BRITISH TOURISTS ON CONTINENT

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 26970, 20 February 1953, Page 11

BRITISH TOURISTS ON CONTINENT

Currency Smuggling General ‘STRETCHING’ ALLOWANCE OF £25 (From the London Correspondent of “The Press”) LONDON, January 28. British people who can afford to escape from the unrelieved greyness of an English winter to the sun on the Continent are expert currency smugglers. That is the impression gained by one reporter after a brief tfip to Austria this month. Even with return rail, boat or air fares payable in England, the sterling travelling allowance of £25 does not go far even at modest hotels, yet some travellers manage to stay as long as three weeks in first-class hotels on their “allowance.” The lengthy stay is usually paid for by a reserve of English money smuggled out of Britain. A large proportion of British visitors at one Austrian winter sports resort this months admitted- that smuggling was the only way they-could have a holiday abroad. Although travellers are allowed by the Treasury to take out £5 in English banknotes in addition to their £25 allowance there were only a few “innocents” who had kept strictly to the currency regulations. The rest had taken a chance and smuggled out extra money. Experienced travellers declare their £5 in notes and place them in their v/allets or purses in case they are asked by the Customs to show their 'money while their reserve stock of banknotes- is placed in shoes, fob pockets and other favoured hiding places. In the case of a thorough personal Customs search this smuggling would * soon be discovered but it is rare for searches to be made of holiday-makers leaving England. Customs and Treasury officials are not blind to the smalltime smuggling of currency going on but they are far more interested in the large-scale currency evaders who frequent the “plushier” resorts in the south of France and Switzerland. There, “im-port-export” agents will oblige British travellers with local currency

at a heavy discount against cheques on British banks. This dealing is illegal and the Treasury has recently sent teams of investigators to some of the more expensive resorts to check on British visitors’ spending there. One class of people who can usually manage to spend extended holidays on the Continent without breaking the currency regulations are prominent personalities and titled people. Many Continental hotels extend free hospitality to prominent people for their publicity value. Hospitality by friends living on the Continent is another means of stretching the £25 allowance a long way.