TOURISTS FOR FRANCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18090, 15 May 1922, Page 8

TOURISTS FOR FRANCE.

RECORD AMERICAN INVASION.

Paris is preparing for an unprecedented influx of American visitors this summer, the correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph wrote recently. Tho Cherbourg offices of the Transatlantic Shipping Lines have received news that Americans are preparing in thousands to visit France. 'Tho British companies, it is announced, hav 6 full bookings to the end.of October, and tho American companies are adding many new ships for tho summer. From May 1 Cherbourg alone will receive over 60 passenger ships a month from America. In spite of this prospect of record business, hotel proprietors and restauranteurs are not satisfied. At a meeting the president of their association expressed grave concern at the campaign being waged in America by the catering interests there to keep tourists within their own country, and at the propaganda by German and Austrian caterers, which was doing harm to French business. Efforts are to be made to inaugurate a counter-propaganda by the French hotel interests. Another source of discontent is tho taxation which hampers tho tourist traffic. It is pointed out that the luxury tax is a constant source of indignation and disgust to visitors here, and tho proposal of the Paris Municipal Council to levy a residence tax on visitors is mooting with a good deal of opposition. Another tax which makes amusement dearer than it need bo is tho lovy of 25 per cent, on establishments which organiso dances or have music! Press comments on these discouragements to tourists aro all in favour of keeping the cost of holiday-making in France within a reasonable figure. They hint that hotelkeepers, inj addition to complaining, may help by rovising their own charges.