Statistics on Holiday
By RICHARD BAILEY
IN 1960 hotel keepers, café proprietors, travel agents and the general miscellany of people from chemists to candy floss makers who sell things to travellers took 3,600 million dollars from tourists visiting the West European coun- tries that are members of the OEEC. This was an increase of 15 per cent. on 1959 and is yet another sign of the prosperity now enveloping Western Europe. From Britain alone 2.7 million people went abroad for their holidays in 1960. Since 1949 the OEEC has been carefully counting the flow of travellers across the frontiers, keeping an eye on their spending, and generally trying to collect the sort of information that will be useful to the authorities and to the tourist industry. IN 1960 hotel keepers, café proprietors, travel agents and the general miscellany of people from chemists to candy floss makers who sell things to travellers took 3,600 million dollars from tourists visiting the West European coun- tries that are members of the OEEC. This was an increase of 15 per cent. on 1959 and is yet another sign of the prosperity now enveloping Western Europe. From Britain alone 2.7 million people went abroad for their holidays in 1960. Since 1949 the OEEC has been carefully counting the flow of travellers across the frontiers, keeping an eye on their spending, and generally trying to collect the sort of information that will be useful to the authorities and to the tourist industry.
The big problem in turning travellers into Statistics is the difficulty of counting them. The more the authorities relax restrictions at the frontiers the harder it is to keep a neat and tidy record of everybody who comes in. The method used now is a mixture of straight counting, spot checks and sampling methods. The cards filled in daily by passengers on the Paris flights, the entries in hotel and boarding-house registers and some part of the ritual performed by the inscrutable officials who study passports are all part of the process. One major snag is that under the definition used by OEEC a foreign tourist is 'any person visiting a country, other than that in which he normally resides, for a period of at least 24 hours.' This means that many of the people who sit down in planes and get counted are not what are usually thought of as tourists. The members of the delegation negotiating Britain's entry into the Common Market, passing regularly to and fro across the Channel, must be boosting this year's French and Belgian scores. And businessmen oil to continental motor shows or to look over factories in Lille or Dusseldorf all fall into the tourist bag.
But although the OEEC's statistics have a slightly relaxed holiday-making air about them they do indicate the very striking changes in travel habits that have taken place in the last decade. One big factor making this change possible is that governments have been much more liberal with travel allowanbes. Even Spain, the last to come into line, now allows its citizens the 275 dollars a year which the OEEC Code of Liberalisation. stipulates as the minimum allowance. Several countries, including France, Germany Belgium. Denmark. Portugal and Switzerland. allow travellers unlimited foreign currency.
Other factors making for increased numbers have been the easing of passport restrictions, and the simplification of the documentation needed to take motor-cars across frontiers. Against this, it has proved very difficult to influence the custom of taking holidays in July and August. Studies made by OEEC show that pleas to stagger holidays have gone almost un- heeded everywhere. In every country it is stated that from 25 to 30 per cent. of the population are not affected by school holidays and could go at any time. The conclusion from the OEEC report seems to be that many of these untied families do take a holiday earlier in the 'year. The trouble is they have now got into the habit of taking a trip in the high season as well.
For Britain, tourism has now become a major item in the balance of payments. In 1960 spending by tourists in Britain represented 5 per cent. of the total earnings from exports, and 9 per cent. of all invisible earnings. A grand total of 1,669,300 visitors to Britain was recorded by the OEEC, of whom 751,700 came from the OEEC countries. But the French, Germans and Dutch, the principal visitors from Etirope, together only slightly outnumbered the 426,500 Americans who came here. Compared with 1959, arrivals in Britain from all sources were up by 19.7 per cent., and from West Europe by 15.7 per cent.
In terms of accommodation available Britain comes third among the European countries, folloWing France and Italy, and just ahead of Germany. Unfortunately the figures are not really comparing like with like. Britain is listed as having 160,000 hotel beds, which is about a third of the French and Italian complement and about two-fifths of the German. The British total is padded out by nearly a million boarding-houses and 120,000 units of 'other accommodation.' As this includes tents, 'shelters and mountain huts,' as well as holiday camps its real contribution is somewhat difficult to assess.
Still, whether housed in hotels or in humbler surroundings visitors to Britain have the admirable characteristic of staying here more nights than in any other country. Tourists from across the Channel spend an average of 11.7 nights in Britain, Americans spend 10.2 while Canadians who dart in and out of European countries on stays varying from 1.8 to 6.0 days average 6.1 days in Britain. The OEEC Tourism Committee gives no clues as to why this should be so. It may be that the difficulties of getting here are so great that a prolonged rest is needed before facing the rigours of the return trip. Or do the visitors arrive so bemused by the British Travel and Holidays Association's advertisements that they are determined to stay until they have seen a besmocked shepherd drinking mead with a beefeater? Or perhaps they really are looking for their ancestors?
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