Travel secrets
MICHAEL MIKLOFSKY
Staff Writer
While frequent business travelers say they live their lives out of a suitcase, Peter Greenberg makes it his business to travel.
Greenberg is a one-man travel advisory agency.
Be aware, says the travel expert, "if you don't understand the process, you'll be abused by the product. If you do understand the process, you can even understand the product and enjoy yourself."
The Jewish News caught up with Greenberg by phone in Ocean Beach, Calif. He was in between filming a Travel Channel special with California's first lady Maria Shriver and a book talk at Newport Public Library.
Greenberg may be best known as the travel editor for NBC's Today Show, or as the Travel Channel's chief correspondent. He is a regular guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show, a former travel correspondent for ABC's Good Morning America, and is a guest on various other television and radio programs.
In his latest book, "Hotel Secrets from The Travel Detective" (Villard, $14.95 paperback), Greenberg gives readers tips on how to learn the games travel service providers play and come out with the best value for their money. He will discuss his book Monday, Nov. 8, at the Valley of the Sun Jewish Community Center Book Fair.
He says his earliest hotel memory is from his days growing up in Manhattan.
"My mother would take me to The Plaza (Hotel) and then tell me I couldn't touch anything," Greenberg says. "It was a very special occasion to go."
Regular Greenberg family trips took them from New York to Florida and California, which "was always a shlep."
"We embodied the original 'planes, trains and automobiles' approach to travel," he says. "We always ended up being victimized somewhere, but it was part of that experience and I look back at it with great fondness."
As a correspondent for Newsweek, Greenberg was always on the road with a suitcase in the trunk of his car, traveling to cover an event.
"It dawned on me from a very early period that nobody was covering travel as news," he says. "They were covering it as pretty pictures or couples walking hand-in-hand on the beach at sunset. I thought that was useless information. I thought it was overly promotional and not very helpful.
"The bottom line is travel is news. It is the largest industry in the world, it employs the most number of people, it is singularly responsible for the (gross domestic product) of more than 93 countries."
In "Hotel Secrets," he writes, "for many of us, the destination is incidental to the experience."
It is that experience Greenberg hopes to improve for people by providing them with behind-the-scenes information.
"The biggest blunder people make when they book a hotel is they forget a very important two-word concept - it's called 'human beings,'" he told Jewish News. "They think the Internet's their friend. The Internet is a friend; it is not the tool. The Internet does not think creatively, it thinks linearly. Why wouldn't you just pick up the phone and talk to a human being?"
This bit of knowledge paid off for him when he recently called to book a room at the Sheraton Hotel in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. An Internet search found the room for a one-night stay to be $159. He made a collect call that cost 88 cents, talked to the manager and received a price of $109.
"I didn't take the so-called 'easy way out' by using the Internet. You should never take a 'no' from somebody who's not in power to give you a 'yes' in the first place."
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