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American Morning

Many Overseas Travelers Have Case of Sticker Shock

Aired July 18, 2002 - 09:39   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: So, you thought a European vacation would be a real bargain this summer? If you did, you're not alone. The post-9/11 travel slump was expected to drive down the cost of overseas travel, but a strong euro and now a soft dollar has left many overseas travelers with a case of sticker shock.

Are there any deals still to be had? Joining us now, Nilou Motamed, associate editor of "Travel & Leisure."

Good to see you.

NILOU MOTAMED, ASSOCIATE EDITOR, "TRAVEL & LEISURE": Good morning.

HEMMER: Tell us this now. The euro is up. The dollar is down. Is now the time to change your plans, or even stay away and not consider Europe?

MOTAMED: No, it's definitely not the time to not consider Europe. But you are going to pay more money. So the thing to remember is it's not just the euro, the dollar is down, but the other thing is that the airlines are trying to recoup losses they've had throughout this whole year. And what they will do, they realize there's a demand for summer travel to Europe, and this is where they are going to make their money.

HEMMER: So they're looking for specials right to throw them out there. But let me ask you this, how realistic is it to say that -- and what's the percentage of people who actually pick up and go at the last minute to a place like Europe?

MOTAMED: Incredibly, there's a ton of people who go last minute, actually, and that's what we found in the past, was you can get great deals last minute. People -- there's an entire industry of Web sites that are dedicated entirely to people who are last-minute travelers, and pick up and the last minute and say, I want to go this weekend on Wednesday. And what we are used to seeing is a lot of deals like that, where you could go and just go online, pick a date, and just go. Not as much this summer.

HEMMER: Give me the economics right now about the euro and the dollar. The difference in price is what?

MOTAMED: For example, if you're going to go to London, what you might find is that your airfare is maybe about $200 more than it would have been last summer. I was just talking to people in green room, and they were saying, I just paid more than I ever had before for Scotland. And so I think what we're seeing is the airlines are kind of gouging us a little bit with the prices this summer.

HEMMER: You mentioned London. I want to get to a couple of packages in a moment here. But apparently, according to some reports, a lot of people thought Americans would stay home this summer. But it's actually on the uptick, about 2 percent.

MOTAMED: Yes.

HEMMER: Are you finding they're going overseas, or are they staying here in the U.S.?

MOTAMED: It's a combination. There are definitely Americans who decided this is the summer to see the U.S. They're going to national parks. They're going to visit family, and they're taking driving trips. They're also the people who are going to Europe, and that actually is --there's been an increase in travel to Europe this summer.

HEMMER: And if that's the case, some European countries are apparently are not on the good receiving end of a lot of economic news. Who's hurting right now in Europe?

MOTAMED: Right now the countries that are hurting, and those are the places where you're going to find the best deals. are the secondary countries. Think of Greece. Think of Portugal. Think of Turkey. Those are the places where you are going to get great deals, and actually the best -- the best thing about those places, is that you actually get better mileage for your money there, because really, they're not that expensive, comparatively.

HEMMER: Let's talk about a couple of packages, quickly. The London package, how good is it?

MOTAMED: The London package, you can go -- British Airways is actually giving a deal, which is very exciting, $400, and you can go for two days, long weekend, there it is, two London, and it starts at $439. So it's much more reasonable, and you get your hotel and your airfare put together.

HEMMER: Got it. What if you want to go to Reykjavik? There's an Iceland package.

MOTAMED: Iceland package, Iceland Air, and again, for a long weekend, you could get there for about $600, and it's a great time to go to Iceland right now, the weather is beautiful, and it's not cold.

HEMMER: Travel resource if you're going to go online, what do you recommend? You mentioned it before. Where do you go online?

MOTAMED: I would go to Web sites. That's the place to go. You can go to many Web sites, including if you are going to go to Europe, Eurotravel, or if you're going to go, there's a great new Web site called Travelzoo, and what they do, is they consolidate a whole bunch of different carriers places, including Orbitz, and Hertz and all these different places, and you can go all in one, and just kind of click away and find your great deal.

HEMMER: Recommendations now. If you want to get a good exchange rate, knowing there's this battle. We saw it a couple of weeks ago. In fact, a lot of people saw it a couple of months ago. Your recommendation are what now?

MOTAMED: The mistake people make going to those terrible kiosks to exchange their money. You will absolutely lose money there. The way you do it is do it the way you do it in the U.S., is use your ATM card. You're going to get the same exchange rate at the bank, and you're going to get charged a fee. So just like you do for your ATM card here, you get charged a fee here. But it's a little bit higher. So the best idea is use it and kind of as much as you can, take out the largest amount of possible at each transaction.

HEMMER: In addition to the ATM, a credit card, too, a lot of times you get better exchange rate there.

MOTAMED: You get the bank exchange rate, and it's a great idea, especially if you're buying presents for the people back home, to use your credit card, so you also can keep track of what you bought.

HEMMER: And I'm jealous of this percentage of people you say who are taking off for the Old Country at the last minute. Not a bad deal.

MOTAMED: No, not a bad deal at all.

HEMMER: Nilou Motamed, thanks for being with us today. And we shall watch it from here on out. Many thanks.

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