; new touring guides, singling out local points of interest. In addition, the infamous plaques got a date for the very first time, scuppering former members' chances of cashing in on an association long since dissolved. In short, Les Routiers has had a makeover of makeovers, or "the biggest shake-up in the company's history", as Stanley likes to put it - even more apparent in this year's edition, which comes out on 14 October.

Les Routiers Guide 2003 has 350 new members (a further 100 members have been excluded). The guide now totals some 900 members in all, equally split between hotels, restaurants and pubs, including 110 members in Scotland and 80 in Ireland. "We're after the idiosyncratic and the quirky," explains Stanley, who included a fish and chip van on the Isle of Mull in this year's guide. The local food campaign, meanwhile, has gathered pace with the imminent, independent publication of the Food Miles Report, encouraging members (and the public) to buy local produce. And distribution has been increased "immeasurably" so that the guide is now available in all major bookshops.

It has a new editor, too - David Hancock, former editor of the AA Pub Guide and inspector for the AA Restaurant Guide. "We've now got the top three gastropubs in the country as members," boasts Stanley (the Star at Harome, the Stagg at Titley, and the Olive Branch at Clipsham, in case you're wondering). In fact, there's a separate Les Routiers Pub Guide on the way, with Hancock at the helm, he reveals.

Stanley knows he has some way to go to change public perception of the guides. "The difficulty was that until we had reorganised things we had been reluctant to shout about it. But a lot of that work has been done now. What sets us apart from, say, the AA Guides is the sheer practicality of it," he adds, enthusiastically.

Les Routiers - a quick history
Les Routiers began life in France in 1936 as a network of owner-managed hotels and restaurants for French truckers. By the 1960s the French travelling public had got wind of it, and then a British Les Routiers was set up in the early 1970s.

During the 1990s, the guide's owners "got extremely entrepreneurial", developing a range of commercial deals for the members, "but with less emphasis on policing the entries," Stanley ventures, diplomatically.

Stanley has continued to offer additional deals for members, including preferential rates with an insurance company and bulk purchasing deals (including wine). "In fact, some of our members use the guide just for the insurance benefits alone," he boasts, claiming that members can save up to 40%.

How to get an entry in to Les Routiers guide

You pay, basically. It costs members between £350 and £450 per year for the smaller hotels or restaurants, and £500-£700 for the larger establishments. This gives you access to Stanley's "commercial deals" and space (with decent picture) in the guide and on the Web site. Of course, not everybody is welcome. Far from it, in fact. Over the past 18 months, Stanley has thrown out some 400 members, and signed up as many new ones. There is a team of 10 inspectors (some of whom have worked with other guides) who will check your place out, and another three regional reps who will "look after" members. "Our aim is to get the inspectors around each property at least once a year," Stanley says.