With the economy and the state of the airline industry in flux, you might wonder how Global Traveler is doing. The magazine industry is a very competitive field and, of course, like each segment within this industry, we have direct competitors. What prides me about Global Traveler is our will and desire to do things the right way. Within our niche, we are the only ABC audited magazine and we have been audited since day one, approaching five years. Others in our category have chosen a lesser auditing board (BPA) and only went to them when our relentless sales efforts pointed out that these publications were not audited. Now that they have become audited, they both have not completed their audits for 2007. You might find it interesting that magazines submit Audit Statements (often called Publisher’s Statements) and then these are followed up with Confirmed Audits (Actual Audits). The Audit Statement is simply what a publisher says the circulation is, rather than the Confirmed Audit, which is just as it sounds – a bean counter from the auditing board pulls apart all your records and cross checks them for accuracy. Subscription cards, printing bills, paper bills, postage and shipping reports and other documents are reviewed by the auditing board. It might surprise you that Audit Statements may differ greatly from Confirmed Audits (99.99% of the Audit Statements are higher). There is a right way and a wrong way – and your team at Global Traveler always chooses the right way. We also work closely with MediaMark Research (MRI), an independent market research firm, who takes our subscription file and mails out independent demographic studies so that we can learn more about you. Again, our competitors don’t think this expense is worthy – we disagree. So, how is Global Traveler doing? Very well, especially in these turbulent times. Our September issue, with our annual Business and First Class Survey, is unprecedented in this category. Of course, others copy this format, but they never go to the length we do to survey the airlines (all of them!). Kim Krol and her team of interns did a fantastic job, and yours truly wrote the introduction as “this is a category you know” says Lisa Matte, GT‘s editor-in-chief. This is truly a team effort, in sales, circulation, promotion and editorial. John Wroblewski has done a marvelous job with our circulation push, helping us exceed our 100,000 copy mark. We wanted to do this without diluting our audience of frequent business and luxury travelers (31% fly first class, 64% business class – MRI). Our editorial team continues to astound me with their destinations from around the globe to your back door and our production and design is so much better than others in this category, it is staggering. And have I mentioned that we are the only publication in our niche which is monthly? It is just our commitment to bringing you the data and articles you crave every month. So, how are we doing? Our September issue has exceeded revenue projections by 30%. These projections for 2008 were agressive and in this market, it is very impressive to grow by double digits. So maybe taking the high road, following the proper guidelines and accurately reporting circulation does mean something. It does to me, our staff and most of all to you – our loyal readers and friends. -Fran Gallagher, publisher and CEO