Travelers warm up to online guides

Printed guides from professional writers and editors might have been the go-to choice for tourists in the past, but crowdsourced electronic guides, powered by the imagination of thousands of avid travelers, are changing all that.

Different from traditional guidebooks, the e-books are compiled and updated based on tons of information shared by individual travelers online. They can be downloaded onto tablets and cellphones, and most are free.

Mafengwo.cn, a popular Chinese crowdsourced website, reports that its travel guides were downloaded more than 220 million times.