It didn’t take a headline in a recent edition of The New York Times to tell me that the mighty U.S. dollar has fallen in value. My wife Barbara reminds me of that fact every time she goes grocery shopping. We both know that everything costs much more and our dollars are the same as yesterday and the day before. But they won’t buy as much.
It wasn’t too long ago that the mighty dollar was the universal tourist currency that was accepted in even remote markets of the world. But not today. And that fact has created some big problems for Americans traveling abroad.
For instance: The Taj Mahal has stoped accepting dollars for the entrance fee, under a new edict from the Indian Ministry of Culture. As a result visitors to the Taj Mahal must now pay 750 rupees, about $19, compared with $15 previously. And would you believe that I had planned a visit there this summer! I had neglected to tell Barbara about it. But I did plan to take her with me after she looks deeply into her bank account. We figured out many years ago that it was best for each of us to have our own bank accounts and at different banks. Of course, both of our names are on our checks and they are honored at both banks.
But I have gotten off my beaten path. Let’s get back to the falling dollar.
Some tour operators say they have encountered resistance to the dollar in parts of Vietnam and Peru, especially in villages off the beaten path.
According to Peter Rudy, the North American director of KE Adventure Travel, a Denver-based company that books adventure trips throughout the world, “it used to be that a $100 bill was universal everywhere from Moscow to Mozambique, but that’s not the case anymore.”
It doesn’t seem possible, but in some New York shops the customers are encouraged to make their payments in foreign currency rather than Uncle Sam dollars.
A recent article in The Villager, a Manhattan neighborhood newspaper, noted that an East Village liquor store accepts payments in euros as well as dollars.
Over the past year through mid-January, the dollar has depreciated about nine percent against the euro, 10 percent against the rupee and 12 percent against the Chilean peso.
That’s according to Jay Bryson, global economist for Wachovia Bank. In past years, the savvy traveler could hedge against the weakened dollar by buying a prepackaged tour. Tour operators set prices as much as 18 months in advance, so they can be printed in brochures and other marketing materials. This amounted to a built-in discount for American travelers as the dollar fell against other currencies.
This has come to a screeching halt. Some American tour operators are tacking on so-called currency surcharges in much the same way that airlines have bumped up fuel surcharges in the face of rising oil costs. Others are increasing package prices to help make up the difference.
Recently, Group Voyagers, the parent company of Globus, Cosmos, Monograms and Avalon Waterways, added currency surcharges of about five percent to many of its European tours. For example, Globus’s $1,699 Taste of Italy package, starting May 3, includes a surcharge of about five percent to many of its European tours.
Here’s a tip on how to get the most bang for your buck. Consider destinations where the dollar hasn’t declined. The dollar is flat against the Mexican peso compared to where it was a year ago and is up about two percent compared with a year ago against the Argentine peso. And countries such as Panama and Ecuador use American dollars as their official currency.
Happy traveling and watch your bucks!
Barron Mills came to Asheboro in March 1955 when he bought The Randolph Guide and became its editor and publisher. He sold the paper in 1991 but still lives in Asheboro.
