The word “legend” gets tossed around far too frequently these days. But anyone who works in the travel industry knows that it’s a perfect way to describe Arthur Frommer.
Frommer, a man who created travel guides that helped make the world a lot smaller and far easier place to navigate, has died.
“It is with deep sadness that I announce my father, Arthur Frommer, founder of the Frommer's guidebooks and Frommers.com, passed away today at the age of 95, at home and surrounded by loved ones,” his daughter, Pauline, wrote in a note posted at Frommers.com.
“Throughout his remarkable life, Arthur Frommer democratized travel, showing average Americans how anyone can afford to travel widely and better understand the world,” she said. “He published the revolutionary Europe on 5 Dollars a Day, the first in the Frommer's guidebook series that continues publication today; he was a prolific writer, TV and radio host, and speaker; and in 1997, he was the founding editor of Frommers.com, one of the world's first digital travel information sites.”
When I was travel editor at the Toronto Star from 2008 to 2013, Arthur and Pauline Frommer approached the paper with an offer to run a regular travel column. Of course, we jumped at the chance to feature such a well-known byline.
I didn’t know Arthur well, but we met at least once or twice over the years, and I always found him to be a kind and gracious man.
“I am honored to carry on his work of sharing the world with you, which I proudly do with his team of extraordinary and dedicated travel journalists around the world,” his daughter wrote in the note about his death. “We will all miss him greatly.”
Pauline, who inherited Arthur Frommer’s love of travel and has appeared on travel and tourism panel discussions around the world, always with wise observations and a smile on her face.
Arthur Frommer died from complications of pneumonia, Pauline told Associated Press.
“My father opened up the world to so many people,” she said. “He believed deeply that travel could be an enlightening activity and one that did not require a big budget.”
“Frommer’s philosophy — stay in inns and budget hotels instead of five-star hotels, sightsee on your own using public transportation, eat with locals in small cafes instead of fancy restaurants — changed the way Americans traveled in the mid- to late 20th century, Associated Press said in the story about his passing. “He said budget travel was preferable to luxury travel ‘because it leads to a more authentic experience.’ That message encouraged average people, not just the wealthy, to vacation abroad.”
“This is a book for American tourists who a) own no oil wells in Texas, b) are unrelated to the Aga Khan, c) have never struck it rich in Las Vegas and who still want to enjoy a wonderful European vacation," he wrote in the original guidebook, according to the BBC.
In encouraging people without big bank accounts to travel the world, Frommer not only helped spark a tourism boom but created more business for travel advisors.
Frommer also was a strong believer in the power of travel.
"Travel has taught me that despite all the exotic differences in dress and language, of political and religious beliefs, that all the world’s people are essentially alike," he wrote. "We all have the same urges and concerns, we all yearn for the same goals."
