Awards, awards, awards — and it’s all my fault! For 25 years, I have been asking readers of my various magazines to select the Best in Travel. When I first started the survey, awards were only presented by my former magazine and Conde Nast Traveler. Oh, how this has changed! I left that magazine (as you know) over five years ago, and I have never regretted it. I started asking the readers of Global Traveler who they felt was the best in the business, and we have now been running the survey for five years. Since we launched, my previous magazine went under and relaunched, in the process re-starting their awards. Another publication decided the awards were a moneymaker and started their own awards. However, something funny has happened over the last five years. With the exception of Global Traveler, all the other awards seem to go only to advertisers — coincidence? I am proud that we have over 31,000 of our loyal readers respond to our survey. I am equally proud that both travel accounts that run ads with us and those who do not run ads win awards. Neither Hertz nor Avis has ever run an advertisement with Global Traveler, and they have both won several years. Air France has run one single ad in five years, and they have won for four. I had one airline that promised me that they would run in every issue of Global Traveler if they won an award — they have not won, and they do not advertise. It saddens me to see that so many magazines are willing to throw their reputations out the window. It is worse that so many advertisers know this and still take pride in the awards that have been given to them but were not voted upon. We are coming off of our awards presentation, which we hosted just last week. It was an honor for me to tell the world what you think and not what I or anyone else thinks! -Fran Gallagher, publisher and CEO