Longtime South End resident Robert “Bob” Weiss passed away on January 15 at age 90.
Weiss was an icon in the local and national travel and hospitality industries as publisher of The Boston Airport Journal and three other publications. For over two decades, he also was a regular travel commentator for WBZ radio.
“When Bob spoke, people listened,” noted Boston Guardian publisher David Jacobs who knew Weiss for almost 25 years. “When he was silent, people worried.”
“Weiss knew all the players. He would attend meetings of government agencies no one else knew existed and would be ruthless but objective in his coverage.”
Boston Duck Tours founder Cindy Brown noted that “Bob Weiss was arguably the first journalist to follow and promote Duck Tours in our early years before we became a staple in the city’s tourism industry.”
Robin Brown who was General Manager of the Four Seasons Hotel before helping develop the Mandarin and Omni Seaport Hotels, used travel metaphors in describing Weiss.
“Bob was an imposing personality who seemed to ‘fly-in’ and ‘fly-out’ of locations as if he himself, was navigated by Logan Airport. Bob always greeted one with a genuine interest in their well-being, but quickly found a way to ‘land’ on an important question regarding the broader impacts of tourism throughout our great Commonwealth. He had a way of ‘connecting’ transportation with legislation and accommodation with entertainment. He carried “no baggage’, only a handful of complimentary newspapers. He always checked-in and has now, checkedout, leaving us with an everlasting memory preserved by a ‘do not disturb’ tag swinging on a door.
Weiss graduated from Milton Academy and Harvard where he became the Harvard sports correspondent for the former Boston Herald American.
He is survived by his wife Joyce, four children, nine grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
