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- 17 Feb 2003
- 193
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As Dollar Declines ,
Europeans See U.S.
As Big Half-Off Sale
Visiting Britons Grab Deals
On Fake-Fur Vests, iPods;
Ritz Serves Mutton Stew
By EMILY NELSON and BROOKS BARNES
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
December 6, 2004; Page A1
Tom Scullion, a taxi dispatcher in London, had his eye on a three-button Hugo Boss suit he saw for sale there for ﾂ≫??50. He didn't buy it. He never spends that kind of money on clothes, and he doesn't buy designer labels.
But on a recent trip to Florida, Mr. Scullion went shopping at Saks Fifth Avenue, where he spotted the very same suit and bought it. It was a steal at $522, the equivalent of ﾂ≫??00 at the time.
"I couldn't believe how inexpensive it was," he says. During a three-week U.S. vacation, "we just shopped and shopped and shopped."
As the dollar has fallen to a 12-year-low against the British pound and an all-time low against the five-year-old euro, Europeans now view the U.S. as one giant half-off sale on everything from clothes to coffee to restaurant meals. Because so many businesses now operate globally, comparison shopping is easy.
[tom scullion]
At the London outpost of Nobu, the New York Japanese restaurant, a special set meal costs between $136 and $233 per person, at Friday's exchange rate of $1.94 to the pound. A la carte, the monkfish paté with caviar costs $24.29, and the baby spinach with whitefish salad $22.35.
All of which is out of the question for Catherine Watson, a 38-year-old photographer from Cardiff, Wales -- except when she can snap up cheap dollars to pay for the same meal at Nobu in Manhattan. There, one night recently, armed with dollars purchased at about $1.89 to the pound, she and a friend started with the monkfish pate for $17 and the spinach salad for $16. The chef's special dinners in New York are $80, $100 and $120, about 40% off London prices.
"Things seem so cheap that you turn into a bit of the child in a candy store," says Ms. Watson.
The British invasion isn't always welcomed by New Yorkers. Waiters and bartenders complain that overseas visitors often don't tip because in Europe gratuities are usually added to the bill. Some regular customers are annoyed, too.
Matt Trust, a 28-year-old modeling-agency booking agent, was waiting to be seated at Pastis, a popular restaurant in Manhattan's meatpacking district, last week. With arms crossed and a steady glare, he had his eye on a table occupied by a trio of British women he thought were never going to leave. "Every restaurant is filled with them," he says. "I'm happy they're so flush now, but I'm starving." Also, he didn't like their accents. "Grating," he said.
The hordes from the Old World streaming across the Atlantic are likely only to increase as the dollar, down about 10% against the pound and down 12% against the euro since April, is expected to fall further in 2005. Basic goods, such as household supplies, clothing and food have long tended to be less costly in the U.S., where sales and big discount chains are more prevalent than in Europe. But the disparity currently is much greater. And businesses, from airlines to hotel chains, are stepping up promotional efforts to portray the U.S. as a shopper's paradise.
BARGAIN HUNTING
The dollar's fall creates deals for British shoppers in the U.S.
Apple iPod (20GB: 5,000 songs)
[ipod]
New York City: $299
London: $426
Gap reversible faux-fur vest
[Gap vest]
Gap in U.S.: $68
Gap in London: $132
Starbucks tall coffee
[Starbucks coffee]
New York City financial-district store: $1.79
London financial-district store: $2.82
Note: Converted from British pound at current rate
Source: the stores
Travel from some European countries to the U.S. is up nearly 25% so far this year, says Gabriella Vecchio, international marketing manager at the Travel Industry Association of America.
That pace well exceeds the forecast that the U.S. Department of Commerce office of travel and tourism industries made last April for 9.3 million Europeans to visit the U.S. this year, a 7% increase from 2003. American Airlines says its trans-Atlantic flights are 81.3% full, up 3.9 points from a year ago, and it has added flights as well. In London subway advertising, the airline's slogan is: "America Reduced."
"A weak dollar means bargain holidays," declared a recent article in London's Sunday Times. Other travel sections of British newspapers are filled with stories detailing how Christmas shopping in Manhattan promises savings even after hotel and airfare costs.
According to the U.K. Daily Mail's two-page spread of price comparisons, the Gap's funky fake-fur vest sells for $68 in Manhattan, nearly half the $132 price in London. At the Apple Store in Manhattan's SoHo, a pastel mini iPod digital music player, which holds 1,000 songs, sells for $249, compared with about $347 at Apple U.K.
