Condé Nast Traveler‘s long-time consumer Consumer editor Wendy Perrin wrote about the launch party for her new endeavor, at WendyPerrin.com.
She’s taken a position at TripAdvisor as ‘Travel Advocate’ and is also launching her own travel site, and I was able to hop up to New York on Friday afternoon to join the festivities.
The Andaz 5th Avenue (regular readers know, my all-around favorite Manhattan hotel) and Singapore Airlines’ James Boyd hosted the event.
Now, I’ll admit that part of the attraction was that the event was held at the Andaz. There are a lot of suites at this hotel, and I’ve had good luck on short one-night stays being upgraded to a suite. I know that when the property first opened there were frustrated Diamonds not getting great upgrades, so the previous general manager started pre-blocking Diamond members into two-category upgrades as a matter of course. (I’m not certain the current procedure.)
I did get assigned into one of the really small suites, but it’s one of my favorites on the 11th floor as it comes with a balcony.
The Andaz 5th Avenue also, of course, means complimentary room service breakfast as a Gold Passport Diamond member. And that means I get my lemon poppyseed pancakes.
I made it to New York just for this evening, to show support for Wendy. So I turned up right at the start of things on the second floor in the space designated “Apartment 2E.”
My best guess is that there were 40 people in attendance, including former Condé Nast Traveler editor-in-chief Klara Glowczewska, who is launching Town & Country‘s new travel magazine; George Hobica; the AP‘s Scott Mayerowitz, and Arnie Weissmann, editor of Travel Weekly.
Now, here’s the difference between a good photo (that I stole off of Wendy’s Facebook page)..
.. and one that I snap myself.
Wendy is one of the really great people in travel, who cares deeply about the advice that she gives and about connecting with readers and helping them to make the most of their travel dollar. I don’t think I’ve known anyone else as genuine, so I wish her all of the best. So please consider visiting her new site.
- You can join the 40,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. You can also follow me on Twitter for the latest deals. Don’t miss out!
I’ve been enjoying her new site since launch! Excited to read more Wendy. Her column was one of my favorites in CNTraveler and I have definitely missed it, so glad I can get more of her insights elsewhere now.
I’m jealous you got to be there Gary, I miss hanging out with you AND Wendy and love both of your sites!
Nice site. Will add it to my favorite list. Thank you for sharing
Gary, I love that room on 11
Ombudsman, Perrin Report and Where Are You – used to read them religiously every month. Have signed up – Ty for the heads up.
Both Wendy and Trip Advisor will benefit from her contributions. It addresses an entire generation which older school travel publications never really connected with and so are watching their readership literally die off. I was brought up on its reviews from backpacker to part time Europe resident. They also know how to treat people and encourage contributors with just the right amount of push and tasteful swag.
There is no substitute for Wendy’s sage advice. I miss her feature pieces and will follow her anywhere to find them. I’m looking forward to watching the new site unfold!