Friday, May. 4, 2001 When America sneezes, economists are fond of saying, the rest of the world
catches the flu. And while the rest of the globe snivels over lemon tea, whole
swathes of the travel industry come down with financial pneumonia, bronchitis
and hypothermia. The belt-tightening that accompanies every successive gloomy
report on U.S. output squeezes the travel industry that much harder. Holidays
are wonderful but wasteful, restaurants an unjustifiable joy. And no one really
needs business class or executive suites. Or so the thinking goes.
