Arthur Frommer
Arthur Frommer | |
|---|---|
 Frommer in 2007 | |
| Born | Arthur B. Frommer July 17, 1929 Jefferson City, Missouri, United States |
| Alma mater | New York University Yale Law School |
| Genre | Travel Guides, Consumer Advocacy |
| Spouse | Hope Arthur (divorced) Roberta Brodfeld |
| Children | Pauline Frommer |
| Website | |
| frommers | |
Arthur Frommer (/ˈfroʊmər/) (born July 17, 1929) is an American travel writer. He founded the Frommer's brand of travel guides.
Frommer was born in Jefferson City, Missouri, and moved to Brooklyn, New York when he was 14. He graduated from New York University in 1950 with a political science degree, and graduated with honors from Yale Law School, where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal, in 1953.[1]
Frommer was drafted into the United States Army during the Korean War.[2] Rather than being sent to Korea, he was sent to Europe because of his linguistic abilities. In 1955, while serving in Germany, Frommer wrote and self-published a guidebook called The GI's Guide to Traveling In Europe. It sold out its first print run.
In 1957, Frommer followed up with a civilian version called Europe on 5 Dollars a Day, which covered major European urban destinations. It also sold out its first run of 5,000 copies. In 1962, Frommer founded tour operator $5-a-Day Tours, Inc.[1] He left the practice of law in 1962 to pursue his travel business, Arthur Frommer International, Inc., of which he was chairman and president until 1981.
Frommer's writing was not restricted to travel. His The Bible and the Public Schools (1963) was a defense of that year's Supreme Court decision banning compulsory Bible reading in public schools.[3] His Goldwater From A to Z (1964) was an argument against the Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater in the 1964 United States presidential election.[3]
In 1969, Frommer built a hotel in Amsterdam, now known as the Hotel Mercure Amsterdam Arthur Frommer, and part of the Accor group. In all Frommer built 4 Arthur Frommer hotels (in Aruba, Curacao, Copenhagen and Amsterdam).
Frommer sold the travel guide book business to Simon & Schuster in 1977, it changed hands a few times, and Frommer eventually reacquired the rights in 2012.[4]
In the 1980s, he published Frommer's New World of Travel, which advocated alternative vacation styles, and founded Budget Travel magazine, which he sold to Newsweek.[5] He briefly ventured into general bargain shopping in 2005–2006 with the quarterly magazine Arthur Frommer's Smart Shopping.[3] He wrote a travel column syndicated through King Features Syndicate for over 2 decades. He had a weekly syndicated radio show for over 20 years, The Travel Show with Arthur and Pauline Frommer, also hosted with his daughter Pauline (from his first marriage), co-president of Frommer Media LLC.[6]
In 1997, Arthur Frommer was brought on by publisher IDG (later known as Hungry Minds) to create Frommers.com.[7] It became one of the first travel sites on the web and it remains one of the top sources for unbiased, journalistically created travel information on the internet, receiving millions of page views per month.
Over the decades, over 75 million Frommer's guidebooks have been sold.
Notes
[edit]- ^ a b "Cheap Is Still Better, Claims Travel Budgeteer Arthur Frommer, but Europe Costs $10 a Day Now". PEOPLE.com. Retrieved January 13, 2019.
- ^ Travel (January 17, 2017). "On the road with Frommer: Books dispensed with the 'nonsense' of travel and changed the industry | National Post". Retrieved January 13, 2019.
- ^ a b c Boyar, Jay (August 8, 2005). "Frommer is everywhere — and shows his political side". The Seattle Times. Retrieved January 13, 2019.
- ^ "Google 'sells Frommer's guides business back to founder'". BBC News. BBC. April 3, 2013. Retrieved September 2, 2014.
- ^ "Newsweek acquires Frommer's Budget Travel: Travel Weekly". www.travelweekly.com. Retrieved January 13, 2019.
- ^ USA Today: "Arthur Frommer: 'We believe in guidebooks'" by Candyce H. Stapen October 29, 2013
- ^ [https://www.frommers.com
External links
[edit]
- 1929 births
- Living people
- People from Jefferson City, Missouri
- 20th-century American travel writers
- American male non-fiction writers
- Travel broadcasters
- New York University alumni
- Yale Law School alumni
- American company founders
- Jewish American military personnel
- Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison people
- 21st-century American Jews