With the rush of U.K. tourists, the U.S. Department of Commerce is about to start a $6 million marketing campaign in the U.K. to promote U.S. travel. Marriott International Inc. plans to increase the number of New York City hotel rooms it saves for U.K. tour operators 25% next year, the company says.
Some restaurants and hotel room-service operations in tourist cities including Washington, Charleston, S.C., and Miami also are going out of their way to cater to the rush. Florida's Portofino Bay Hotel recently added crumpets and HP steak sauce to the breakfast buffet. Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede dinner theater in Orlando just started serving beer specifically to get more U.K. traffic, managers say. New at the Ritz-Carlton in South Beach: topless sunbathing at the pool to help lure guests with a Mediterranean mindset.
The Ritz in Key Biscayne, Fla., just held a "Whisky Weekend" featuring bagpipers and mutton stew to appeal to guests from Scotland. The hotel also permanently stocked the lobby bar with 100 varieties of Scotch. "I even wore a kilt," says David McIntyre, food and beverage director.
Travelers returning to Britain from the U.S. are supposed to pay import duty and tax on all purchases exceeding ﾂ≫??45 (excluding certain quantities of cigarettes, liquor and perfumes). A spokeswoman for British customs declines to say how many travelers are stopped for not declaring goods or whether agents are stepping up their collection efforts, given the current travel boom. Many travelers say they doubt they'll be stopped because customs agents these days are preoccupied with heightened security.
Before she went to New York a week ago, Londoner Susie Richardson stopped in Selfridges department store to price a pair of Seven jeans. The ones she wanted, with crystal beading on the pocket, were about $427. In New York, at Saks, she bought them for $198.
Mary McLoughlin, a mother in Dublin with three children, recently went to New York for a week while her husband, an engineer, stayed home with the kids, ages 2 to 7. On a friend's recommendation, she hit the outlet stores at Woodbury Common, about an hour north of New York City. On the bus there, she was surrounded by fellow shoppers from Europe, she says.
All together, she says, she spent about $2,100 on coats, diamond earrings, toys, Tommy Hilfiger shirts, Old Navy jeans, and sneakers for the kids.
"I would buy designer clothes for myself and the kids that I wouldn't dream of buying here," says Ms. McLoughlin back home in Dublin. "Everyone I know goes to New York for the shopping."
Write to Emily Nelson at [email protected] and Brooks Barnes at [email protected]
Europeans See U.S.
As Big Half-Off Sale
Visiting Britons Grab Deals
On Fake-Fur Vests, iPods;
Ritz Serves Mutton Stew
By EMILY NELSON and BROOKS BARNES
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
December 6, 2004; Page A1
Tom Scullion, a taxi dispatcher in London, had his eye on a three-button Hugo Boss suit he saw for sale there for ﾂ≫??50. He didn't buy it. He never spends that kind of money on clothes, and he doesn't buy designer labels.
But on a recent trip to Florida, Mr. Scullion went shopping at Saks Fifth Avenue, where he spotted the very same suit and bought it. It was a steal at $522, the equivalent of ﾂ≫??00 at the time.
"I couldn't believe how inexpensive it was," he says. During a three-week U.S. vacation, "we just shopped and shopped and shopped."
As the dollar has fallen to a 12-year-low against the British pound and an all-time low against the five-year-old euro, Europeans now view the U.S. as one giant half-off sale on everything from clothes to coffee to restaurant meals. Because so many businesses now operate globally, comparison shopping is easy.
[tom scullion]
At the London outpost of Nobu, the New York Japanese restaurant, a special set meal costs between $136 and $233 per person, at Friday's exchange rate of $1.94 to the pound. A la carte, the monkfish paté with caviar costs $24.29, and the baby spinach with whitefish salad $22.35.
All of which is out of the question for Catherine Watson, a 38-year-old photographer from Cardiff, Wales -- except when she can snap up cheap dollars to pay for the same meal at Nobu in Manhattan. There, one night recently, armed with dollars purchased at about $1.89 to the pound, she and a friend started with the monkfish pate for $17 and the spinach salad for $16. The chef's special dinners in New York are $80, $100 and $120, about 40% off London prices.
"Things seem so cheap that you turn into a bit of the child in a candy store," says Ms. Watson.
The British invasion isn't always welcomed by New Yorkers. Waiters and bartenders complain that overseas visitors often don't tip because in Europe gratuities are usually added to the bill. Some regular customers are annoyed, too.
