Auck. among cheapest cities for businessmen

Press, 7 August 1981, Page 18

Auck. among cheapest cities for businessmen

NZPA correspondent London

Auckland has been rated as the world's thirteenth least expensive city for a businessman to visit, according to the latest “Financial Times” survey of business travel costs.

The- survey takes in 68 countries, and puts Auckland in the bottom quarter for expenses. Other cities which share a rating similar to Auckland are Budapest, Salisbury, and Dar es Salaam.

London has been displaced as the world's most expensive city. This slot has been taken over by Bridgetown. Barbados; Abu Dhabi. Paris. Chicago. and New York are next.

At the bottom of the scale is Peking, the world's least expensive city. Nicosia. Rabat. Belgrade, and Dacca also rate low on the scale. The index is based on three nights bed and breakfast in a first-class hotel, three snack meals (omelettes and salads), two set menu dinners in the hotel, a dinner in a first-class restaurant, three bottles of house wine, three beers, six whiskies, and six skm taxi rides. In Auckland, the costs were: bed and breakfast, $67.43; hotel dinner set menu. $17.43; house wine. $4.43; restaurant dinner, $22.70; snack, $3.46; whisky, $1.26: beer, $1.12; skm taxi ride. $4.14.

Compare this with bed and breakfast in Bridgetown. $180.18: Paris. $134.66; or even London $105.57.

The “Financial Times" admits that a traveller can stay relatively cheaply in Paris, eat for very little in Chicago, and avoid expensive drinks in Caracas. Venezuela (one whisky. $5.80).

But it assumes that business travellers rarely have time to seek out these “bargains." It says researchers sought

out hotels most likely to be used by visiting foreign business people. “In some cities this clearly means the best hotel in town. In others the hotels we chose may not be the de luxe establishments, nor yet those used by the package tour trade. In some resort cities it may be that the official room price — the one paid by the passing business visitor — bears no relation to the heavily discounted rate offered to tourists who stay for a week."

The survey suggests exchange rate changes have helped push dollar-based destinations to the top of the expense league and have relatively cheapened countries such as West Germany and Britain.

London has now slipped from first place to twentysecond in the chart, partly because of the rapidly falling value of Sterling and partly because of local competitive pressures which have, for example, “softened" hotel prices.