Good Pub Guide to start charging for entries
The Good Pub Guide is to start charging food-led pubs almost £200 if they want to appear as main entries in the 2012 edition of the publication.
The guide has sent out letters to pubs, telling them of the plan, which it said was in response to rising production costs.
A £199 fee will be levied on food-led pubs, while beer pubs which don't have a significant food offering will be charged £99.
Traditionally the guide has relied on reports from readers on their favourite pubs, which it will then send inspectors to. If the inspectors consider the pub worthy, they will produce a main entry in the book, offering a detailed description and information on food, drink and prices. It is those main entries that the guide will now charge for.
Its co-editor, Fiona Stapley, told Caterersearch.com the decision was "disappointing" but unavoidable. "We've been a best-selling guide for many years and next year, 2012, will be our 30th. The trouble is that producing a guide like this has become more and more expensive and we are going to have to adjust our business model to fit in with lots of other guides that also charge.
"But I want to stress that it will be entirely independent and the choice of pubs will be based, as they always have, on thousands of readers' reports. The way of choosing the pubs will not change. No one can pay to get into the guide. If we think a pub is fantastic we can say we would love you to be in the book, but…"
Stapley added that research had shown that on average a pub with a main entry in the guide got around 240 extra visits a year, which meant that the cost of paying to appear should be covered.
"Our early assumptions are that most pubs will think it is worth wanting to stay as a main entry in the Good Pub Guide because we bring them so much business, particularly pubs that are in the middle of nowhere," she said.
Average price of a pint hits £2.80 >>
By Neil Gerrard
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