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When a travel god calls you a “mindless poseur” you better listen up

December 15, 2007

When a travel deity like Arthur Frommer refers to you as a “mindless poseur” you should really pay attention. That’s what the guidebook god did on his blog yesterday, when he lashed out at the travel section of a major newspaper that, by way of full disclosure, I’ve written for a time or two.

Frommer’s comments are simply devastating. He suggests the publication has completely lost touch with its readers. “The more noble goals of travel, a learning experience that expands understanding, are mainly dismissed in favor of the pleasures of discos and designer hotels,” he says.

But the posting struck me as an indictment of more than a single newspaper travel section. He might as well be writing about the travel media in general.

Have we forgotten about our audience?

A few days earlier, I had filed my year-end column for MSNBC’s travel section (look for that on Monday), in which I noted that some of the biggest travel stories of the year were either overlooked or marginalized by the travel media.

Why? I think it’s because travel journalists are fascinated by things with wings. Yet, according the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, for every one mile Americans fly, they drive 452 miles.

Then I reviewed my stories and blog postings over the past year, and I realized that I was part of the problem. I’ve given the airline industry way, way too much ink and ignored important — but less sexy — stories that affect more travelers. And yes, I’ve written far too many articles about hotels that contain the words “luxury” and “upscale.”

I’m grateful to Frommer for the wake-up call. I can do better. I think we can all do better.

Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

12 comments

  • Joe F.

    When I’m in Paris – I want to stay in an apartment – meet people, sit in the cafe, get dirty looks for my bad French and simply being an American.

    When in Rome – I can oogle all the pretty women I want – and feel like a local staying in that nice little apartment over the Pharmacy.

    Outside Florence, in that converted farmhouse, we have a small apartment and go into that little town where I met the locals hanging out in the afternoon in the hardware store, we share mens stories and bragging that are the same around the world, enjoy some wine and make some friends. You then get invited to meet their families and everyone has great time learning about the others lives.

    In China, I’m in a stalinist era hotel right next to an elementary school and am in an educational group which has the first caucasians to visit this small town in over a decade. You become a celebrity, instead of tourist. You make friends and see the place in a way that the tour bus stopping at the springs or the tourist market never experience.

    On St. Maarten, we stayed in a little apartment in Grand Case, near where the waiters and the workers lived. We had a GREAT time – all the same beaches are there – but we made friends and saw street parties and restaurants where they worked, and got food choices different from the tourist fare. They told us about beaches the public never sees, private little coves great little cafes off the beaten path.

    Would you see any of this is the luxury hotel on a beach or in a city? People are on their best behavoir, snooty and snobby, as are the employees – who want to meet Madonna or someone who can wisk them away from their everyday world.

    Frommer is right. Luxo has its place, but if all your travel is luxo – well, one Ritz Carlton is pretty much the same as any other Ritz Carlton and is Tropicana OJ ever worth $20 a glass???

  • http://www.bravenewtraveler.com Jacob (Fusiler)

    Good for Frommer’s. I’m glad he can take time out of a hectic schedule, gallivanting about the globe, staying in hotels that are never quite under $100USD/night, to bash another publication for where it tells people to go. Lord knows, he has no stock in that game.

    I salute you, sir, for such astute and disciplined introspection, because I would not be able to stand it. Everywhere I go, crusty old travelers are being interviewed about how travel isn’t the same anymore, every place in the world has been discovered, and publications like the New York Times have no right to use economics as a basis for ranking a locale. Young people are being pigeonholed into believing that there are only “right” and “wrong” ways to travel by the very people who made their fortunes by…well…traveling without boundaries.

    Who can blame them? Frommer and the like used to have an incredibly profitable stranglehold on the travel information industry; you used to have to pay for it. Now, for $40 a month and a few minutes time I can find all the information I care to get on a location–and email my mother afterwards. Hundreds of resources exist that put the power of information dispersal in the hands of the many–and increasingly out of the hands of guidebook writers.

