Support of a boycott against giant UK travel bookstore operator W.H. Smith and Penguin Books because of deal struct between the two whereby WHS sells only books from Penguin (see the report from yesterday’s MobyLives) seems to be picking up steam in Great Britain.

“Would you mind if your newsagents only sold The Times, The Sun and the News of the World, because Rupert Murdoch offered the best terms?” asks Charles Starmer-Smith in a Telegraph commentary. “No? Well that is what WH Smith is doing to the guide book world … WH Smith has sold out.”

“It seems not to matter to the company that many destinations will no longer be covered,” he continues, “news that I am sure will delight tourist boards, hotel owners and attractions in the destinations that British travellers are heading to,” and he urges people to “vote with your feet and, if you want a travel book, head to your local bookshop or order them online.”

A commentary at The Times by Steve Keenan, meanwhile, says the WHS explanation that the deal would make things ”easier for the customer” is “a mealy mouthed way of saying economies of scale and a hard-driven deal with a struggling publisher who needs protection is in some way better for customers.” And he, too, urges people to “go online and pre-order your travel guides and literature, or to visit an independent bookshop.”

Both seem more angry at WHS than at its partner in the deal, Penguin, but the British Guild of Travel Writers is not letting the world’s second largest publishing company off the hook. In a post in support for the boycott on the group’s website, Guild chairman Melissa Shales lashes out at both the publisher and the bookseller as complicit, saying, “Penguin and WHS are set to neatly truss up the rest of the industry with this exclusivity deal. It means that you won’t be able to get a book to many destinations at an airport –- the DK/Rough Guide list is far from universal. With some of the best sales outlets in the UK closed to other publishers, jobs are set to be on the line.”

The BGTW post also quotes travel writer Mike Gerrard in what may be the most succinct statement of them all: “What next? You’ll only be able to buy Penguin biscuits? … Of all the places where travellers need a choice of good guidebooks, it is at airport bookstores.”