From the moment word of Alan
Fredericks death started spreading, the editors at Travel Weekly
were deluged with tributes from readers and former colleagues. From
home-based agents to CEOs of international corporations, readers
acted on the urge to share their personal thoughts about how Alan
had affected their lives, their careers and their view of
travel. Some knew him well.
Others had met him but once. Many were acquainted with him only
through his columns. Those of us who carry on the legacy of
journalistic excellence Alan established over four decades thought
it appropriate to share a portion of these letters with our readers
as a final tribute.
The Phil
Donahue of travel
Although I didnt know Alan nearly as
intimately as the people who worked with him, I knew him casually
for a long time and had a tremendous amount of admiration for him.
He was always genuine -- and one of those people you think will
always be around. He is definitely part of my history in travel.
And I do remember what a great moderator he was -- I used to think
of him as the Phil Donahue of travel.
Linda
Kundell
Kundell
Communications
A grounded
perspective
Throughout my career, from Pan Am to Altair
to Sheraton and Best Western and now as chairman of ISM, I have
relied on Travel Weekly to stay abreast of the industry and, in
particular, always found Alan Fredericks perspective on the
industry and life in general to be very grounded. Although I didnt
know him well personally, I felt as if I did from his
stories.
Bill
Watson
Chairman,
ISM
He wrote from
the heart
I
never met Alan, but I loved his articles in Travel Weekly. The
first thing I would do was turn to the back of the paper to read
what Alan had to say this week. I have been in the travel industry
for more than 25 years and cannot remember how long ago I
discovered Alan. He wrote from the heart ... and I could always
trust he considered all sides of the equation when writing about
many tough subjects.
I will miss his
thoughts and opinions in TW. He touched so many lives of people he
never met in person.
Mary M.
Jones
Manager, Automobile
Club of N.Y.
An
extraordinary leader in our industry
Though
I never really knew Alan -- we had met only few times at ASTA
conferences and once at Pebble Beach -- I knew him as an
extraordinary leader in our industry. We in the industry will miss
his presence. He, like many of his generation, the Greatest
Generation, will have passed on but have left a legacy to carry on.
Our travel industry depends on storytellers like Alan to
communicate, not only to ourselves, but more importantly, the
public at large.
Sho
Dozono
Azumano
Travel
Always a
gentleman
I,
like so many others I am sure, have some very wonderful personal
and warm memories of Alan. Always a gentleman and always with a
quiet and subtle way about him. It was always nice to bump into him
at an industry event or function. He had a truly genuine,
what-is-best-about-people quality about him. Thank you for putting
together such a nice string of snapshots of him.
Michael F.
Stone
CEO, Travel
Sciences
A true
professional
Over
the years, Alan was a travel journalist I always respected. He,
like Peter Jennings, was a true professional, and he will be
greatly missed.
Joseph A.
Watters
Chairman, Oceania
Cruises
So much
fortitude
Alan
had so much fortitude to keep writing his column in spite of the
cancer. It must have been so difficult for him these past many,
many months. I only hope that the inspiration to focus on what he
loved, sharing his insights on the world of travel, gave him
something positive to balance his diminishing health.
A loss for all of us.
Hes out of his pain now, and if there is a travel heaven, he
certainly will be there.
Roberta
Rinker-Ludloff
Conrad
Hotels
Paving the
way
I just
signed up to receive Travel Weekly and was saddened that my very
first issue was about the death of one of your
cornerstones.
Perhaps, in some small
way, my signing on gives way to a new era that Alan Fredericks
paved during his tenure with Travel Weekly.
J. Gray
Smith
TicketBudget.com
An
extraordinary editor
All of
the team here at Traveltrade Australia were deeply saddened to hear
of the passing of Travel Weeklys editor at large and former
longtime editor in chief, Alan Fredericks.
Alan was an
extraordinary journalist and editor, renowned for his fairness and
even-handed approach. He was well known to the Australian travel
industry and will be missed by many for his friendship, integrity
and the role he so expertly played in shaping travel trade
publications as an essential part of the travel
industry.
Michael Woolley
and David Carroll
Traveltrade
Australia
Almost
impossible to replace
I was
saddened to hear of the death of Alan. He was always the perfect
gentleman and one of the champions of travel agents. His columns in
each issue were always to the point and pertinent to what was going
on in the industry. I will always remember him each morning on
television at the ASTA World Congresses. He will be missed and
almost impossible to replace.
Barbara
Colombo
President,
Travelogue
A welcoming
friend and fierce rival
Alan
Fredericks was both a welcoming friend and fierce rival for me when
I took the editorial helm of Travel Agent magazine in 1974. He was
equally warm -- and very funny -- when I arrived, a wide-eyed
immigrant, to join Travel Management Daily from the U.K. in 1970.
He was always pithy in his writing, generous in his advice and
grand company from Madrid to Mexico City. I shall certainly miss
him. I am sure I will not be alone.
Chris
Lockwood
Former executive
editor, Travel Agent
A prince of a
guy
Alan
Fredericks was a prince of a guy and represented the very best of
the travel industry.
Joan Bloom and
Joan Brower
M Booth &
Associates
A lot of
friends in French tourism
We at
Maison de la France/French Government Tourist Office are very sad
about the death of Mr. Fredericks. He had a lot of friends among
us, [beginning] six years ago when I took my new
position.
Frederic
Meyer
Deputy director,
Maison de la France USA
Unmatched
interpersonal skills
As a
member of the travel press who knew and often worked around Alan at
industry press events for 20 years, I will leave for others to
describe his well-earned career accolades. I just wanted to say
that Alan was a great professional with unmatched interpersonal
skills.