Matt Trust, a 28-year-old modeling-agency booking agent, was waiting to be seated at Pastis, a popular restaurant in Manhattan's meatpacking district, last week. With arms crossed and a steady glare, he had his eye on a table occupied by a trio of British women he thought were never going to leave. "Every restaurant is filled with them," he says. "I'm happy they're so flush now, but I'm starving." Also, he didn't like their accents. "Grating," he said.
The hordes from the Old World streaming across the Atlantic are likely only to increase as the dollar, down about 10% against the pound and down 12% against the euro since April, is expected to fall further in 2005. Basic goods, such as household supplies, clothing and food have long tended to be less costly in the U.S., where sales and big discount chains are more prevalent than in Europe. But the disparity currently is much greater. And businesses, from airlines to hotel chains, are stepping up promotional efforts to portray the U.S. as a shopper's paradise.
BARGAIN HUNTING
The dollar's fall creates deals for British shoppers in the U.S.
Apple iPod (20GB: 5,000 songs)
[ipod]
New York City: $299
London: $426
Gap reversible faux-fur vest
[Gap vest]
Gap in U.S.: $68
Gap in London: $132
Starbucks tall coffee
[Starbucks coffee]
New York City financial-district store: $1.79
London financial-district store: $2.82
Note: Converted from British pound at current rate
Source: the stores
Travel from some European countries to the U.S. is up nearly 25% so far this year, says Gabriella Vecchio, international marketing manager at the Travel Industry Association of America.
That pace well exceeds the forecast that the U.S. Department of Commerce office of travel and tourism industries made last April for 9.3 million Europeans to visit the U.S. this year, a 7% increase from 2003. American Airlines says its trans-Atlantic flights are 81.3% full, up 3.9 points from a year ago, and it has added flights as well. In London subway advertising, the airline's slogan is: "America Reduced."
"A weak dollar means bargain holidays," declared a recent article in London's Sunday Times. Other travel sections of British newspapers are filled with stories detailing how Christmas shopping in Manhattan promises savings even after hotel and airfare costs.
According to the U.K. Daily Mail's two-page spread of price comparisons, the Gap's funky fake-fur vest sells for $68 in Manhattan, nearly half the $132 price in London. At the Apple Store in Manhattan's SoHo, a pastel mini iPod digital music player, which holds 1,000 songs, sells for $249, compared with about $347 at Apple U.K.
With the rush of U.K. tourists, the U.S. Department of Commerce is about to start a $6 million marketing campaign in the U.K. to promote U.S. travel. Marriott International Inc. plans to increase the number of New York City hotel rooms it saves for U.K. tour operators 25% next year, the company says.
Some restaurants and hotel room-service operations in tourist cities including Washington, Charleston, S.C., and Miami also are going out of their way to cater to the rush. Florida's Portofino Bay Hotel recently added crumpets and HP steak sauce to the breakfast buffet. Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede dinner theater in Orlando just started serving beer specifically to get more U.K. traffic, managers say. New at the Ritz-Carlton in South Beach: topless sunbathing at the pool to help lure guests with a Mediterranean mindset.
The Ritz in Key Biscayne, Fla., just held a "Whisky Weekend" featuring bagpipers and mutton stew to appeal to guests from Scotland. The hotel also permanently stocked the lobby bar with 100 varieties of Scotch. "I even wore a kilt," says David McIntyre, food and beverage director.
Travelers returning to Britain from the U.S. are supposed to pay import duty and tax on all purchases exceeding ﾂ≫??45 (excluding certain quantities of cigarettes, liquor and perfumes). A spokeswoman for British customs declines to say how many travelers are stopped for not declaring goods or whether agents are stepping up their collection efforts, given the current travel boom. Many travelers say they doubt they'll be stopped because customs agents these days are preoccupied with heightened security.
Before she went to New York a week ago, Londoner Susie Richardson stopped in Selfridges department store to price a pair of Seven jeans. The ones she wanted, with crystal beading on the pocket, were about $427. In New York, at Saks, she bought them for $198.
Mary McLoughlin, a mother in Dublin with three children, recently went to New York for a week while her husband, an engineer, stayed home with the kids, ages 2 to 7. On a friend's recommendation, she hit the outlet stores at Woodbury Common, about an hour north of New York City. On the bus there, she was surrounded by fellow shoppers from Europe, she says.
All together, she says, she spent about $2,100 on coats, diamond earrings, toys, Tommy Hilfiger shirts, Old Navy jeans, and sneakers for the kids.
"I would buy designer clothes for myself and the kids that I wouldn't dream of buying here," says Ms. McLoughlin back home in Dublin. "Everyone I know goes to New York for the shopping."
Write to Emily Nelson at [email protected] and Brooks Barnes at [email protected]
