Lonely Planet founder Maureen Wheeler is a bit miffed about Tad Friend’s just-published article on the travel guide publisher in The New Yorker , which she thinks is a tad unfair.

Friend travelled to Oman with the Wheelers and had a sly dig at them for staying in a hotel room that cost “some $400 a night.” Wheeler says” “For god’s sake it’s an oil state and all the hotels are aimed at business travellers, they’re almost all bad and expensive.”

Anyway, she says, Tony’s in Kunming at the moment staying in “$4 hotels.” The Australian has picked the most unfriendly bits of Friend’s story for a report in today’s paper, including a bit about Maureen flipping a bird at a small “beggar.” Wrong says Maureen, it was just a cheeky kid – there are no beggars in Oman.

See here for Lonely Planet readers’ responses to the New Yorker article, and here for their responses to the report in The Australian .