He treated myself and
everyone I knew in the press corps and throughout the industry with
unwavering personal respect, honesty and great humor. It was not
always easy to see him as a competing journalist. He was simply a
fine person to be around whether conditions were light-hearted or
deadline pressure was at hand.
Alans skill at the
microphone before industry audiences was enviable, and I much
enjoyed some Sunday evenings hearing him guest host rock n roll
radio sessions on CBS-FM. It often struck me that the radio
industrys loss of Alan had been the travel industrys good fortune.
Alans observant wit, clarity of voice and concern for the good of
the industry will be greatly missed. I hope young people in travel
will look to his career as worthy of emulation. Weve all lost a
good friend.
John
Stone
News editor, Travel
Trade
Alan played
anthems of a generation
I
expect that Im one of the few people in the travel industry who
actually listened to Alans Night Train show. I was born and raised
in and around New York; in the late 50s and early 60s, I was deep
into my teens, and Alan played the anthems of my generation. I was
a devoted listener of Night Train.
It wasnt until sometime
in the mid-1970s when the revelation came that the influential
travel journalist Alan Fredericks of Travel Weekly was also the
Night Train Alan Fredericks, the guy whom I relied on for Saturday
night background music in my 1954 Mercury Mercruiser. Some years
later, I was privileged to have Alan accept my invitation to be the
emcee at my CLIA testimonial dinner in Miami. It is a wonderful
part of my personal circle of life.
Rod
McLeod
Former executive
vice president, Royal Caribbean
A pioneer,
visionary and great guy
What a
pioneer, visionary and great guy who contributed so much to our
industry. What a loss. My heart goes out to his family and the
Travel Weekly family.
Charlie
Kao
Publisher,
TravelMole
The E.F. Hutton
of travel journalists
I knew
Alan for some time, having worked for [former Travel Weekly owner
Reed Elsevier Publishing] from 1989 to 1996. He was one class act,
and his expert grasp of virtually everything he did made Alan the
antithesis of the saying jack of all trades, master of
none.
In fact, he did much
and yet mastered everything he did, and that mastery never showed
more than in his communication skills. He was the E.F. Hutton of
travel journalism -- when Alan spoke, people listened, as they knew
they were hearing something beyond just the usual opinionated
blather. Alans ability to make his points in an educated, eloquent
and often acerbically wry way set him apart from all others every
day.
Although I did not see
Alan much in recent years, his passing leaves an empty place in our
hearts and minds and stills a voice which, more than ever, needs to
be heard. I, for one, will certainly miss him.
Bill
Silvermintz
Barbados
Tourism Authority
The consummate
pro
I
competed with Alan when I was editor of Business Travel News and
Tour & Travel News. It was always great running into him on the
travel beat.
He was a true
gentleman. The consummate pro. He was the absolute
master.
Jim
Alkon
Group publisher,
Questex Beauty Group
The best in the
business
Alan
was the genuine article. I had a wonderful lunch with him one day
in Secaucus, N.J. I will remember that conversation forever. He was
so funny and respectful and interesting.
He told me he
remembered me very well as a reporter. He said he was annoyed by
and impressed with me. What a compliment that was, coming from the
best in the business. We were competitors, but I was always in awe
of his accomplishments and his abilities.
Mary Pat
Sullivan
Travel
publishing/marketing consultant
Warm, caring,
tough, honest
We all
knew Alan was ill, not that he would ever really complain. Alan and
I had known each other for about 15 years, and he was a source of
great information during my years as owner of Zeus
Tours.
However, it was during
our Executive CTC class that he and I got to know one another much
better. In that week, we were holed up in a hotel in Texas,
studying and taking tests and presenting our papers. The entire
time he made everyone laugh with stories of his world travels and
stories of the old days in travel.
Alan was a warm,
caring, tough, honest person with a great knack for telling it like
it is. The entire travel industry will miss him.
John T.
Peters
Managing partner,
AmeriMarket
The industrys
favorite uncle
As I
look back at nearly 30 years in the travel business, Alan
Fredericks has always been there with wise counsel that applied
whether I was on the wholesale or retail side -- airline, tour operator or retailer.
He was a consistent,
energetic voice for the industry and a calming voice when the
shudder of terrorism, bankruptcy and changing market realities
impacted it. I met and spoke with Alan on several occasions and
agree with the perception of [Northstar Travel Media CEO] George
Hundley that Alan was a renaissance man.
He was the favorite
uncle of so many of us in travel. We loved reading his comments in
every Travel Weekly issue in which he appeared. And, of course, he
knew all the lyrics to The Fleetwoods greatest hits.
Tom
Rockne
President,
Passageways
Carlson Wagonlit
Travel
Focused on the
positive
Alan
Fredericks meant many things to all of us who knew him in this
wonderful place we call the travel industry. His advice, counsel
and encouragement always meant a great deal to me and to all of us
who work in this business.
Alan was a journalist
who focused on the positive, looked to celebrate the industry and
let the world know how important it was in the greater scheme of
things. He didnt cotton to those in our business who whined about
how tough it was; he simply couldnt understand people who didnt
realize how lucky they were to be in the most exciting industry in
the world.
He was not what I like
to call a Watergate-era journalist who looked for dirt and
conspiracy or for who he could take down. He was about promoting
travel as something that helped bring peace to peoples personal
lives, families and the disparate cultures of our planet. I shall
miss our annual discussions at this time of the year about how my
Red Sox will ultimately embarrass his Yankees. Being a fellow lover
of baseball and the travel industry, I will miss my friend, and
this industry will miss one of its most gracious
ambassadors.
Bill
Connors
Executive Director
and COO
National Business
Travel Association