BBC travel portal - just fancy that

The Sunday Times reports how listings giant Time Out is joining a growing list of companies angry over the BBC's acquisition of Lonely Planet.

There are concerns that the licence fee funded broadcast giant will use its expertise to develop the global travel guide publisher Lonely Planet, a direction Time Out boss Tony Elliott is understood to have said is "beyond the resources of any privately funded organisation".

Lonely Planet, in turn, may well help the BBC develop a travel portal of its own to run similarly to its motoring and environmental channels on the website.

People really shouldn't be surprised at such a turn of events. The BBC didn't buy LP because of a deep-seated love of backpacking!

And it would take a messy intervention from the likes of the UK's Office of Fair Trading to put a stop to it.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution