Strong dollar lures Americans to Europe
If you’ve been thinking about visiting Europe, but haven’t wanted to pay top dollar, now is a pretty good time to take out your wallet. With the dollar creeping up on the euro, American tourists are modifying their summer itineraries.
University of Texas-Austin student Neena Malhotra is taking advantage of the weaker euro. She’s planning on traveling to Germany, Switzerland, Italy, France and Spain.
The price of everything from paella to train tickets has dropped, “and when looking at the prices to determine whether it is a good idea or not,” she says, “it seemed more feasible than it had another time we had tried to do it.”
According to TripAdvisor, the average nightly rate for a European hotel this summer is $133. That’s compared to $164 last year. And the average cost of a one-week European trip has dropped by 11 percent.
Kathryn O’Kane of Brooklyn had budgeted a little over $200 for a night in Madrid and Basque Country.
“We were pleasantly surprised to find hotels about $100 a night,” she says.
And with the extra pocket money, O’Kane says her family will be able to do a lot more shopping, and take advantage of opportunities to see Spanish Guitar or Flamenco. That will no doubt please a lot of local businesses in Europe. The dollar’s surge will also benefit travel agencies and tour companies. “We’re having a very good year to Europe,” says Paul Wiseman, President of Trafalgar Guided Vacations. “We’re seeing double digit growth in Italy and Great Britain and I’m sure that’s on the back of a very strong U.S. dollar.”
But is a 90 cent cheaper café au lait enough to tempt people to go to Paris instead of Mexico? No, according to Paula Serrano, a travel agent in the city of Paris, Texas. “I sell more Mexico than anything.”
After all, in Cancun a dollar gets you not just one, but fifteen pesos.
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