Arthur Frommer, whose guidebooks revolutionised leisure travel by convincing average Americans to take budget vacations abroad, has died. He was 95. or signup to continue reading Frommer died from complications of pneumonia, his daughter Pauline Frommer said.
"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 began writing about travel while serving in the US Army in Europe in the 1950s.
When a guidebook he wrote for American soldiers overseas sold out, he launched what became one of the travel industry's best-known brands, self-publishing Europe on 5 Dollars a Day in 1957. "It struck a chord and became an immediate best-seller," he recalled in an interview with The Associated Press in 2007, on the 50th anniversary of the book's debut. The Frommer's brand, led today by his daughter Pauline, remains one of the best-known names in the travel industry, with guidebooks to destinations around the world, an influential social media presence, podcasts and a radio show.
Frommer's philosophy: stay in inns and budget hotels instead of five-star hotels, sight see on your own using public transportation, eat with locals in small cafes instead of fancy restaurants. 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.
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