Lonely Planet's free guides for the Ash Cloud is huge App Store success

Do you remember Lonely Planet‘s genius idea that made most of their £9 European city guide iPhone applications free until today?

Has it paid off?

Yes.

The city guides for the following cities have been flying off the virtual shelves:

– Amsterdam
– Barcelona
– Berlin
– Budapest
– Copenhagen
– Istanbul
– London
– Moscow
– Munich
– Paris
– Rome
– Stockholm
– Vienna

You only have to look at the current UK iTunes App Store free chart to see it overflowing with Lonely Planet logos. The most popular, of course, is London. That’s not surprising. It’s been fascinating to see just how many people decided to take advantage of the Lonely Planet offer.

I have no doubt that there will be a revenue pay-off for the Lonely Planet team across this year and beyond, not least because hundreds of thousands of people are now sampling full versions of applications that usually retail for £9 each. Having managed to get a look at one or two, I won’t be surprised if consumers decide to splash out on the full price guides for other cities they visit in the future.

I look forward to an update from the Lonely Planet team. Meanwhile, if you’re still keen to try out the full apps at no cost for those cities — be quick, be very quick. You can still download them free today from the App Store.