OPINION
Simon Calder,
travel editor,
The Independent
Pound’s
fall will
hit poorer
countries
hardest
Two years is an age in
travel. This week I found
myself in the happy
position of making a
return visit to Phuket –
for my money the most beautiful
and diverse of all Thailand’s
islands. Did I mention money?
Even in these serene surroundings,
it’s diffi cult to shrug off the storm
warnings for sterling.
In November 2006, I
was getting 70 baht for
each pound, and able
to live like the King of
Siam. At the time,
British travellers were
masters of the
universe, fi nancially
speaking. The pound
was cheerfully
changing hands
at a rate of
close to ¤1.50
and $2.
This month,
with sterling
sinking to an alltime
low against
the eurozone and
US currencies, my
pathetic pound is
worth just 50 baht.
But the worrying thing
is not that your life
savings and mine have
shrunk alarmingly in the past couple
of years. It is the effect of that slump
on how we behave as consumers. As
every British traveller gets used to
reduced circumstances, my fears are
for the people who need to benefi t
from our holiday spending.
“In November 2006,
I was getting 70 baht
for each pound, and
able to live like the
King of Siam”
I am not talking about investors
who are keeping the faith
that Britain has a travel
industry to be proud
of, and retaining their
holdings in TUI
Travel, Thomas
Cook and British
Airways. Nor
am I losing
sleep over the
fortunes of
hoteliers in
Dubai and
Manhattan. The
fact we Brits will
be less likely to
do our
Christmas shopping in the United
Arab Emirates and US is of little
relevance to enterprises who will
benefi t instead from the new rich
men of Europe – those lucky enough
to earn in euros. My concern is for
the tourism workers in developing
countries where the British make up
a large slice of the total market.
The dollar may have ceded some
ground to the euro in the past seven
years, but it remains the only true
world currency – the average
Bolivian or Botswanan will tell you
in an instant the value of his or her
currency relative to the US dollar.
Tourism services across much of
Africa and Latin America are priced
in dollars (indeed, Panama and
Ecuador have dispensed with
national currencies and make do
with the mighty greenback).
Ground prices across the
developing world have risen by up
to one-third in sterling. If the buck
stops us travelling, communities on
the Kenyan coast and the plains of
the Masai Mara who depend on
high-spending Brits will suffer.
Thinking twice – whether to have a
second Singha beer as the sun sinks
over the Andaman Sea, or to trade
down to Portugal instead of Peru –
might be good for UK travellers in
the short term, but it could prove
bad for the world in the long term.
To view a Ceros magazine you need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser and have the flash player 8 or higher installed. To install the latest flash player, click the icon above, install the flash plugin and then click here to refresh this page.