After the recent chopping of magazines like Gourmet, it's safe to say that print media is beyond shaking in their boots; they're already cleaning out desks. The latest magazine closure scare came at Budget Travel, formerly under Arthur Frommer's wing but now controlled by the Washington Post Co.

On Friday, rumors began that the magazine would announce its closure on Monday (today). NY Mag reached Editor-In-Chief Nina Willdorf for comments only to receive a cryptic "heading out town"-type response.

Instead of closing today, it was only reported that "it's business as usual," but execs did hold a meeting to discuss the future of the magazine. Although it looks like no one lost their jobs today, employees in ad sales were told to hold on the February issues. Will the scythe of death fall on Budget Travel in January 2010, or—even worse—around the holidays? Rest assured that we'll continue to follow this story.

Related Stories:
· Magazine Deathwatch: Budget Travel [Mediabistro]
· Budget Travel Shuttering? [NYMag]
· Travel Magazines [Jaunted]

[Photo: Kenn Wilson]]]> JetSetCD 2009-11-16T17:34:38-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/10/16/91217/873

Last night in New York (the unfriendliest city in the nation, according to results), Condé Nast Traveler held the awards reception for their 2009 Readers Choice Awards, hosted by Stanley Tucci and Mary Louise Parker and seeing big wigs like Richard Branson and David Cush (of Virgin America) in attendance.

This year, 25,000 of CN Traveler's readers voted for their favorites in such categories as best cruise line, best Asian city, and even top car rental agencies. While with some winners, we wonder how they even got on the ballot (Capri is one of the best European islands? Maybe 20 years ago), we absolutely saw no competition for some of the winners (Singapore Airlines took tops in international airlines again}.

While reading the winners after the jump, keep in mind that Traveler's demographic skews a bit older and affluent, so seeing the Hotel du Palais in Biarritz take Top European Resort even though it feels like no one's been there in eighty years is not so surprising, as is the fact that the Four Seasons positively cleaned up in some hotel categories. ]]> JetSetCD 2009-10-16T09:50:58-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/5/12/53539/3270

Do you still enjoy the feel of a glossy mag when it comes to feeding your travel daydreams? One of our favorite airlines, Cathay Pacific, obviously agrees because they've set up a partnership with Travel + Leisure. The tempting deal, to throw in a free one-year subscription to T+L for every traveler who books a flight online through Cathay Pacific's US website, is like getting a gift with purchase.

Now we're definitely fans of Cathay, and sure don't mind T&L either, but we're not 100% sure that a free mag would be a deciding factor for making an airline booking these days. The fine print states that the deal gives you 12 issues of T+L valued at $12 each, so that's $144.

In the meantime we're thinking, hey—there's a financial crisis going on here, wouldn't we like to pocket at least a hundred bucks of that instead, and just get our travel tips and info online?

Anyhow, if you find yourself having to book a ticket anyways, then be sure to book before June 20 for the subscription deal. Unfortunately it's only available for those in the United States or Canada, not to mention that the flight you book must depart from this hemisphere too.

Related Stories:
· Travel + Leisure Coverage [Jaunted]
· Cathay Pacific Coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: superciliousness] ]]> amandak 2009-05-12T12:16:53-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2006/8/25/9744/62675

Reverse media spin-off! ShermansTravel, one of the many travel deal aggregators on the web, has just launched a dead tree version of their site. Called Sherman's Travel (oh, the Old Media and their emphasis on punctuation), the magazine is meant to compete with Budget Travel. No word yet on what the circulation is meant to be, although the newsletter is sent to over 3.5 million subscribers.

We always wish new travel magazines the best of luck, but it's a difficult niche of a difficult industry. Overhead is higher than most, and even the fact-checking process can take extra time and is more involved than verifying what Beyoncé wore to the photo shoot. Mr. Sherman, of the web site and magazine, said that they hope to be the go-to place for "luxury value". We love the idea of such a thing; let's hope that the term doesn't become an oxymoron anytime soon.

Related Stories:
·   Travel Site Plans Spin-Off [NYT]]]> AVB 2006-08-25T10:00:01-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2006/7/25/234453/251
The cover of Wallpaper's annual Design Directory is a bit of a mess: one or another version of pop art meets some kind of bad "cyber" art circa 1996. What's the aim here?

Happily, the cover doesn't direct the book. Possibly the most surprising item is Eva Hagberg's on the modernist gems strewn around Columbus, Indiana. Columbus, it turns out, can claim amazing buildings designed by the Saarinens, Deborah Berke, and I.M. Pei, among others.

Yet possibly even more surprising than an ode to a town in Indiana is Warren Singh Bartlett's "Trip" feature on Riyadh and Jeddah, and not only because tourism to Saudi Arabia is, as yet, close to nonexistent for non-Muslims. The feature functions more as a sociology of contemporary Saudi Arabia than as a travel primer. We learn, for example, that Bluetooth is a key flirting technology, which makes the Kingdom seem considerably less exotic to anyone who's spent time watching television advertisements in, say, Germany.

Also in the August issue: some gorgeous California houses by Ray Kappe, Neon phones designed by Naoto Fukasawa, South American fashion designers, a tribute to barely trafficked Gander International Airport, and a dossier on the biggest names in Italian design. ]]> artextor 2006-07-26T09:55:01-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2006/7/25/93151/2847

What happens when tourism and politics are out of alignment? Beirut is what happens. Sure, it was one of Travel and Leisure's top ten cities to visit this year in the most recent issue of the magazine, but that's already outdated, thanks to the bombing that's taken place. An article in this week's New York talks with Ramsay Short, the editor of the months-old Time Out Beirut.

Understandably, he's quite sad about the recent turn of events, although he felt that Americans saw the city in the same way they did in the 80s. Mostly, though, there's a real sense of what has already been lost, no matter how Beirut may recover:

"Time Out is a magazine about arts and culture," Ramsay Short says. "But everything has been canceled and half my staff have left the country." Last year, he published A Hedonist's Guide to Beirut. "Maybe sales will go up," he says. "It'll almost be a collector's item of what was this high point, what now seems like a dream."