    I’m an ultra-budget traveler, so neither NYT nor Frommer’s is in touch with me. And they don’t care–for every 100,000 of me that skimp over the travel section looking for the comics, there’s one family in a rich suburb saying “Hey, let’s spend $32,000 a week to stay in Switzerland!” And that’s all thats all the NYT needs to justify that route. Cities exist because of money and New York is one of the wealthiest cities in the world. Why would they cater to my cheap ass?

    I think there’s something incredibly disingenuous about one publication attacking another for “losing touch” with its audience. With the travel “book” industry rapidly dying, such a post makes Frommer look more like a desperate old scrooge, scrambling to get his readership back, than the knowledgeable traveler he is (or once was).

  • http://polosbastards.com Rob

    I assure you not every place in the world has been discovered by the either the 5 star crowd or the hippie backpacker set.

    Unfortunately Frommer doesn’t go far enough. NYT Travel hasn’t lost touch with their readership. They never had it in the first place.

  • Marie

    Are young people being “pigeoned holed” only by the rich people in the travel industry? I’ve found the whole “tourist versus traveler” debate in backpacker-type pubications to be sporting the same “my way of travel is better than yours” attitude. That’s where I feel publications are losing touch with their audience — by judging them and telling them what to do.

  • Ann

    “NYT Travel hasn’t lost touch with their readership. They never had it in the first place.”

    I somewhat agree with this statement. I think their readership is totally different from Chris Elliott’s. Many people reading the NYT and other publications that play up the luxury end of travel are not those of us who fly 100K miles a year, but rather people who take one big vacation a year (because their corporate jobs give them only 10 days of paid vacation). They are not looking to get off the beaten path, they are not hoping for seclusion, and certainly they are looking to impress friends and co-workers. They read the NYT and dream about the vacations described. When they settle on one, they want to dial one number (or go to one website) and book the whole all-inclusive thing.

    No, the NYT Travel section does not speak to me, but I doubt they would be sad to know that.

  • Jasper

    I think most travel info sources focus on the luxury and high-class because that’s who they get paid by. Officially only through ads, but unofficially through the lavish free trips that the writers get to all those luxury places.

    Luxury places are so prone to giving free tickets to travel journalists that a team of European students managed to travel the world for a full year for free, just by posing as a tv crew for a luxury travel program in one of the smaller European countries (I think it was Holland, could have been Belgium, Austria, take your pick). Hotels, airlines, all gave them a top notch free treat, as long as they gave good mention of the place. They actually did film, and later their show got on Mtv Europe.

    The only exception I know to the luxury travel glossies is the AAA Ohio magazine, that just focuses on more simple family car trips.

    I think a lot of people would like to learn about simple vacation destinations close to home (say within 200 miles) of their home. Simple little hotels in small places with nice culture, parks or just quiet. However, to get their as a travel journalist, your company needs to give you money to do your own traveling, instead of picking up the free trips provided by the industry…..

    As for your focus on the airline industry: it depends what you want to do. If you want to write about pleasant travel, the airline industry is to be avoided because nothing is pleasant about it anymore. However, if you want to be a journalist who takes his tasks as being part of the fourth leg of the trias politica seriously, you should keep banging on the airline industry with all the force you have. Hang them by their balls from the highest tree you gaven find, and provide the public with rotten eggs, tomatoes, and most importantly the abhorrent facts. The airline industry already already owns the political branch, and they’ve largely succeeded in buying the journalistic branch, so keep up the good fight!

    Last, if you take out commuting and shopping miles from that 452 to 1 road to air ratio, how does it compare then? I don’t think many people consider their commute ‘travel’. They consider it annoying at best, and would like to reserve the term travel for more pleasant driving.

