TOURIST TRAFFIC

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 August 1936, Page 4

TOURIST TRAFFIC

LONDON VERSUS PARIS The stay-in strikes which have paralysed Paris in recent weeks have compelled tourists to stay out (writes the London correspondent of the “Sydney Morning Herald”). The hotel trade in the “gay city” was desolate enough before, but it is now quite dead. Guests are few, prices are high, waiters and attendants are in despair, and the whole place is about as cheerful as a mausoleum. But regard London, the only metropolis in the Old World where life is safe, where the exchange is stable, and where really good food can be obtained at reasonable prices. Frenchmen and other Continentals can scarcely control their feelings when they think of it.

Much to the astonishment of the managements concerned, even our luxury hotels are functioning to capacity. It was generally expected that sandwiched as it is between the Jubilee and the Coronation, 1936 would prove a sort of off-season for visitors from abroad. But the case is quite the contrary- When Ciccolini, probably the most experienced hotel manager in Europe, Avas asked for an explanation yesterday, he said: “London’s crack hotels are crowded because Americans who are flocking to Europe were frightened by the stories of the strikes in Paris and the prospect of having to make their own beds and cook their own meals. They decided to come here, instead. You will see that they will stay for the rest of the summer if only to discover the charms of your countryside and Scotland. I have known London for over 30 years, and I can tell you it has never been more popular with foreigners who have wealth and the leisure and inclination to spend it.” Not only does this apply to the Dorchester, but to Grosvenor House, the Savoy, Claridges, the Carlton, the Ritz, the Berkeley, the May Fair, the Hyde Park, and several other great hostelries. They all report that’ South Africans, Australians, Canadians, Americans, Frenchmen, Germans, Marahajahs, Rajahs, and whatnot have “money to burn,’ 7 which is just another way of saying that business is brisk and could hardly be better. Such middleclass establishments as the Cumberland. the Regent Palace, and the Strand Palace are booked up for as long as two months ahead, and hundreds of smaller places in the Bayswater district (where every second building is either a block of flats, a hotel, or a boarding-house) are, as the managers so expressively put it, “full up.” Which all goes to show that one country’s calamity is another’s fortune.