Sjoerd wrote:

"Michael Gallagher" schreef in bericht
...
On 6 Feb 2004 07:43:17 -0800, (Mike) wrote:

Americans not getting bang for buck in Europe

I'm a little reticent to blame all the tourist troubles Europe is
having on the weak dollar. On average, people plan their vacations
about six to nine months in advance, sometimes longer. So what
Americans were thinking about Europe earlier this year may be as
important as what the exchange rate is now.


There are relatively few "tourist problems" in Europe. My friends who own a
hotel here in Amsterdam tell me that were indeed fewer Americans in 2003,
but more Italians, Spaniards, Scandinavians, French and Eastern Europeans
including many Russians. The number of Chinese visitors is also increasing
rapidly.

That's certainly true of my Vienna hotel over the Christmas hoildays! A
real problem for the wait staff, most of whom spoke at least two other
languages, but not Chinese (and quite a few of the Chinese guests did
not appear to speak anything but Chinese, although some spoke a little
English). Fortunately most of the Chinese appeared to be members of
organized tour groups, so they had tour directors who spoke German (or
French, or English).

Before someone flames me for saying the above, I suspect that China may
have somewhat the same situation as the U.S. - when one never NEEDS any
language but one's own, finding opportunities to practice another are
infrequent. (Also, I understand that in China there are so many
dialects that more practical language study would involve those, rather
than European languages.)