Recession in Europe?

I saw a few obvious changes in the Benelux countries over the past few weeks. The most significant was the scarcity of American tourists. Even at the world-famous Keukenhof gardens during the relatively short period when the tulips are in bloom, most of the few Americans I saw appeared to be military families stationed in Europe. In the heavily-touristed areas of Brussels, particularly along Rue de Boucher, the restaurants were half-full and trying to woo customers very agressively. There didn't seem to be much difference outside the tourist areas, however.

Overall, though, the visible effects of the recession seem to be either milder or less obvious in Europe than in the US. Although sales are down everywhere, you don't see nearly as many empty store-fronts, and I didn't detect any noticable difference in "For Sale" signs in front of houses or buildings. My own prejudice believes that because Europe didn't rely on cheap credit to finance their economic growth nearly to the extent that the US did, much of the continent probably won't suffer as much pain as this side of the ocean.

We visited Spain for two weeks recently at the end of March/beginning of April. We were shocked to see the small number of American tourists. Although some of the larger cities (Madrid and Barcelona) were crowded, it was with European students on spring break, and very few Americans. This was our fifth trip to Europe over the last three years, and it was so strange to see empty restaurants and so few tourists. Quite sad, actually, but definitely a sign of the times.

The most obvious thing I noticed was on the flights. The last several years, every flight that I have taken between the U.S. and Europe has been totally packed. The week before Easter, I flew from DC to Brussels. I had a row of 5 seats to myself. I estimate there were about 100 empty seats. Coming back from London, there were only 2 of us in a row of 5 ... not quite as empty as the Brussels flight but still a fair number of empty seats.

I was also in Keukenhof gardens in mid-April and I don't think I even heard any other English speakers with American accents.

On the other hand, Bruges was packed with tourists. Maybe this is the norm ... it was my first visit there so I can't compare.

They say applications for passports are down 25 percent in the US this year. As for the state of various European economies, many of those in the east, notably Poland and Hungary, relied heavily on borrowing euros and Swiss francs and are now in quite desperate straits as the value of their own currency had plummeted, thus serving to explode the size of their debt.

I don't know if it's true or not, but I've read that tourism in italy is down over 30% this year. A few weeks ago I inquired with a well-reviewed tour company in Tuscany about their tours and prices, and he mentioned this in his email "...we always provide the lowest we can(due the difficult economic situations all over the world)..."I haven't been there myself yet this year, but in my research for an October trip, I have actually seen several hotels/B&Bs/agriturismos with lower 2009 prices than 2008/2007 prices.

We were in London in December and even Harrod's was having a pre-christmas sale. I have never seen that in the 20 years that I have traveled across the pond. It was stunning how slow the retail shops were, our hotel was almost empty, although the plays were still quite busy. We are off to Italy for three weeks. We will see how that economy is in a couple of weeks.

Laura, so it looks like we made the same observation at Keukenof. I read in a Dutch newspaper that usually, on any given day during the tulip season, Americans may constitute anywhere from 5-15% of the visitors to the gardens. Still, it overall seemed pretty packed the Tuesday I was there, just very few Americans.

Nearby Delft was also completely devoid of American tourists, although I don't know how heavy the draw would be in a more typical year.

They are obviously having a recession which may be growing slower than ours but is still unsettling. There are a couple articles about the recession and possible unrest on Spiegel Online.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,,00.html

See: "The New Angst at the Heart of Germany" and associated articles

Killer steals and deals usually mean somebody's livelihood is suffering. We are planning a trip in May and probably won't be discussing the economy much.

Regards, Gary