Frommer travels in magazines, books and the Internet

Mike Schneider

Wednesday, June 2, 1999 | 11:17 a.m.

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Arthur Frommer doesn't enjoy going to Europe during the summer anymore -- when the mobs of tourists and long lines into museums take away the charm that so enamored him on his first visit.

It's a funny observation from the travel writer who perhaps more than anyone opened up the Louvre and the Sistine Chapel to budget travelers four decades ago with his book, "Europe on $5 a Day."

"There are literally places that have become gridlock with tourist traffic during high season periods. A lot of people would blame me for participating in doing that," said Frommer, who was recently in Orlando to check out Universal Studios' newest theme park, Islands of Adventure.

Make no mistake though, Paris is still Frommer's favorite destination, albeit when the crowds have thinned out.

Into his 43nd year in the travel advice business, Frommer, 69, has expanded well beyond his well-known travel guides. He is on the Internet, in newspapers and on magazine stands.

His quarterly magazine, Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel, just celebrated its first anniversary and will be published six times a year starting in September. With a circulation of 350,000, the magazine features stories such as "The Spring's 40 Best Bargain Vacations" and "The Cheapest Places on Earth." Plans are in the works to launch the magazine in Europe and Australia.

His website (www.frommers.com), which offers daily travel tips and deals, gets 1 million hits a week. His weekly syndicated column is published in almost 100 newspapers. He is planning to publish a 1,200-page encyclopedia of travel next year.

And then there are the Frommer travel guides, which now stand at 200 titles.

Frommer published his first guidebook, "Europe on $5 a Day" in 1956, after writing a version for his fellow servicemen during a two-year stint with the U.S. Army Intelligence in Germany.

After leaving the service, the Yale law graduate practiced for six years in New York before moving full time into the travel business. Frommer sold his guidebooks to Simon & Schuster in 1979, but maintains an active editorial presence as a consultant to the publishing house.

Frommer is amazed at the growth of travel and travel publishing since he first began. "Europe on $5 a Day" is now "Europe on $50 a Day." (Adjusted for inflation, $5 in 1956 would be worth $30 today)

"When I brought out my first guidebook, the amount of space that was devoted to travel guides was like 2 feet of single shelf," he said. "Today, you go into a Barnes & Noble, there are as many travel guides as there are books in the average independent bookstore."

There has been a democratization of travel since he began writing, Frommer said, with the wide-body jet making it easier and cheaper for the average American to travel abroad.

"You have a contraction of the world into one destination," Frommer said. "When you go to a party nowadays and people are discussing where they want to take a vacation, they say, 'Well I'm not sure whether we should go to Australia or we should go to New Orleans.' "

With bushy gray eyebrows and an impish grin, Frommer is courtly and genial in person. He talks about travel with the enthusiasm of a child in a rich baritone voice.

He isn't afraid to pick a fight, and there are places that would probably yank the welcome mat from under him. One such place is Branson, the southwest Missouri country music Mecca. "Arthur Frommer's Branson," which was published in 1995, was highly critical of the tourist destination that is a cross between Las Vegas and Nashville.

"I went down there and I nearly collapsed when I heard the right-wing politics, the religion sold for profit," said Frommer, who grew up in nearby Jefferson City, Mo., before moving to New York with his family when he was 14. "It is like Stalinist Russia, that whole city. It is so retrograde and intolerant and racist."

Randy Fiveash, president and chief executive of Branson's chamber of commerce, said he would love Frommer to visit Branson again and maybe change his mind.

"Today, you go into a Barnes & Noble, there are as many travel guides as there are books in the average independent bookstore."Arthur FrommerTRAVEL WRITER