Happy New Year’s bloggers! Here at Global Traveler, we are gearing up for our annual awards luncheon held at the Jumeirah Essex House. Well over 325 professionals from the travel industry will be attending, many flying in from around the globe. This will be the 18th such event that I have hosted over the past 20 years that I have been in the business and luxury travel publishing business. Thirteen of the lunches were held at the Plaza Hotel, one at the Waldorf=Astoria, one at the Grand Hyatt New York, one at the Hudson Theater at the Millennium Broadway and this will be the second at the Jumeirah Essex House in their Grand Ballroom. We always have a guest of honor to speak and help us present the awards and we have been working exclusively with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society to collect donations which we then auction off to you, our readers. Our goal this year is to raise $100,000 for LLS. Please log onto www.globaltravelerusa.com/auction in February 2008. This year our speaker is Ivana Trump and the funny thing is, Ivana was the first speaker I had at the Plaza nearly 20 years ago. At that time, she was the president of the Plaza and she and “The Donald” had just renovated the hotel with 18 K gold gilding and new Persian rugs throughout the public areas. In the past years we have had an interesting collection of speakers. Terry Waite spoke twice and was of such interest you could hear a pin drop. Christie Brinkley was wonderful and just as beautiful as she looks in pictures whereas Sarah Jessica Parker was well over an hour late and dressed like she was going to clean out her garage rather than attend a charity event. A high point was astronaut Buzz Aldrin who was explaining his lunar mission and his wife Lois telling him to cut his presentation short! The late George Plimpton spoke in the 90s as did Diana Rigg, Richard Chamberlain, Ken Follett and Ely Callaway. Boorish Robin Leach tried and failed to bully me away from the podium and Donald Trump almost left one year (he attended many times when they owned the Plaza) when he arrived late and I moved him around in the schedule. Joan Collins was a real handful, everything you would expect from a Hollywood “star.” We offered her a limousine for her airport transfers and she took it upon herself to take the car for 24 hours of shopping and dining in NYC at our expense. We made her pay the extra hours and I must tell you it is fun to have Joan Collins hang up on you! The late Janet Leigh is another story, beautiful, gracious, unassuming, friendly and polite. She was an example of what Hollywood used to produce from their contract actresses. So, wish us and the winners luck! I hope all our readers have a prosperous new year! -Fran Gallagher, publisher and CEO