  • http://www.travellingcari.com Cari

    I agree and disagree with Frommer. There is a certain subset of travelers who will treat that list as a bible — in order to achieve some travel status, they must follow it. Maybe that set reads the Times, I don’t know. I’ll scan the travel section for interesting places they mention, or stories, but I don’t worship the Times. At times I disagree with Frommer as well — some of his stuff isn’t relevant to me – it’s no better or worse than the Times. What I do realize is that different places house different information — you don’t go looking for youth hostel information in the Times any more than you look for info on the local Ritz Carlton in Lonely Planet…

  • Katie

    My main goal in life is to see as much of the world as possible. However, as a recent college grad in my first, not-so-high-paying job, I’m trying to focus on saving up and, in the mean time, seeing as much as possible in my own area (a big task in itself – I work in Manhattan, so the possibilities are near endless).

    I have noticed an air of elitism in travel sections of newspapers and magazines. The vast, vast majority of people who are traveling or wish to go on a vacation are not going to Europe or an exotic beach. They are trying to find interesting and new experiences relatively close to home, on a budget. While I do think that there are a lot of resources available to the less global of the globe-trotting, of all the articles in a travel section of a news website, I find that maybe one of several dozen may actually have use for those “normal” folks. I love to read the articles about the latest art-deco throwback hotel in Brussels, but it’s mainly just for the subject matter being interesting to me, as opposed to actual “usefulness.”

    The question indeed does go back to who the travel writers are actually serving. I don’t believe that every single article regarding the travel industry has to apply to the vast majority of the population. Indeed, as I stated, I read the articles because they’re interesting and just give me new things to add to my list of Things to See. However, it can’t hurt to spark more people’s interests in less . . well, I guess seemingly “high-falutin” topics.

    On a random side-note that I think semi-applies to this topic, I understand and appreciate the anger and frustration with airlines. But has anyone taken a Greyhound bus lately? After a last-minute, “I have no other way to get back home” trip, I don’t think I can ever complain about airlines again. I couldn’t help wondering if I was being punished for something. Anyways, I’m curious as to how many people take Amtrak or Greyhound as opposed to flying, and if there are large differences, I think our “bus travel” rights could be a new battle for travel writers to fight for. It seems rather overlooked, and it probably IS more frequently used by the majority.

  • Jason Zions

    I take Amtrak for trips involving under a day’s worth of time. Getting sleeper accomodations on Amtrak is (a) very difficult due to limited ability, and (b) quite expensive, as the ratchet up the price to reduce demand to a close approximation of what they can supply. A day on the train, as opposed to a day behind the wheel of a car or a half-day dealing with the airport mess, is a pleasant way to spend some of my precious vacation time. I’d love to see train travel become an option for more travel, but the current paucity of routes really limits choice here.

    There’s no chance in hell I’d ever take the bus. Most of the disadvantages of airplane travel (cramped seats, miserable toilets, small space, breathing the same air as the kid with the cold three rows away) combined with the disadvantages of train travel (long trip duration, possibility of ungodly long delays), without any of the advantages of the either, all in exchange for a theoretically low price. I did travel by Greyhound once, during my college days decades ago. I’d rather rent a car and drive it one-way, even if it costs me more.

  • Victor

    Since we tend to be birds-of-a-feather, I think the best way to prepare for travel is to ask a friend whose values are most akin to yours for some advice. Assuming that they have traveled to places you want to visit, you will end up with some really great ideas about what to do. I have found this approach works for travel locally, nationally or internationally. Skip the books. Talk to people. Especially those who tell you the facts of their travel experience (who, what, when, where, why) not their opinions, since we all have plenty of those. Trust me, it works.

  • http://www.enroutemag.com Arjun Basu

    As the editor of a travel/lifestyle magazine, I agree with all of this. It’s something we’ve been discussing in our offices and we’re finally acting upon it. Like everything else that is “good”, we need to seek balance in the stories we report, in the places we seek out, and in the manner that we present them. I’m not a huge fan of the Frommers franchise to be honest. But he’s right. And we’re all guilty.

  • Lora

    When you go on a bus somewhere you get to talk to many different kinds of people. It’s true that most of them are lower class, but they seem to have a lot more to talk about than the people that you talk to on a plane. It’s like they really LIVED their lives, while the people on the planes are sleepwalking through theirs.

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