Lee Foster (fostertravel.com)

Keith Bellows of National Geographic Traveler

I had an opportunity this past weekend to serve for the 12th time as faculty on the Society of American Travel Writers' annual Institute For Travel Writing and Photography.  It is always an exhilarating experience, imparting the best practices in our profession to a new group of people.

This year we brought in Keith Bellows, editor in chief of National Geographic Traveler, to kick off the weekend.  Bellows in an interesting man with many observation to make.  Some of his thoughts:

-Stories will always be the big thing.  That is what we react to in the major magazines.  Service information can be better presented on the web.

-It costs a major magazine $50 to get a new subscriber.

-User generated content is now about half of all content.

-General interest publications are in danger.  There is now no such thing as the general consumer.

-Consumers will get tired of doing all  the information gathering themselves.  There is information anxiety.  Consumers are looking for firm direction and guidance.  There are 140,000 products in the average supermarket.

-Time is the new currency.

-250 million Chinese are studying English, but only 24 thousand Americans are studying Chinese.

-There is no such thing as the average consumer.  51 percent of Americans take no vacation.  Among those who do, most stay within 300 miles of their homes.  Logically, National Geographic Traveler should focus totally, therefore, on US coverage.  However, when we run a domestic cover, it is death on the news stands.  No one buys it.

-The future of travel publishing is in niche travel.  That may be: Gay Travel, Pet Travel, Nascar Travel, Reunion Travel, Guy Travel, and Wellness Travel, to name just a few categories.

CA Snow Sports Now

The California winter snow play season is in full progress at this time.  It does not help that Governor Arnold is hobbling around on crutches with a broken femur, but, for the record, his snow play problems occurred in Idaho not California.  California offers the full pageant of downhill skiing.  After one too many hotdoggers wiped me out, I did move on to cross country.  I am headed for snowshoes and aerobic pleasures in the future.  Regardless of how you enjoy CA winter sports, the choice view all year of the region is of Emerald Bay, which is terrific even in winter if the road is open.  Enjoy Emerald Bay views in winter. There are a lot of condo options near the lake if you seek lodging.

AMS Bankruptcy

Consumers who love travel guides and anyone who follows the travel guide publishing scene, especially in Northern California, should become aware of a huge bankruptcy action that could have tragic consequence for many travel publishers.  The publishers in question include Avalon, Ulysses, Traveler's Tales, Carousel Press, Wilderness Press, and many more.  All these publishers are selling a reasonable number of books, enough to stay in business.  And their immediate distributor, PGW, is relatively vigorous and prosperous on its own.  However, PGW was bought in 2002 by a large holding company,  Advanced Marking Services (AMS),  which now has some grave problems.  AMS owes some $200 million to various publishers, starting with Random House at $43 million.  AMS is in financial trouble.  Their banker Well Fargo declined to continue bank funding.  So AMS declared bankruptcy on December 29.  This has had a ripple effect.  PGW is not permitted to pay its publishing partners this January for the last quarter sales, including the highly profitable sellup to Christmas.  So, each publisher needs to make a plan for its own funding, and royalty payments to its authors etc, if it is to survive while these matters are thrashed out in the courts.  There is no guarantee that the publishers will get paid for the final quarter 2006.  Some of the publishers may be forced out of business.  This would be a tragic event and would greatly impact consumers who  love the books of these companies.  The travel writers who develop these books would see their publishing opportunities shattered.  It is unclear how all this will develop in the coming weeks.  Google "bankruptcy AMS" to keep informed.  One publishing blog following events carefully is www.edrants.com.   

Lee's Book Wins Award

My recent travel literary book has won an award.  The book is Travels in an American Imagination: The Spiritual Geography of Our Time.  It is about my sense that we live in both the most wondrous and the most horrific time ever to be alive.  The book looks at 25 places in my travels as jumping off points for observations on the spiritual geography of our time.  The award has come from a group called BAIPA, or the Bay Area Independent Publishers Association.  They have an annual book awards event.  My book won in the Best Travel Commentary Book category for 2006.  You can see a full press release for the book on my website.  The book is available on my website, on Amazon, and in bookstores through Baker & Taylor.  I am quietly at work now on two new travel guidebooks to Northern California.  These will be special books, culminating 30 years of observations on the best in Northern CA.  They will take about three years to compete.  Stay tuned.

Air Flight Delays

Over the New Year I had an opportunity to experience just how vulnerable airline travel is to the weather.  I flew from Oakland CA to Washington DC to enjoy friends, family, and the city of Washington DC.  The flight is usually about six hours.
However, my flight was about 30 hours.  And it was ONLY that long because I was lucky.  Here is the tale.
I left my house in Oakland  about 9 am and rolled my suitcase down to the BART train and caught the train to the Oakland Airport.  This is a convenient way to go.  At the Oakland Airport I was ready to fly about 1 pm, but the flight was delayed an hour because of storms in Dallas.  By 2 pm I was on the plane, on the tarmac.  By 3 pm I was still on the plane on the tarmac.  Then the storm in Dallas was upgraded to a tornado.  All flights were canceled by American from Oakland to Dallas and points east.
As I shuttled off the plane, I realize in this new era that I was ON MY OWN.  No meal vouchers, no hotel, no nothing.  I was given a piece of copy paper with an 800#.  When American shuts down its Dallas operation, a piece of paper with an 800# is a cruel joke.  You will never get through.  So, I collected my luggage and went to check in.
By now it was about 5 pm.  It appeared there was an American red eye out of San Francisco at 11 pm, arriving Boston about 7 am, then a flight  8:15 am or 10 am from Boston down to Washington DC.  I took it.  I got on the BART again and did a leisurely ride over to San Francisco Airport.  It was good that I had plenty of time.  The lines were long for the check in to confirm the ticket.  About two hours later I had ticket in hand.  American was overwhelmed.  Travelers were weary.
The 11 pm flight was delayed a little, which made the Boston connection chancy.  I arrived at the Boston gate at 8:20 am and the door to the airplane had just closed.  I watched the airplane taxi out.  Oh well, I would fly down to Washington at 10 a.m.   By 10 am, however, my flight to Washington was in peril.  Fog had socked in the Washington airport.  By 11 am there was still uncertainty.  I had been up and en route about 26 hours at this point.
Then a truly sad thing occurred.  An adjacent door to the jet ways opened and all the 8:15 people came into the terminal.  They had been sitting in the airplane out on the tarmac since 8:15, about three hours.  As the fog issue built, they could not fly.  So they started to check in for future flights, of which there weren't many.  The planes were small American Eagle planes, with just a few seats.  Now, if  my 10 a.m.  flight was canceled, all the 8:15 people would be ahead of me.  Maybe I should just get a hotel in Boston for a couple of days.
But my flight was not canceled.  At noon I took off, passing all the 8:15 people milling around in the terminal area.  I was lucky.  They were not.  I doubted they got out of Boston that day.  I was reminded how vulnerable we are as travelers to the whims of storms, tornadoes, snow, and fog.  I considered myself fortunate that I got from Oakland, CA to Washington DC in only thirty hours.
When I get to Washington, the city has much to offer, at any time of the year  I particularly have enjoy it in the Spring during the Cherry Blossom festival.  See my coverage on that.