LESS TRAVELLING

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 251, 14 June 1932, Page 8

LESS TRAVELLING

FEWER BRITISH PEOPLE WILL GO TO CONTINENT THIS YEAR. "STAY AT HOME" APPEAL. Railway officials and" travel assoeiations estimate that not more than one in five of the British people who have been in the habit of having Continental holidays will go abroad this year. This will mean the retention in the United Kingdom of at least £25,000,000 that otherwise would have been spent abroad (says the London Evening Standard). This figure is reached on the basis that every British Continental holiday maker spends on the average about £30. Franee puts the figure as high as £50. As roughly a million and a quarter people from this country go abroad in a normal year, this gives a total expsnditure of about £37,000,000. As a result of the Government appeal to spend holidays at home, and of the high prices abroad, bookings for Continental visits show a dcrease this year of 80 per eent. It is reclconed, therefore, that Continental resorts will lose at least two-thirds of what they usually get from British tourists. Traffic reeeipts on the Southern Railway boat trains and Channel steamers are £8000 to £10,000 a week less than they were a year ago. On the other hand there is a slight increase in the number of foreign travellers over the company's system, and it is hoped that this may become more marked in the summer. Most of the Continental countries have been so alarmed by the fallingoff in bookings from this country that hotels have been reducing their prices for organised tours in ,the effort to tempt people abroad. In Franee, Belgium, and Switzerland the reductions amount to ten per cent, and in Germany to twice that amount. In the latter ease this virtually brings the value of the pound up to par. Railways and travel associations are finding some compensation for the loss of continental traffic in the great increase in popularity of sea cruises. Expenditure on these is almost en~ tirely retained in British hands.